In this bulletin:

• Afghan national army strength rises to 76,000
• Afghan, foreign security forces kill several militants in Afghanistan
• Key al Qaeda member killed in Afghanistan
• Car carrying explosives intercepted outside Kandahar; three arrested
• One dead at Afghan demo against US-led soldiers: witnesses
• Militants die in Afghanistan clash
• Poppy fields, the financial lifeblood of the Taliban, hide in plain sight
• Jailed Taliban suspects on hunger strike in southern Afghanistan
• New tactics in Taliban killing season
• Who Are the Afghans Just Released from Guantánamo?
• NW Afghanistan hit by plague of locusts
• Rising prices heap pressure on Afghanistan's destitute
• Bank Alfalah to expand its branches in Afghanistan CEO Sirajuddin presides MTO graduation ceremony
• Price no object when Afghans tie the knot
• AFGHAN CRICKET TEAM AIMS FOR WORLD CUP GLORY

Afghan national army strength rises to 76,000

KABUL, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The strength of Afghan new armed forces has risen to more than 76,000, spokesman of Afghan defense ministry said Sunday.

"Today the strength of Afghanistan National Army (ANA) is 76,665 soldiers and officers," Zahir Azimi told a press conference.

Under the historic Bonn agreement signed in Germany following the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001, Afghanistan was designed to have 70,000-strong armed forces.

However, Afghan defense ministry stressed last year that 70,000 troops is not enough to protect the country's security.

In the wake of insistence by Kabul, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and America's western allies agreed at a summit last month in Bucharest to help Afghanistan to have 86,000-strong armed forces.

Afghanistan would have 86,000 army by the middle of 2009, according to Azimi.

However, Afghan government emphasizes that the war-torn country needs 150,000 to 200,000 armed forces to ensure security and defend its geographical boundaries.

The new Afghan Army which has been gradually equipped with the U.S. and its western allies made weapons, Azimi added, had killed 141 insurgents in different operations since March 21 this year in the restive provinces, mostly in the southern region.

Afghan, foreign security forces kill several militants in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) 11 May 2008 - Officials say Afghan and international forces have killed several militants in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led coalition says its forces killed "several militants" during two separate operations Saturday in eastern Khost province and southern Helmand province.

The coalition said in a statement Sunday the troops were working with Afghan forces to target insurgents involved in roadside bomb attacks in Khost.

In Helmand, the forces were targeting a Taliban militant involved in trafficking weapons and assisting foreign fighters.

The Interior Ministry says Afghan and foreign forces killed four insurgents on Friday and Saturday in Helmand and five militants Saturday in eastern Paktia province.

Key al Qaeda member killed in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) 11 May 2008 - A prominent member of al Qaeda was killed in fighting with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist website on Sunday.

Abu Suleiman al-Otaibi, formerly one of the group's leaders in Iraq, was killed in a "fierce battle with the worshipers of the cross" in Paktia, it said without giving the date of the battle.

Another al Qaeda member, identified as Abu Dejana al-Qahtani, also died in the fighting, it added.

Afghan officials said they had no information on the report. But the government earlier said in a statement that "five opposition" fighters were killed on Saturday in Paktia during an operation involving Afghan and U.S.-led troops.

The leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said Qahtani left Iraq about six months ago without giving further details.

Otaibi was the head of the judiciary at the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, a group started by al Qaeda and fellow Sunni militant groups.

Violence has been at its worst level in Afghanistan since 2006, the bloodiest period since the removal of the al Qaeda-backed Taliban in 2001.

U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001 after its leaders refused to hand over Osama bin Laden and his top aides to the United States for trial for the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities.

(Reporting by Inal Ersan in Dubai and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul; editing by Sami Aboudi)

Car carrying explosives intercepted outside Kandahar; three arrested

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Canadian Press) 10 May 2008 — Afghan security forces foiled two improvised explosive attacks after arresting at least three people and intercepting two vehicles - one of them laden with explosives - on Saturday in Kandahar.

Provincial police Chief Sayed Aka Sakib says the seizure of the cars resulted in information that led to the discovery of two booby traps that had already been set.

One of the bombs had been placed near a school in Kandahar, the second explosive was discovered in the border community of Spin Boldak.

Of those arrested, two are apparently Pakistani and one was an Afghan with ties to the troubled Panjwaii region west of the city.

Sakib says the cars did not appear to be rigged for suicide missions, but were transporting a cache of explosives, likely to Taliban forces in the Panjwaii area.

"They were giving bombs from Pakistani Taliban to Afghan Taliban," Sakib said.

The interception of the explosives comes as NATO forces throughout southern Afghanistan brace for a spike in violence as the poppy harvest ends and recruits become available for insurgents.

The vehicles were stopped in District 7 of Kandahar City, a notorious area west of the provincial capital, where there have been gun battles between troops and insurgents.

One of the suspects appeared to be co-operating with police, conceding to Afghan reporters at a hastily called news conference that he had been paid C$150 to drive one of the vehicles from the border area with Pakistan to Kandahar City.

Sakib says the two vehicles drove in tandem from the border.

One of them was a taxi cab, a favourite vehicle of the Taliban when transporting explosives or fighters.

Afghan police seized artillery shells and mines that witnesses said appeared to be improvised devices that had already been assembled in Pakistan.

NATO forces have aggressively been hunting down bomb-making factories in southern Afghanistan, uncovering a number of them in recent months.

Afghan police appeared to have been tipped off to the movements of the vehicles as Sakib said they followed them once they entered the city.

Once the suspects were in custody, authorities were warned about the improvised explosives that had already been planted.

Canadian army explosive experts were called to deal with the bomb outside the Kandahar city school, while the second explosive in Spin Boldak was defused by local police, said Sakib.

