In this bulletin:

• U.S. commander in Afghanistan has reconciliation plan
• US commander hopes Obama moves quickly on Afghanistan
• AP Interview: US military can meet Obama demands
• U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan won't rest for winter
• Al Qaeda Declares War on Obama
• Can Obama Catch Osama bin Laden?
• US drone hits militant hideout in Pakistan
• UAE offers $550 mn for reconstruction of Afghanistan
• Afghanistan to Expand Cooperation with Azerbaijan
• India not invited to send troops to Afghanistan: US commander
• Qanuni calls for election to go ahead on time
• Atmar plans shake-up of security forces
• Bomber attacks NATO base in Afghanistan
• Schoolboys kidnapped outside school
• Afghans pushing for a return to public execution
• Pashtun tribes seen as key to Afghan peace
• AFGHANISTAN: CAN KARZAI AND THE TALIBAN MAKE PEACE?
• Broader Approach Needed to Resolve Afghanistan Crisis
• Pakistan holds solution to solving Afghan conflict
• UZBEKISTAN: TASHKENT HAS THE POWER TO INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME OF THE AFGHAN WAR
• The Road Ahead in Afghanistan
• When Will Obama Give Up the Bin Laden Ghost Hunt?
• UN delivers 26,000 tonnes of food aid
• Herat police burn two tonnes of drugs
• Afghanistan at the crossroads: Afghan returnees assess the lay of the land
• US seeks help of Indian American doctors in Afghanistan
  

U.S. commander in Afghanistan has reconciliation plan

Reuters - 11/19/2008 - WASHINGTON

The top commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday recommended a plan to stem growing violence by empowering local Afghan leaders, including former Taliban members.

"That is the local leadership that we have to work with for a successful outcome in Afghanistan," U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan said while advocating support for district governing councils that are willing to accept the Afghan constitution and reject the Taliban.

"Reconciliation at the local level, of local fighters, of local influencers, potentially is a very very powerful metric," he said in remarks before the Washington-based Atlantic Council of the United States.

"This is a country that historically has had very little central government. But it's a country with a history of local autonomy and local tribal authority systems."

McKiernan laid out details of the strategy for engaging what he called "small-t" Taliban members, saying he is already talking to Afghan ministers about a prototype plan that would assemble district leaders into a shura, or tribal council, backed by western development aid.

U.S. officials have already embraced reconciliation with some Taliban members as a possible antidote to surging violence that has reached its highest level since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled Afghanistan's former Taliban regime.

U.S. military officials have conceded that the United States is not winning in Afghanistan and that a 70,000-strong western military force cannot succeed without political, diplomatic and development assistance for the local populace.

"We're not going to run out of bad people in Afghanistan that have bad intentions and we're not going to kill and capture so many of these bad people that it's going to break the will of all the insurgent groups," McKiernan said.

"Ultimately it's going to be people that decide that they want a different outcome in Afghanistan. It's going to be a political outcome," he said.

McKiernan likened his plan to the so-called Awakening Council movement in Iraq, which began when local Sunni tribesmen in western Iraq chose to join U.S. forces against al Qaeda militants.

He said the plan he has discussed with Afghan ministers calls for Kabul to assemble local leaders into a shura council that would then select a representative committee with backing from the United States and the international community.

But he warned against empowering tribes to fight militants, which has been the approach in Iraq and more recently in Pakistan's tribal areas where militants have safe havens.

"I could spend the next 20 or 30 years in Afghanistan and I would not understand the tribal connections," McKiernan said.

"It's not a good chemistry," he added. "For every tribe that you support, you are disadvantaging other families and other tribes. And they know that, whereas you might not."

US commander hopes Obama moves quickly on Afghanistan
by Jim Mannion – Wed Nov 19, 10:08 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The commander of US forces in Afghanistan expressed hope Tuesday that the incoming administration of president-elect Barack Obama acts quickly to provide more US troops for Afghanistan.

General David McKiernan, who commands NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, said there were not enough military forces in southern Afghanistan to protect the population against a Taliban insurgency.

Asked how soon the new administration would act to provide those forces, McKiernan said, "Hopefully quickly, but I don't know."

The general has requested four additional combat brigades as well as support forces -- about 20,000 troops, which would raise US forces levels in the country to more than 50,000 troops.

One brigade is due to arrive in January, and the current administration has promised two more as soon as they can be freed up through reductions of US forces in Iraq.