The military was not available Saturday night to confirm the statement.

The hunt is continuing for more suspects, Sakib added.

Spring is the time when the Taliban have traditionally launched a wave of bombings and ambushes.

They have threatened to launch an "offensive" every year, but have been largely limited to hit-and-run roadside bombing or suicide attacks.

NATO has since late 2006 carried out a campaign of killing top and mid-level Taliban commanders.

One dead at Afghan demo against US-led soldiers: witnesses

MARCO, Afghanistan (AFP) 10 May 2008- At least one person was killed and several wounded in Afghanistan Saturday when police opened fire to disperse a protest accusing US-commanded soldiers of killing civilians, witnesses said.

The clash erupted in the eastern province of Nangarhar as up to 1,000 demonstrators tried to block a road with rocks to protest against the killing of three men in a military operation overnight, witnesses said.

"Police tried to stop them, they threw stones at the police. Police then fired at the crowd. One person was killed and three others were injured," said a local, Darya Khan.

An AFP reporter was shown the body of a man whom protestors said was killed in the police action. Other demonstrators alleged three people were killed but this could not be confirmed.

A doctor in the nearby city of Jalalabad said six people were admitted to hospitals. "They were all wounded by gunshots but their wounds were not deep. They were treated and released," doctor Baz Mohammad Sherzad said.

Provincial police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar denied his men had caused any casualties, saying they had only fired into the air after being shot at from the crowd. Two policemen were wounded, he said.

Ghafar however said that -- contrary to US-led coalition claims -- the men killed in an operation overnight in the Shinwar district were not militants or from the extremist Taliban movement.

"The coalition conducted independent operations in Shinwar and martyred three people. They were civilians," he told AFP.

Before the demonstration was dispersed, protestors chanted slogans against foreign troops, US President George W. Bush and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.

"The Americans killed three civilians," said demonstrator Pizwan Khan. "They were my neighbours and I knew they were not Taliban," he told AFP above shouts of "Death to America, death to Bush, death to Karzai."

Others said the dead were an elderly man shot in a mosque and two other men, employed as drivers, shot in their homes.

But the US-led military coalition said it had only killed militants who had attacked troops searching for a "foreign fighter network."

"During the operation, several militants were killed when they attacked coalition forces. Nine militants suspected of foreign fighter facilitation were detained," it said.

It is often difficult to verify events in Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghan and international soldiers are working against several rebel networks, some with Al-Qaeda backing.

International troops are often accused of mistaking civilians for rebels or being heavy-handed in their operations; the soldiers say they work on verified information and have the right to self-protection if attacked.

The issue of civilian casualties is deeply sensitive with many Afghans already wary of the presence of foreign troops seven years after they helped to drive out the extremist Taliban government.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban are fighting to topple the US-supported government in Kabul and have demanded the removal of the international troops, most of them Westerners, on which the country relies.

Militants die in Afghanistan clash

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) 10 May 2008 - Dozens of protesters blocked a road Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, claiming U.S.-led coalition forces killed three civilians, and a local official said police fatally shot one of the protesters and injured three of them.

Villagers from the area carried three bodies to a major highway during the protest. Police allegedly opened fire, killing one and wounding three.

The coalition said its troops were attacked Friday while searching compounds in the Shinwar district of Nangarhar province.

"Several militants were killed" and nine insurgents were arrested, the coalition said in a statement Saturday.

The coalition said the operation was targeting a "foreign fighter network" and that militants in the area had recently attacked coalition forces. The troops destroyed several automatic rifles, grenades and ammunition discovered in the compounds.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the government is investigating the villagers' claims.

"The coalition claimed they were fired upon from a house and the enemy were gathered there, but the villagers claim those people who were killed were innocent civilians," said Mohammad Hashem Ghamsharik, spokesman for the Nangarhar governor.

The head of the Nangarhar provincial council, Fazel Hadi Muslimyar, said police opened fire on the protesters, killing one and wounding three. Police refused to comment.

The Afghan government has pleaded with coalition forces to coordinate more closely to avoid civilian casualties, but foreign troops says insurgents hide in villages, using civilians as human shields.

More than 1,200 people, mostly militants, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press count.

Separately, in central Kapisa province, a coalition vehicle hit a roadside bomb on Friday in Tag Ab valley, killing one service member, the coalition said. It did not give details.

Poppy fields, the financial lifeblood of the Taliban, hide in plain sight

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Canadian Press) 11 May 2008 - It isn't visible from the road for obvious reasons.

The field is set back behind a tree line at least half a kilometre from a busy highway that connects Kandahar city with an even wider swath of parched farmland in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts to the west.

Still, the poppy field was hiding in plain sight.

"Somebody must be paying off someone if this is still here," one of our group observed as we hopped a drainage ditch.

"Of course," replied our fixer, who had arranged for a couple of Canadian journalists to witness the poppy harvest, which is drawing to close throughout much of southern Afghanistan.

His matter-of-fact tone seemed somewhat surprising, although it shouldn't have been given how in-your-face corruption appears to be in this desperate corner of the world.

Despite its proximity to the provincial capital, this field had been spared the Afghan government's high-profile eradication program. By all accounts, it is one of many. Only 8,000 hectares out of a potential 193,000 hectares of opium-producing poppy were eliminated by forced eradication in 2007, according the country's opium survey.

We skirted the edge of a grain field near the highway, crossed a dirt road and slipped into the poppy field along a small path that ran between two trees.

There spread before us - over at least two hectares - was but a tiny vein in the lifeblood of the Taliban insurgency.

The export value of the opium and heroin produced by fields such as this was $3.1 billion in 2007 - or about one-third of Afghanistan's entire gross domestic product. The Taliban, in co- operation with local drug lords, convert the cash into weapons and explosives, which they then turned on Afghan security forces and NATO troops.