Obama campaigned on a pledge to shift US forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, which he sees as the central front of the US war on terrorism.

Speaking at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy group, McKiernan indicated that the United States and its NATO allies could still prevail in Afghanistan with an influx of troops and resources but "it takes much longer."

"It comes at much greater price in human suffering and resource expenditure," he said. He took issue with a US intelligence assessment's characterization of Afghanistan as being in a "downward spiral."

But he acknowledged that the campaign was "uneven" and conditions in four southern provinces "aren't improving fast enough for anyone's liking."

The general cautioned against a strategy that shifts power to the tribes, arguing that the complexities of tribal relationships in Afghanistan were far greater than in Iraq.

"I think what does have great merit, great potential is similarly a bottom up, community approach to security," he said.

McKiernan also said the US and Afghan forces were coordinating more closely with the Pakistani Frontier Corps along Afghanistan's eastern border.

"We exchange frequencies, we exchange intelligence, we have a Predator feed going down" to a border coordination center where it is shared with Pakistani and Afghan military, he said.

"I'm cautiously optimistic and we are doing things today on the ground that we weren't even talking about five or six months ago," he said.

The US military recently launched a coordinated operation with Pakistani forces to put pressure on insurgents on both sides of Afghanistan's wild eastern frontier, a US military commander said earlier Tuesday.

Dubbed "Operation Lionheart," the operation takes cooperation between US, Afghan and Pakistani forces to "the next level" in terms of intelligence sharing and coordination, said Colonel John Spiszer.

Spiszer said his troops were working along the Kunar River valley and up into the mountain passes along the border to intercept and ambush insurgents trying to escape from Pakistani operations in its Bajaur Agency.

Spiszer, who has about 3,000 US troops in an area that encompasses four Afghan border provinces, said he did not have enough troops but would get more with the arrival of a brigade from the 10th Mountain Division early next year.

AP Interview: US military can meet Obama demands

AP., By ANNE GEARAN and LOLITA C. BALDOR 19 November 2008 - WASHINGTON

The top U.S. military officer said Tuesday the Pentagon is developing plans to get troops quickly out of Iraq and into Afghanistan to battle a more confident and successful Taliban. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Associated Press in an interview that the military can make the changes President-elect Barack Obama wants in both wars.

"I've been listening to the campaign, and I understand," Mullen said. "And he has certainly reinforced that since the election, so from a planning standpoint, we are looking at that as well."

Mullen, once a critic of Obama's plan to pull combat forces from Iraq in 16 months, said the Pentagon has already identified and practiced travel routes out of Iraq along exit routes through Turkey and Jordan.

The governments in those two bordering countries are U.S. allies, and Mullen said they support the withdrawal planning effort.

Mullen, who is halfway through a two-year term, said he expects to stay on next year as the new administration takes office, adding, "We all serve at the pleasure of the president. I'll serve as long as he wants me to."

Obama has said he wants to assemble a national security team quickly. He has not yet named a candidate for defense secretary — the top civilian leader at the Pentagon.

The current defense secretary, Robert Gates, is often mentioned as an option for Obama. If Gates stayed it would provide the continuity and stability Obama has said he wants in his national security operations, but neither man has discussed the possibility publicly.

Pentagon officials, including Mullen, have consistently rejected timelines for pulling troops out of Iraq, saying that any withdrawal must be based on security conditions in Iraq. At the same time, military leaders have said they need 15,000 to 20,000 more troops in Afghanistan — including four more combat brigades.

Obama, who has called Afghanistan an "urgent crisis," said in a speech Oct. 22 that "it's time to heed the call" from U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, for more U.S. troops. Obama said he would send at least two or three additional combat brigades. One combat brigade typically has 3,500-4,000 soldiers.

Obama also has called for more training of Afghan security forces as well as more nonmilitary assistance.

Mullen said he is working to get as many troops into Afghanistan as quickly as possible and noted he's not surprised that Taliban leaders said this week that they would not entertain settlement talks with the Afghan government as long as foreign forces remained in the country.

"It's my belief that you negotiate from a position of strength and right now the Taliban is doing pretty well," said Mullen. "I think that's important as we discuss how we negotiate, and with whom we negotiate, that we do so from a position of strength."

Mullen would not disclose how many combat brigades and additional support forces he will be able to get to Afghanistan by next spring, when the military expects to face another offensive by militants.

While Mullen acknowledged that troops in the northern city of Mosul are still in a tough fight, he said commanders are confident that they will be able to turn the city over to the Iraqis by next June.

McKiernan, speaking in Washington on Tuesday evening, said he does not have enough U.S., coalition or Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan "to provide for adequate security for the people." He said that is where he would put more troops.

He also endorsed efforts to reconcile with militants, but said such talks must be led by the Afghans. And he drew a distinction between attempting to convince local Taliban fighters to put down their weapons and support the Afghan government, versus trying to work with top Taliban leaders such as Mullah Omar.

"The idea of reconciliation at the local level, of local fighters, of local influencers, potentially is a very, very powerful metric in Afghanistan," said McKiernan. As for top Taliban leaders, he said it is up to Afghan officials to determine "how important that is to try to reconcile those who have, on record, seemed to be fairly irreconcilable."

Under the security agreement now before the Iraqi Parliament, U.S. troops must be out of the cities by June 2009, and leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Giving the Iraqis control of Baghdad will also be doable, but challenging, he said.

While violence has plunged in the capital city, there are still frequent, dramatic attacks, more often targeted at Iraqi citizens. He also has to address logistical challenges in removing forces from Iraq. Noting the huge amount of equipment and infrastructure under the U.S. flag in Iraq, Mullen said planners are looking at what would move and when.

Mullen indicated that some infrastructure, along with residual forces responsible for counterterrorism operations and ongoing training of Iraqi forces, could remain beyond Obama's 16-month timeline.

"In the last several months, he said, military officials have looked at "the totality of what we have there and what would it take to move it out. Generally the answer is two to three years."

There are currently 151,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and 32,000 in Afghanistan, including 14,500 with the NATO-led coalition, and 17,500 who are fighting insurgents and training Afghan forces.

AP Military Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan won't rest for winter

Los Angeles Times, CA - By Julian E. Barnes November 19, 2008 Washington

Forces will continue pursuing extremists in the east despite the brutal weather, says Gen. David McKiernan.
U.S. troops in Afghanistan will continue pursuing extremists in the eastern part of the country over the brutal winter months, but lack the forces in southern areas to mount the same offensive, the top U.S. commander there said Tuesday.

U.S. efforts in eastern Afghanistan could be helped by pressure on extremist groups from Pakistan, said Gen. David D. McKiernan, the U.S. and NATO commander. But U.S. and allied commanders in the south must await the arrival of extra troops sought by McKiernan. Southern Afghanistan includes Helmand province and the city of Kandahar, traditional areas of greater Taliban strength.

In an address to the Atlantic Council of the United States think tank in Washington, McKiernan said that his standing request for about 20,000 additional troops would be approved -- "hopefully quickly" -- by U.S. officials. McKiernan is seeking combat brigades, aviation support and logistics specialists. One brigade already approved is scheduled to arrive by February.

McKiernan acknowledged that Afghanistan has been a secondary effort for the military, after Iraq. But he said that could change next year. "We have perhaps a window of opportunity to apply more resources," McKiernan said.

In eastern areas, Pakistan's efforts to prevent extremists from escaping into that country could help a U.S. offensive, McKiernan said.

"We are going to try to . . . eliminate insurgent groups on the Afghan side throughout the winter," McKiernan said. "We are not going to lower our tempo of operations." In past years of the war, fighting has slowed during the cold weather.

However, the pressure from Pakistan also could result in a rise in violence as extremists become squeezed between U.S. and Pakistani forces, said Col. John Spiszer, the commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division.

Spiszer said more forces would enable him to do more along the border. "I think we are making great progress, but there are just too few of us," he said, speaking to reporters separately via teleconference from Afghanistan.

There now are more than 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, along with a roughly equal number from other North Atlantic Treaty Organization member nations. McKiernan emphasized that political accommodation and reconciliation among Afghan tribes and forces would be a key to eventual stability. But additional troops will speed progress, he said.

He cautioned against transferring strategies from Iraq to Afghanistan, which is a different conflict, he said.

Nonetheless, commanders in Afghanistan are examining the local reconciliation efforts in Iraq that helped craft peace deals with ethnic groups, such as the Sunni Arabs' so-called Awakening Councils. Their application in Afghanistan would be different, he said.

Instead of tribal-based efforts, McKiernan said he prefers district-based programs to connect tribes and clerics.