Being here was somewhat risky, but we were received warmly by three farm workers with smiles, rough handshakes and the traditional 'peace be with you' greeting of "Salem Alaikum."

The trio of sun-baked Afghans stood around a new steel tub that contained a sticky, dark resin - their version of black gold.

In the field directly in front of us, half a dozen other stooping harvesters slowly stood up, more curious than alarmed by our presence. Our fixer - an Afghan who speaks the local language and can arrange safe passage for foreigners - told them we were simply there to observe and wouldn't interfere.

Happily, our hosts urged us into the field, as though we were witnessing something as natural as a tobacco or corn harvest back home.

I was surprised not to see any AK-47 rifles laying about - a further sign that these farmers knew they had nothing to fear, from either local authorities or the eventual stories written by a couple of western journalists.

By the time we reached the poppy pickers, hopping over and almost falling into another irrigation ditch, they had resumed their tedious task.

Hour upon hour, day upon day, they cut open and pinch the bulbs of the poppy, squeezing the resin into thin plastic cups, much like the ones we would buy for backyard barbecues.

It takes about half an hour of gently pinching a number of different plants to fill one cup. And the resin gets everywhere and on everything, under their nails, up their forearms; it stains their clothes.

At least one of the workers sings, his voice carrying all across the field, to entertain his fellow poppy pickers. Our fixer says his tune is one of the popular ones on Kandahar radio these days, but the refrain was so serious it could have easily been mistaken for the hymns that come from the loudspeaker of a mosque.

One of the pickers stops to talk to us.

Sha Wali, his fingers and white, full-length shirt stained with gooey resin, gets paid about C$10 a day to harvest poppies.

"It's a good business," he says, but it lasts only a throughout the spring and he must find other work in Kandahar city to fill up the rest of his time.

It is men like Sha Wali whom the Taliban target in their recruiting. Once the poppy harvest is done, thousands of young men of fighting age - 18 to 25 - are available for hire.

Around this time of year, Taliban recruiters comb the slums of Loya Wyala, in the northern section of Kandahar looking for these men, many of whom show a yearning to fight NATO troops, including Canadians.

It is a matter of indifference to Sha Wali that the resin he squeezes from the poppies ends up as a potent narcotic in the veins of addicts all over the world and funds the guns and bombs used to kill to kill other Afghans and Canadians.

"We are just trying to fill these (cups) and earn money," he said, through our translator.

"Each day it's hard to find work and I don't care what's going on (elsewhere)."

Nearby, a small boy about five-years-old played with a broken poppy stem, using it as a rake in the mud, laughing and showing off.

Another boy, this one older - maybe about 10 - carries away a heavy load of cut and harvested stems. Unlike some of the other children playing on the edge of the field, this child doesn't look up or smile. His face is burdened with the weight on his back.

He is not old enough or tall enough to do the harvesting work, but soon he will be, graduating into the same life as Sha Wali.

Across the field, on the other side of the trees, we notice a car has blocked ours in the driveway. It turns out that the owner of the land only wanted to get into his compound.

Still, we leave quickly afterward.

As we roll back into the confines of the city, the fixer lets out a long exhale. It appears he was a little more nervous than he let on.

On the road back to Kandahar Airfield, we pass what seems like hundreds of flat-bed pickup trucks overloaded with exhausted, muddy men.

They are unemployed poppy harvesters on their way back to their homes in the city and now looking for something to do, our fixer explained.

Jailed Taliban suspects on hunger strike in southern Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) 11 May 2008 - Afghan politicians say more than 200 Taleban suspects are on a hunger strike in the Kandahar prison.

Provincial council member Bismillah Afghanmul says the prisoners are demanding an independent committee be set up to hear their cases. They have not eaten for about six days.

Afghanmul and other provincial council members have met with the prisoners to try to resolve the situation, but the hunger strike was continuing Sunday.

He says he saw about nine prisoners who had taped their mouths shut, with three in poor condition.

Police standing about 100 meters (yards) from the prison barred journalists and prisoners' female relatives from nearing the prison Sunday. Journalists were forbidden to take photographs of it.

New tactics in Taliban killing season

Fighters follow al-Qaeda’s example and plot campaign of bombings and suicide attacks

Sunday Herald (Scotland, UK) 11 May 2008 - HAJI MOHAMMED Karim, a towering Pashtun in a black turban who carried his crippled son in his arms, had come in search of a magical cure to the graveside of Kandahar's al-Qaeda martyrs.

The Arab cemetery where 70 jihadis and their families were buried after they were killed in an air strike in 2001 has become a shrine for desperate Afghans. The graveside was crowded with childless women seeking sons and the fathers of mentally disabled boys. "They were foreigners but they left their homes and families to fight for Islam," said Karim. "They are an example for us like our Taliban fighters today."

The Arab cemetery, full of the green flags of martyrdom, is in the heart of Loya Wyala, a north Kandahar slum and Taliban stronghold. Its jumble of mud-brick homes is notorious for its thieves, gunmen for hire, and the longing of its jobless young men to fight foreign soldiers.

In recent weeks Nato troops have swept through looking for crude bomb factories and arms caches prepared for the annual spring fighting season, which started last month as the snows melted in Afghanistan's mountain passes.

For two summers now, Taliban fighters have been slaughtered in unequal battles against heavily armed Nato forces in the pomegranate orchards and opium poppy fields of southern Afghanistan. But this year they seem to have learned from their mistakes, and instead of fighting a tribal war of ambush and attack they are looking to their old al-Qaeda allies for inspiration.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a commander close to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, promised new tactics in this spring's Hibrat ("teaching a lesson") offensive. He said: "We are making attacks against Nato forces by IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and the results are very good. The enemy are suffering. There will be suicide bombs as well."

The new strategy has already had a deadly effect. Four servicemen have been killed in recent weeks in and around Kandahar, including two US marines from the 3500-strong force sent last month to boost Nato troops.

Nato insists it is winning the slow battle against the insurgents, killing numerous mid-level enemy commanders over the winter. But there is no shortage of new recruits. Kandahar's slums are full of bored young men drawn to the glamour of jihad, while disgruntled tribes, poppy farmers whose crops have been eradicated and villagers who have lost relatives to Nato bombs all provide a pool of manpower. The Taliban say there is a one-year waiting list to become a suicide bomber.

There are also fears that a more ruthless generation of Afghans from the religious schools across the Pakistan border is filling leadership gaps as the Taliban old guard is killed off. In 2006 suicide bombing was so new and controversial some Taliban traditionalists took out newspaper adverts distancing themselves from it and blaming foreign jihadis. Now there is little debate.

In the past fortnight, Kandahar has been hit by two suicide bombers, just days after one in Pakistan, the usual pattern as a new class of "graduates" leaves a madrassa over the border.

Analysts say Taliban attacks are up by about a third this year on last year, with many of them aimed at soft targets, like Afghan police and officials. Inside Kandahar, fewer Afghans now dare speak out against the Taliban after a murder campaign last year against clerics who condemned suicide bombing.

Mullah Brother, the new military commander-in-chief, has promised to target Afghan government officials in a bid to paralyse the already weak administration in southern Afghanistan.

Haji Mohammed Iesah Khan, the anti-Taliban leader of the Achakzai tribe, said Kandahar's poor and uneducated turn to the Taliban because they have lost hope. He said only about one in 10 Pashtuns in the south support the Taliban - about the same as support Nato and the Kabul government, with the majority unhappy with both sides.

The Taliban's ruthless new tactics may backfire, he said. "If they kill more civilians and more Afghans, they will lose the support of the people for sure. The poor go to the Taliban because they have lost hope, not because they believe in the Taliban."

Who Are the Afghans Just Released from Guantánamo?

by Andy Worthington
antiwar.com / May 10, 2008

For the five Afghans who returned home on the same flight as al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj and the other three prisoners described in my previous article, the future is disturbingly uncertain. As I reported last December, when 13 of their compatriots were released from Guantánamo, they, like the other 19 Afghans released in August, September and November, were not freed outright, as was the case with the 152 other Afghans previously released, but were instead transferred to Block D, a wing of Pol-i-Charki, Kabul's main prison, which was recently refurbished by the U.S. authorities.

While some of these 32 men have subsequently been released from Pol-i-Charki, the whole story of U.S. involvement in the prison is deeply disturbing, as are reports that the "trials" of the men returned from Guantánamo are "closed-door" affairs, in which, as the Washington Post explained last month, "they are often denied access to defense attorneys," and are, essentially, tried on the basis of "evidence" provided by the United States, which they are not allowed to see; in other words, exactly the same situation that they faced in the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantánamo (the military reviews convened to assess the prisoners' status as "enemy combatants," in which military officers took the place of lawyers, and secret evidence was withheld from the prisoners).

As Mohammed Afzal Mullahkeil, a lawyer for the returned Afghan prisoners explained, "When they were sent from Guantánamo, they were told, ‘You are innocent and you will be free once you're in your country.' When they got to Bagram, they just brought them to Block D and said they should have a second trial."

In common with previous Afghan releases, the identities of the five men have been difficult to establish. The Pentagon never discloses the names of those it frees, and although lawyers representing the prisoners are informed of their clients' departure, the identities of those who did not have legal representation – either because they refused to do so, or had not found any way of establishing contact with the legal community – remain unknown unless the media are present on their arrival (which has not happened in Afghanistan for many years), or until further investigation by lawyers or journalists turn up details of their identities.

Shortly after the men were released, the identities of only two of the five Afghans had been established, but over the weekend Sami al-Haj gave the names of the other three men, all of whom have now been positively identified. As with those described above, their stories reveal, yet again, the wholesale mockery of justice that defines the regime at Guantánamo: outright failures of intelligence, the presumption of guilt, the refusal to seek out witnesses to back up the prisoners' stories, and a willingness to accept confessions from other prisoners as the truth, regardless of how it was obtained, and with no attempt made to investigate the veracity of the claims.

Haji Rohullah Wakil, a celebrated anti-Taliban commander

Of the two Afghans identified, by far the most significant is 46-year-old Haji Rohullah Wakil (also identified as Haji Roohullah), a tribal leader in Afghanistan's Kunar province, whose opposition to the Taliban was such that he fired the first salvo against the Taliban in Kunar after the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001. As a result of his anti-Taliban credentials and his support for Hamid Karzai, Wakil was rewarded with an important position in the province's post-Taliban administration, and was also made a member of the Loya Jirga, the prestigious gathering of tribal leaders that elected Karzai as President in June 2002. His influence was such that Ghulam Ullah, the head of education in Kunar, described him as "a national religious leader."

Seized by U.S. forces in August 2002, with his military commander Sabar Lal and eleven others, Wakil was taken to the U.S. prison in Bagram airbase for questioning. Although the others were subsequently released, the Americans decided that both Wakil and Lal had sufficient intelligence value to be transferred to Guantánamo in August 2003. According to an Associated Press report, they believed that Wakil "had strong links with Middle Eastern fighters in Afghanistan, particularly Saudi Arabians like Osama bin Laden," and thought it significant that he was a follower of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, even though both Wakil and Lal had had numerous meetings with senior American officials and had offered support for the campaign to oust al-Qaeda and the Taliban from the Tora Bora mountains in November and December 2001.