Barnes is a writer in our Washington bureau.

Al Qaeda Declares War on Obama

FOX News, By Judith Miller - 20 November 2008

Al Qaeda has officially added President-elect Barack Obama to its enemies list. In the terrorist group’s first video message to Obama since his election, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s number two, calls Obama a “House Negro” who “claims” to be Christian to be elected to high office. The new video says that because Obama has chosen to support Israel and has threatened to strike Pakistan and send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, he has decided to continue “the crimes of the American crusade.”

This is militant Islam’s version of the welcome mat. And it shows that Al-Qaeda has apparently taken Obama at his word when the president-elect vowed to “defeat” the militant Taliban and organizations like Al Qaeda and hunt down Usama bin Laden.

The 11-minute, 23 second video in Arabic with English subtitles, contrasts what Zawahiri calls “House Negroes” like Obama –- along with Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, who preceded her –- with Al-Qaeda’s hero –- Malcolm X, or Malik al-Shabazz, as the video repeatedly calls him — Obama’s “exact opposite.” In fact, Zawahiri apparently borrowed the term “House Negroes” from Malcolm X. According to the Associated Press, the video includes footage of Malcom X’s speeches in which he argues that black slaves who worked in their white masters’ houses were more servile and less confrontational than slaves who worked in the fields.

Zawahiri also says that by choosing to abandon the faith of his Muslim father in favor of Christianity and to continue waging America’s War on Terror –- albeit by different methods –- Obama has agreed to “pray the prayer of the Jews.” As such, Zawahiri says, Obama has become “captive” to the “same criminal American mentality towards the world and towards Muslims.”

In case anyone misses the point of this diatribe (widely distributed today on Arab television networks), the video portrays Obama wearing a yarmulke — a Jewish skullcap.

The video is a stark declaration of war on the incoming president, though it stops short of threatening him personally. Instead, Zawahiri taunts Obama, encouraging him to be “stubborn about America’s failure in Afghanistan” by sending in more troops. Remember the fate of the Soviets and British before them among the Afghans, he says: “The dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands of them.”

Al Qaeda apparently does not accept Obama’s “one president at a time” policy. Zawahiri holds Obama personally responsible for the aerial attack last Monday on “Afghan Muslims at a wedding party in Kandahar.” (Pentagon spokesmen have said that such strikes target Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists hiding among civilians).

President Bush and President-elect Obama had starkly different reactions today to Al Qaeda’s welcome message. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, accustomed to such insults to the president and threats to America, dismissed Zawahiri’s latest message as merely “more despicable comments from a terrorist.”

President-elect Obama’s PTT –- Presidential Transition Team –- issued no comment, choosing yet again to speak softly, or in this case, not at all, knowing that America wields a very big stick. But Obama adviser Richard Clarke, a counter-terrorism official in the Clinton and Bush White Houses who repeatedly tried to warn both his bosses before 9/11 about the danger posed by Al Qaeda, suggested today that the video smacked of desperation. “Obama’s election,” he said, “has taken the wind out of Al Qaeda’s sails in much of the Islamic world” by proving yet again that democracy can “overcome ethnic, sectarian, or racial barriers” and by renewing America’s “commitment to multiculturalism, human rights, and international law.”

While Zawahiri says that Obama’s vow to withdraw from Iraq is a victory for the “Muslim Ummah” or the world’s Muslims, including, presumably American Muslims, it is also an admission of America’s “defeat in Iraq.” But Clarke argues that Obama’s pledge to withdraw from Iraq denies Al Qaeda a key “propaganda tenet: that the U.S. seeks to occupy oil- rich Arab lands.” Moreover, Obama’s election, says Clarke, “sets Al Qaeda back enormously in the battle of ideas –the ideological struggle which will determine whether Al Qaeda will continue to have significant support in the Islamic world.”

Or as Arabic speakers say: “Inshallah.”

Can Obama Catch Osama bin Laden?

President-Elect Plans to Renew U.S. Commitment to Finding Al-Qaeda Leader

ABC News - By LUIS MARTINEZ and JENNIFER PARKER Nov. 18, 2008

It is perhaps one of President George W. Bush's more frustrating failures, and one of the most difficult tasks he'll hand over to his successor. More than seven years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden, the man Bush once said he wanted captured "dead or alive," has not been found.