The outline of Wakil's story has been reported before – both in my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison, and in an article I wrote last October, when his military commander, Sabar Lal, was released from Guantánamo – but it still appears to be a disturbing example of the incompetence of American military intelligence in Afghanistan, as the primary charge against Wakil – that he provided sanctuary to a number of significant al-Qaeda operatives who had fled from the city of Jalalabad after it fell to the Northern Alliance on November 12, 2001 – was so utterly at odds with his proven track record as an anti-Taliban tribal leader who was part of the Northern Alliance and supported Hamid Karzai.

While the full story of Haji Rohullah Wakil deserves more in-depth treatment than I can supply at present, there appear to be only two possible explanations for his capture: either that he did in fact aid the al-Qaeda members because he was working as a double agent, or that he was betrayed by a rival. Personally, I find the second explanation rather less far-fetched, particularly as so many other Afghan prisoners in Guantánamo – at least two dozen, including Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, who died in Guantánamo in December without being given the opportunity to clear his name – were actively opposed to the Taliban, but were betrayed by rivals who had gained the trust of the Americans.

According to this second version of events, Wakil was probably betrayed by Malik Zarin, the head of the rival Mushwani tribe, who had ingratiated himself with the Americans and was using them for his own ends. Although Wakil himself did not name names in Guantánamo, Sabar Lal, who was finally freed from Pol-i-Charki in February, to return to his wife and five children, had no doubt that he had been betrayed. Speaking to the Washington Post last month, he made it clear that he "was turned over to US forces by Afghans seeking revenge for his arrest of Taliban fighters near the Pakistani border."

At Guantánamo, Lal had been even more forthright, explaining to his tribunal the injustice of imprisoning him with members of the Taliban: "The only thing I want to tell you that is so ironic here is that I see a Talib and then I see myself here too, I am in the same spot as a Talib. I see those people on an everyday basis, they are cursing at me ... They say, ‘See, you got what you deserved, you are here, too.'"

Abdullah Mohammed Khan and his dubious friendship

The story of the second Afghan, Abdullah Mohammed Khan, a 36-year old ethnic Uzbek, shifts the focus from Afghanistan to Pakistan, and appears to be another example of dubious intelligence on the part of the Pakistani and American authorities. A former mujahid against the Russians, Khan, mentioned briefly in my book, but otherwise unknown, was arrested in Peshawar, in 2001, at the house of a Syrian acquaintance called Musa, who, according to the U.S. authorities, was an al-Qaeda suspect identified as Abd al-Hamid al-Suri.

Khan denied knowing anything about any connection that Musa might have had with al-Qaeda, saying that all he knew was that he came to Pakistan from Turkey with his family for medical treatment on his feet, which were "in very bad condition." He also denied knowing anything about a CD containing explosives-making manuals that was apparently discovered in Musa's house. Released after being questioned by a Pakistani and an American, he was arrested a second time in January 2002, when traces of explosives were allegedly found on his fingers. Again, he denied the allegation, saying, "I never touched any kind of explosives after the Russians [left]," but this time he was seized and sent to Guantánamo, on what, it appears, was little more than a whim.

At his Administrative Review Board in Guantánamo (the successors to the tribunals, convened to assess whether the prisoners were still a threat to the US, or had ongoing intelligence value), Khan ran up against a litany of allegations made by other prisoners, which are shockingly prevalent in the transcripts of the hearings, even though there is no indication of the circumstances under which the "confessions" were elicited, and, moreover, no attempt was made to verify whether or not they were true.

When faced with these allegations, Khan duly denied a claim that "an al-Qaeda detainee" had identified him in a photo as Abdul Latif al-Turki, explaining that this was the name of the person who had provided him with a false Turkish passport to enter Pakistan, and adding that he was always known by his real name, and that "if you really showed somebody my picture and they told you my name is Abdul ... he was lying." He also denied a similar allegation from "A Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member," who identified him as "al-Turki" and said that he saw him several times at the al-Ansar guest house in Pakistan, and an allegation from an Iraqi detainee who had apparently identified him in a photo and said that he had seen him at a guest house on the Taliban front lines in Kabul in 1999 or 2000.

On this point, his response was particularly revealing, as any detailed research into Guantánamo reveals that several prisoners – an Iraqi and a Yemeni are regularly cited – have spread false allegations against other prisoners. Most startlingly, this came to light in 2006, when, in an article for the National Journal, Corine Hegland told the story of an unnamed but principled Personal Representative for a young Yemeni prisoner, Farouq Saif (known to the Pentagon as Farouq Ali Ahmed), at his tribunal. This officer – assigned to Saif in place of a lawyer, and under no obligation to make a stand on his behalf – was so shocked at the vehemence with which Saif denied an allegation that he had been seen at Osama bin Laden's personal airport that he went back to his file and discovered that the allegation had been made by another prisoner, who had been specifically identified by the FBI as a liar.

In another case reported by Hegland, another Personal Representative – or perhaps the same man; the details are unclear – followed a trail established in the case of a young Syrian, Mohammed al-Tumani, who denied even being in Afghanistan when he was alleged to have been at a training camp. On investigating the file of the prisoner who made the allegation, the officer discovered that he had actually made groundless accusations against 60 prisoners in total. Despite this, both Farouq Saif and Mohammed al-Tumani remain in Guantánamo, and no one has ever established the identities of the other 58 or 59 men who were falsely accused.

Khan's version was as follows. "About two years ago," he said, "I was prepared to be released from here. At that point I lived with some Iraqi people and because they disliked me they were lying, they were throwing some allegations on me and that's why my process has stopped and that's why I have not been released."