President-elect Barack Obama has said that he plans to renew the U.S. commitment to tracking down the al Qaeda leader. "I think it is a top priority for us to stamp out al Qaeda once and for all, Obama told CBS's "60 Minutes" Sunday. "And I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al Qaeda.

He is not just a symbol, he's also the operational leader of an organization that is planning attacks against U.S. targets."

As soon as Obama takes office in January, he has said he will begin work on a plan to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq and beef up U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan. "Particularly in light of the problems that we're having in Afghanistan, which has continued to worsen. We've got to shore up those efforts," Obama told "60 Minutes."

During the presidential campaign, Obama promised he would refocus the military's fight to taking on the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. His promise to send two additional combat brigades, or roughly 7,000 troops, to Afghanistan seems small now when compared to the request by top U.S. military commanders there for as many as 20,000 U.S. forces.

But finding bin Laden won't be easy, and several former CIA operatives warn that sending more troops could have severe consequences, won't put a dent in finding the al Qaeda leader and could lead the nation to another war without end.

Osama Has 'Completely Disappeared' "He's completely disappeared," former CIA operative Robert Baer told ABCNews.com about bin Laden. "I asked my CIA colleagues who have been on the hunt for him, and what surprised me was, no one was quite sure. Half assumed he was alive, and half assumed he was dead," Baer said. "Obviously, they have lost track of this guy completely."

Baer, who was the inspiration for the George Clooney character in the film "Syriana," said intelligence gathering in the mountainous region is "virtually impossible."

The warring Pashtun tribes along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan complicate military operations in the region, and more troops won't help the U.S. capture bin Laden. "It would take a million U.S. soldiers to go up there to subdue that area," Baer said.

Where Is Osama bin Laden? Beyond the military fight along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the CIA has for years engaged in an aerial war against suspected terrorist targets inside Pakistan using missile-armed Predator drones.

Since September, the CIA has substantially increased the number of those missile attacks, and some have successfully targeted senior al Qaeda operatives. But bin Laden remains an elusive target. "If we did find bin Laden, it would be more out of luck than anything else," said Baer.

In late 2001, bin Laden was nearly captured in a battle with U.S. forces near Tora Bora, Afghanistan. However, the U.S. has since lost track of him, believing he is now hiding somewhere in the remote region around the Afghanistan and Pakistan border.

"Anyone familiar with the Afghan-Pakistan border area knows how rugged and inaccessible it is," CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said Thursday. "Beyond that remoteness, the sheer challenge of surveying every square mile of that inhospitable and dangerous region, part of the explanation for his survival lies in the fact that he has worked to avoid detection," Hayden said.

Former senior CIA official Michael Scheuer, who led a special CIA unit whose mission was to hunt bin Laden, argues it's unlikely the al Qaeda leader will be caught. "We tend to forget that he's been at this for 25 years," Scheuer told ABCNews.com. "He's quite experienced as an insurgent in terms of not being found."

$25 Million Reward Unclaimed The U.S. government has offered a $25 million reward for information leading to bin Laden. But Scheuer points out, despite the fact Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest nations, no one has claimed the money.

Scheuer is convinced bin Laden is alive. "He lives among the Pashtun tribes, and they have a tribal code of conduct that, once you accept someone as your guest, you then have to protect them with your life," he said. "And so there's very few people who are going to turn over Osama bin Laden."

Obama: 'We Will Kill Bin Laden' If bin Laden is captured or killed, what isn't known is how his followers around the world will react. "I think it would be a key transformative political event because of the symbolic importance of it," said Samuel Brannen, an international security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

"But we don't even know what it would really do. Would he be a martyr or would this be a leaderless movement?"

During his campaign for the White House, Obama pledged to end the war in Iraq and renew the nation's focus on bin Laden and Afghanistan, arguing the Bush administration's focus on Iraq diverted resources away from the war on terror.

"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda," Obama promised during an Oct. 7 debate. "That has to be our biggest national security priority." But putting more troops in Afghanistan won't relieve the overall strain on U.S. military forces and their families.

"It looks like Obama's focus is on putting the bulk of the troops in Afghanistan, with a smaller operation in Iraq, which is really just his and President Bush's policies flipped," Brannen said. Currently there are 31,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan. NATO forces represent about another 30,000 troops.

'Afghanistan Is the Graveyard of Empires' The challenges facing the U.S. in Afghanistan are daunting: keep the increasingly unpopular Karzai government in power, rebuild the Afghan economy and build a communications and transportation infrastructure.