Shorn of these additional allegations, the case against Khan was summarized by his Designated Military Officer (the officer assigned to the prisoners instead of a lawyer in the ARBs), who stated, "Detainee argues that he is innocent of all the charges brought before him other than that he was associated with Musa," to which Khan added, "That's correct. Again, I had some association with Musa and also I had a bad passport, that's the only things that occurred."

Tricked by the Taliban

The other three Afghans – identified by Sami al-Haj – were captured in what appears to have been a sly act of revenge by a former member of the Taliban against one of his former colleagues who had turned against the regime. The story began when soldiers working for Jan Mohammed, the governor of Uruzgan province, north of Kandahar, stopped a car containing two men, Ismatullah, a 25-year-old embroiderer, and Nasrullah, his 23-year-old cousin, identified by Sami as Nasrullah al-Rosgani (from Uruzgan), and Esmatullah, his cousin. Ismatullah apparently admitted that he had just delivered a letter to a third man, Mohammed Sangaryar, which was from Abdul Razaq, the former Taliban Minister of Commerce. Sami identified the third man as Mohalim al-Rosgani, which was initially rather confusing, but on Tuesday his lawyer confirmed that Mohalim al-Rosgani was indeed Sangaryar, and that he too had been released.

Ismatullah explained that he had been going to Uruzgan to sell his car, and added that Razaq had said that he would pay his petrol if he delivered the letter. Unable to read, he said that he asked his 23-year old cousin, Nasrullah, to read it, to check that there "wasn't any danger in it." Nasrullah said that the letter asked Sangaryar to go to Quetta, but did not mention fighting, even though the U.S. authorities alleged that Razaq had asked Sangaryar to report to Quetta "to fight and avoid capture by the Americans."

According to Sangaryar, the letter was actually a trap, designed to punish him for turning his back on the Taliban and to discredit him by making it appear that he was still involved with them. He explained that he was a former deputy commander of the Taliban, who had fought with them for many years in an attempt to bring peace to his country. He added, however, that he and his tribe had turned against the Taliban before the U.S.-led invasion, because they had become too enamored of fighting for its own sake, and, specifically, because they had dug up the corpse of Asmat Khan, a prominent tribal leader, and had deposited it in the street as an affront to his tribe. When the American-backed warlord Gul Agha Sherzai took over Kandahar, Sangaryar said that he and his men handed in all their weapons, and he then returned to his village to refurbish his home.

What's particularly bizarre about this story is the fact that Abdul Razaq (aka Abdul Razak Iktiar Mohammed), the former Taliban Minister of Commerce, was himself seized and sent to Guantánamo, but was transferred to Pol-i-Charki last August, and fairly swiftly released. Throughout these men's imprisonment, there was no indication that any effort was made to cross-reference their stories, and this is, I believe, an appropriate note on which to end these two surveys of the latest prisoners released from Guantánamo, in which you'll have no doubt observed that not a single one of these prisoners was actually accused of raising arms against U.S. forces, let alone of having any involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

NW Afghanistan hit by plague of locusts

KABUL, May 10 (Reuters) - Afghan authorities are examining the extent of an unprecedented locust infestation that has prompted local officials in some areas to offer wheat as a reward to residents for killing the insects.

Some 300 tonnes of locusts have been killed by people in the northwestern province of Badghis alone in recent weeks, Abdul Ghafar Ahmadi, a senior official from the agriculture ministry, said on Saturday, citing provincial officials.

Local officials in Badghis and neighbouring Herat have promised residents 7 kgs (15 lbs) of wheat in return for killing 1 kg of locusts, amid a global surge in food prices that has hit Afghanistan hard, Ahmadi said.

"The infestation of locusts has been unprecedented in Afghanistan. It is pretty bad here in Badghis which is also suffering from drought," he told Reuters from Badghis.

"I have heard from local officials that residents have killed 300 metric tonnes of locusts."

He could not say how many hectares of cultivated land had been destroyed by the infestation, but said a mechanical campaign to kill the insects has been going in several parts of the region, which border Turkmenistan.

"This is a regional problem and is not limited only to Afghanistan," he said.

Rising prices heap pressure on Afghanistan's destitute

KABUL, May 10, 2008 (AFP) - Shamsuddin, his wife and their three children sit cross-legged on the floor around the cloth that Afghans traditionally eat off and use bread to pick from a single dish of cooked wax beans and onion.

With a sliced cucumber for salad, this lunch cost nearly a full days' earnings, says the weary-looking man who makes about 100 afghani (two dollars) a day delivering vegetables in a wheelbarrow.

'For our next meal, I have no money. What can I do but to sleep hungry?' asks the swarthy 38-year-old, who has lived in a tent in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul since returning from Pakistan five years ago.

Shamsuddin, who goes by one name, is among millions struggling to survive in war-ravaged Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries where unemployment is 40 percent and half the population is under the poverty line.

It is the poorest who are worst hurt by a global rise food prices which have nearly doubled in three years, according to the World Bank.

Inflation in Afghanistan reached 22 percent in February, including 30 percent for food. It was about five percent in February 2007.

Shamsuddin says that six months ago his family's simple lunch would have cost half today's prices. 'Everything is expensive -- vegetables, cooking oil, bread,' he says.

The price of wheat, which makes the flat naan bread that is part of every Afghan meal, has risen 50-100 percent in recent months depending on the area of the country, the World Food Programme says.

'For millions of Afghans, the poorer segments of society who spend up to 70 percent of their meagre income on food, these food price rises put the basic necessities simply out of their reach,' WFP Asia director Anthony Banbury said last week.

Fatema, who lives with her five children in the same refugee camp, says her family often has to go hungry.

'The prices have gone up and we can't always afford our three meals a day,' she says. The family moved into the camp six months ago when a flood washed away their village in northern Badakhshan province.

Wealthier households have also had to make cutbacks. 'We used to eat fruit every day; now we can afford it only twice or three times a week,' says Mohammad Akram, who earns between 500 and 800 dollars a month selling mobile phones. He has also halved the family clothing budget.

Mohammad Khalid, who works two jobs for about 200 dollars a month, says he has had to change the family staple to rice, rather than bread.

'I couldn't afford flour, so I had to switch to rice,' he says, explaining that a 50-kilogrammes (110 pounds) sack of low-grade rice feeds his family for a month whereas the same amount of flour would last 15 days and is only a fewdollars cheaper.

Afghanistan's own drought-plagued agriculture sector -- neglected in an internationally aided development drive in place since the extremist Taliban regime was removed in 2001 -- is unable to meet the country's wheat needs.Even in a good year, the nation's cereal deficit can be more than 500,000 tonnes, according to the WFP. In 2006, drought took this to 1.2 million tonnes.

Ahmad Shafaee, an official in the ministry of agriculture, says low snowfalls and rains were likely to see a 30-percent drop in domestic grain production this year from last.

Neighbouring Pakistan is Afghanistan's main source of food but it banned commercial exports of wheat flour to this country in January.

WFP, which has said the ban means it cannot get the food it needs for Afghanistan where it will support six million people this year, is in talks with Islamabad about 'humanitarian exemptions,' Banbury said during a recent trip here.

The Afghan government has meanwhile set aside 50 million dollars to buy wheat with Commerce Minister Mohammad Amin Farhang travelling to Kazakhstan this week to finalise a deal, said ministry spokesman Jawad Omar.

The food would be distributed at subsidised cost to civil servants and the poor, he said.

A humanitarian tragedy can be avoided, Banbury said, but 'we all need to do our part.

'It will not be easy, it will cost money and it will take a lot of work,' he said.

Bank Alfalah to expand its branches in Afghanistan CEO Sirajuddin presides MTO graduation ceremony

Lahore (Pakistan Observer) 11 May 2008—Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bank Alfalah Limited, Sirajuddin Aziz has declared that the growth oriented bank will open its four branches in neighboring Afghanistan till end of this year to save and secure their peoples money and foreign investments at local level. Sirajuddin Aziz was addressing the MTO’s (Management Training Officers) graduation ceremony held here at a local hotel on Saturday.

Bakhtiar Khawaja, GH-HR Development and Shahid Hafeez also spoke on the occasion. All the participants of the Bank Alfalah graduation batch XI and XI-B including five from Afghanistan and one from Kazakhstan were also present in a colorful ceremony. In a thought provoking address, Sirajuddin Aziz said that we are passing through a difficult time to compete the global challenges especially for the banks because there were so many competitors in this field around the world so there is a need to be honest and work harder. He said that because the globe had become a single village for all of us especially after the ultramodern technology and communication development so now one economy system would prevail in the world in days to come.

It was for the reason that socialist China was gradually transforming its economy steering it towards capitalism. Highlighting the role of the Bank Alfalah and its management in the national development and upgrading the living standard of the people of Pakistan, Sirajuddin said in future, Western states were going to face acute problems of skilled labour. “Indian think tanks had already started working on preparing a strategy to take advantage of this developing situation. However, it is sad to say no one in Pakistan is even bothered to contemplate on such critical matters of future planning,” he added.

Later, CEO Bank Alfalah Sirajuddin Aziz along with Bakhtiar Khawaja greeted the passing out MTOs, and distributed cash prizes, certificates and shields among them. The trainees who got top five positions include Abbas Salam (first), Arsalan Ahmad (second), Naveed Khalid (third), Umar Zareef Malik (forth) and Seemab Khalid (fifth). A special cash prize for the foreign MTO was also announced for Ahmad Feroz.

Price no object when Afghans tie the knot

In a land where most people earn $350 a year, tabs can top $25,000 . . . paid by groom's family

KABUL(Toronto Star) 11 May 2008–Neon palm trees light up the night, a kaleidoscope of colours like some psychedelic flashback.

Gigantic butterflies twinkle with megawatt brightness. Shooting stars burst in pyrotechnic splendour. A scaled down clone of the Eiffel Tower blinks fluorescent pink and blue.

The Sham-e Paris Hotel: Evening in Paris Hotel.

There is indeed a Folies Bergère hedonism about this modern wedding emporium on the western outskirts of Afghanistan's capital, not far from the city sector most extensively destroyed by shelling during the civil war.

But another pleasure-seeking Sodom is more instantly evoked. When it comes to weddings, it's Viva Las Kabul.

As if overcompensating for lost time, all the joy and gaiety that was forbidden under the Taliban, Afghans have thrown themselves into extravagant celebration of marriage with spare-no-cost abandon.

It's a measure of social status, if the financial ruination of many families, with the party tab commonly a whopping $25,000 in a country with a per capita annual income of $350.

Yet so popular, even socially compulsory, have these fetes become that garish wedding halls continue to spring up around the city – more than 80 already, where there were only four in 2001.

They're clustered, like fantastical oases, primarily in suburbs that are otherwise grim and ramshackle, flanking roads in such crater-holed disrepair that they are almost un-navigable.

The Star was invited to one such wedding spectacle on the weekend ... and had nothing to wear, arriving in a long cotton skirt and combat boots. Not a good look.

Zahara, mother of the groom and a typically hospitable Afghan, is too polite to mention the attire of her guest, just one of 1,500 invited.

All the women – females are separated, sitting at banquet tables on the fourth floor of the hotel while the men are down two levels – are ornately gowned, heavily bejewelled and exotically groomed, with eyeliner thickly applied, lips vividly glossed and hair piled in complicated poufs.