More important, the U.S. and allies have the task of trying to find and destroy al Qaeda, eradicating the world's largest heroin industry and trying to defeat the Taliban, which has established a base in Pakistan, the Muslim world's only nuclear-armed arsenal.

"Al Qaeda's base in Pakistan is the single most important factor today in the group's resilience and its ability to threaten the West," Hayden said.

Baer argues sending more troops into Afghanistan "is a huge mistake" that could escalate the problem.

"It's going to push the chaos into Pakistan," Baer said. "The cliché is, Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires."

US drone hits militant hideout in Pakistan

It was the first US attack outside of the country's tribal belt. Conflicting reports have arisen as to Pakistan's approval of US tactics.

A US military drone struck a militant hideout in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province yesterday, the first such strike outside of the country's tribal belt, but the 20th missile attack overall by US forces since August.

The strike underscored that, as the Taliban has spread deeper into Pakistan, the US is willing to engage them further inside Pakistani territory. Rather than clarifying a strategy for Pakistan and Washington to jointly follow, the strikes have only led to greater confusion between the two sides.

Yesterday's strike, which left five dead, took place in Bannu, an area abutting Pakistan's tribal belt, but still inside the country's North West Frontier Province. The target was some 19 miles from the Afghan border, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported, adding:

The attack marked the first US missile strike outside of the rugged tribal regions, which have become safe havens for militants linked to Taliban and Al-Qaeda, one Pakistani security official said.

In recent weeks, the Pakistani Taliban has expanded the range of its attacks to include several areas deeper inside Pakistan, including Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, as England's Guardian newspaper reports:

Fighting in the surrounding countryside has spilled into urban areas. Last week, a suicide bomb in the [Peshawar's] stadium killed four people, an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped, two journalists were wounded in an ambush and gunmen murdered an American aid worker.

Among the dead in yesterday's missile attack were said to be foreign fighters, AFP reports. "At least two foreigners were among five killed," [a senior security official told AFP.] Pakistani officials use the term "foreigners" to describe Al-Qaeda militants.

That a wide range of foreign fighters continues to fight alongside the Pakistani Taliban was also confirmed this week by three Pakistani tribal elders, according to the Daily Times, a leading English newspaper in Pakistan.

Three tribal elders on Tuesday escaped from Taliban captivity in Bajaur Agency, claiming the presence of a large number of foreigners in the Taliban ranks. Malak Bakht Munir and two other tribal elders told reporters that the foreigners included Chechens, as well as Uzbek, Tajik, Sudanese, and Afghan nationals.

The presence of such foreign fighters has been used as a justification for the US military's controversial attacks on Pakistani soil, of which there have been several in the last few weeks alone.

On Friday, "at least 11 people were killed... including six foreign fighters, in a suspected U.S. missile strike on Pakistan's troubled border region of North Waziristan," according to The Washington Post.

The New York Times described a strike Sunday as a "barrage" attack:

American troops in Afghanistan fired an artillery barrage at insurgents in Pakistan's volatile tribal region in a strike coordinated with Pakistan's military, United States and NATO officials said Tuesday. The strike, less than a mile inside Pakistan, came Sunday after the militants fired rockets at an American position in Afghanistan.

Although such strikes have become more common, they have also been clouded by conflicting reports as to the nature of Pakistan's willingness to allow them.

This week, NATO and US military officials reported that Pakistani armed forces have been cooperating with US and NATO troops in Pakistan, citing Sunday's attack as an example, reports the Associated Press.

In the past month, NATO and Pakistan also have cooperated in so-called Operation Lion Heart — a series of complementary operations involving Pakistani army and paramilitary troops, and NATO forces on the Afghan side, said Col. John Spiszer, US commander in northeast Afghanistan.

But then Pakistan's military quickly denied any joint operation, according to Online International News Network, a Pakistani wire service.

[S]pokesman of Pakistan Forces, Major G. Athar Abbas has strongly refuted the statement and said that no joint operation was being carried out, and both the forces were conducting operations in their respective areas. "Pakistan forces are only allowed to take operation in Pakistani areas while US and Afghan forces conduct their own operations in the Afghan areas," he added.

But on Sunday, The Washington Post reported:

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that

allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries.

In an interview with Newsweek, Pakistan's National Security Adviser, retired Army Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, warned that continuing missile strikes were counterproductive.