Earlier in the day, at the Mustafa Bridal Shop, 40 years in the business, Zahara had dabbed at the perspiration on her forehead, claimed to be worn out by the pressures of preparing for her older son's wedding, nearly 10 months in the planning, and a whirlwind of run-up parties this past fortnight.

"The expense? I can't even bear to think about it. Close to $30,000. I have been saving for this since my son was born."

Zahara was a refugee in Pakistan when she married, a quarter-century ago, and never experienced all the wedding trimmings. It's obvious, despite her clucking over costs, that this marital lollapalooza is an indulgence she doesn't begrudge.

The groom's parents always pay for everything: the jewellery that must bedeck the bride, the gowns, the parties, the catering, even the all-day beauty salon appointments, at least for close female relatives of the bride's family, and just that detail can cost $200 per customer.

There is also the "bride price" a kind of reverse dowry the groom pays when the proposal is made.

Under the Taliban, such ostentation was not allowed. Now, the pendulum has swung wildly in the other direction.

Mustafa Naziri, son of the proprietor who owns the Mustafa salon, points at the frothy wedding gowns in the windows, all of them Western-style design, and says business has never been better, with some gem-encrusted dresses selling for as much as $50,000.

Few brides these days choose the traditional ethnic wedding ensemble, the Gand-e Afghani, a dress trimmed with tiny mirror specks. They'd rather look like a storybook princess or Bollywood star.

So worrisome have these stratospheric outlays of money for wedding splashes become that some Afghan authorities have tried to discourage the practice, to little avail.

The governor of Balakh province in the north, for example, issued a non-binding decree that wedding halls be used only for the marriage ceremony itself, not the afterward party, in the hope receptions would shrink. Hasn't worked.

At least there's no booze bill in non-alcohol Afghanistan.

Back at the Sham-e Paris, the food platters are endless, the chatter cacophonic and the music – a 10-piece band – hasn't even started yet. That will come later, closer to midnight, after a good many of the not-so-close relatives have left, the remainder gathering on another floor, this time the genders mixing for dancing. Males will then be able to see the bride, her face uncovered.

That bride, 18-year-old Mina, is a beauty, though looking overwhelmed and slightly peaked after what has already been an exhausting day: six hours at the beauty salon, buffed, primped and oiled to a sheen, every hair not on her head meticulously plucked – because it is custom to come to the marriage bed as smooth as a baby's bottom.

The $3,000 white wedding gown has been replaced with the mandatory second dress, this one of green satin – green signifying good luck in the Muslim world.

Mina's palms are hennaed, also for blessed fortune, the staining having been performed the previous evening at "Henna Night."'

As Mina rises from a throne of honour to be embraced by well-wishers, dozens of thin gold bangles jangle on her forearms. There's new gold also on her fingers, in her ears, at her throat.

It's an arranged marriage, as nearly all are in Afghanistan. But there was, fortunately for this couple, a gentle romance before their parents got down to formalities.

Mina and 20-year-old Suhai have known each other for a long while. And because Mina doesn't wear a burqa, her face was no surprise to Suhai on their wedding day.

"They used to meet each other secretly all the time," Suhai's kid sister whispers to the reporter, in the way of all tittle-tattle siblings.

The couple has spent only minutes together on their big day.

But there's a white Mercedes, festooned with plastic flowers, parked under the portico, waiting to whisk them away.

To privacy, pleasure and, hopefully, a happily ever after.

AFGHAN CRICKET TEAM AIMS FOR WORLD CUP GLORY

Taj Malik has more to worry about than rain stopping play or the wicket his team will have to bat on. The charismatic coach of the Afghan cricket team has been threatened by a suicide bomber for not picking a particular player, while his brother and one of his star bowlers bear the scars of bullet wounds from years of war. But Mr Malik, 32, and his players say that nothing will stop them achieving their dream of getting to the Cricket World Cup in 2011. The first step on the long journey begins at the end of this month, when they travel from the battle-scarred streets of Kabul to the Channel Islands. There they face such cricketing titans as Singapore, the Bahamas, Botswana, Japan and Jersey in their attempt to progress to the next qualifying stage. “This is do or die I will throw myself in the Atlantic if we lose,” said Mr Malik. But the most mouthwatering match for the Afghans is a potential knockout meeting with the United States. “Pray we beat them,” Hameed Hassan, 20, who bowls at nearly 90mph, said. “Most of the Afghans are eager to hear we beat the United States.” Hasti Gul, 24, a talented bowler and brother of the coach, is bullish about their chances. “Inshallah [God willing] we will win. We have no weakness in our team, our bowling, batting and fielding are all good. We will win the tournament and bring the cup to Afghanistan.” Perhaps surprisingly given the wealth of spin talent in neighbouring Pakistan, the Afghans have little time for the tweakers and turners of the game.

“Afghans like to bowl fast,” Mr Malik said. “They don't think spin bowling is attacking enough.” Indeed, he added, much of the warlike character of the Afghans is present in the way they play cricket. “Every game is like a battle for us; every game is a fight.” Victory in Jersey, where most experts agree Afghanistan are favourites, would not lead straight to the World Cup. The team would still have to compete in - and finish in the top two of - tournaments in Tanzania and Argentina, and then finish in the top six in a tournament in the United Arab Emirates. “If we lose, most of our team members will leave cricket forever; this is our only chance,” Mr Gul said. Bashir Stankzai, the assistant manager of the team, agreed: “If we don't get there we have no future.” Afghanistan has had an international team only since the Taleban were ousted in 2001 but the potential is amazing. In 2006 the Afghans beat the MCC by 202 runs, getting the former England captain Mike Gatting out for a duck. Hamed Hassan, their fastest bowler, and team-mate Mohammed Nabi, 24, were recruited later by the MCC for several matches.

[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.]