"It is doing exactly the opposite of what you are trying to do. We are trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys, trying to separate the tribes from the militants. We made it abundantly clear that this [attack] was pushing them together and creating sympathy for the militants. Soon after that I went to Washington and repeated my message personally to the White House."

UAE offers $550 mn for reconstruction of Afghanistan

WAM - Emirates News Agency, United Arab Emirates - Nov 19, 2008 - Kabul

The UAE has pledged US$ 550 million for reconstruction and stability of Afghanistan from 2002 up to October 2008, a UAE official said today. Assistant Undersecretary of UAE Foreign Ministry for Political Affairs Dr. Tariq Al Haidan told delegates at the International Conference on Return and Reintegration of Afghan Refugees that the economic aid and humanitarian assistance, which covered divers sectors as infrastructure, health, education and defence, underlines the support lent by the government of UAE for reconstruction and development in Afghanistan.

He added that UAE humanitarian and relief agencies had also financed a series of projects, the most important of them were the Sheikh Zayed University in Kabul, the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid City in Kandahar, an orphanage and a psychiatric hospital.

''While participating in this conference, the UAE underscore its determination to support international efforts for reconstruction of Afghanistan and return of refugees,''he stressed.

According to UNHCR, more than 5 million Afghan refugees - 20 percent of Afghanistan's population - have returned home since 2002. The large majority have gone back to their areas of origin, but recent returnees are facing more difficulties as the country's absorption capacity reaches its current limits. Some - including 30,000 returnees now living under tents in the eastern region - are unable to return to their villages due to insecurity, a lack of land, shelter, basic services or job opportunities. These challenges have been compounded by a food crisis and severe drought, forcing thousands of desperate families to leave their homes for other districts, even for neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.

Afghanistan to Expand Cooperation with Azerbaijan

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan - 19 November 2008 Azerbaijan, Baku

Afghanistan intends to expand cooperation with Azerbaijan. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta will visit Baku on 16 December in order to discuss the prospects of cooperation, Secretary of the Afghanistan Foreign Ministry Najm Pur said to Trend News in a telephone conversation from Kabul on 19 November.

Spanta intends to discuss in Baku the regional cooperation to restore peace and stability in Afghanistan, as well as Azerbaijan’s peacekeeping activity in Afghanistan and its potential to invest in Afghanistan’s economy, Pur said.

There are 90 Azerbaijani peacekeepers operating in Afghanistan within the International Security Assistance Force. They patrol Kabul.

India not invited to send troops to Afghanistan: US commander
By Lalit K. Jha New Kerala - Nov 19 8:42 AM

New York, Nov 19: The US joint commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, Tuesday clarified that India has not been approached by the United States to send its troops to the troubled country.

"That is not true," McKiernan said during the course of his interaction with members of the Atlantic Council - a Washington-headquartered think tank for NATO countries. McKiernan said this question was posed to him early this week in Islamabad during an interaction with a group of 70 Pakistani parliamentarians.

Meeting at the residence of US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, the Pakistan MPs, he said, wanted to know if the United States has invited India to send 1,000 troops to Afghanistan by Christmas.

"A couple of the questions I got were why you Americans came to Afghanistan when it was so peaceful. Before you got there. So I have long tried to answer that and, a long way and then another one was we understand that you've invited a thousand Indian soldiers to serve in Afghanistan by Christmas. Some of you are looking at me like you believe that. But no, that's not true," the general said.

However, diplomatic sources told IANS that the United States indeed had made a request to India early this year to send its troops to Afghanistan as part of the US-led fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.

The issue was forcefully raised during the visit of Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony to Washington in September. The proposal was politely but firmly rejected, with India apparently arguing that this was not in its long-term national and geo-political interests.

Sources said the issue is believed to have briefly occurred raised during the meeting of US President George W Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House in last week of September. However, on all occasions, whenever such a request has come, India has out rightly rejected it, informed sources said.

For quite some time now, the US has been pushing for more Indian involvement in Afghanistan. India, as of now, is majorly involved in the developmental and reconstruction activities of Afghanistan. It is one of the largest donors to Afghanistan.

India has often said it would send its troops overseas only as UN peacekeepers. Some 8,000 Indian troops currently serve under the UN flag in various hotspots around the world, including in the Congo, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Lebanon and the Golan Heights.

Qanuni calls for election to go ahead on time

Written by www.quqnoos.com - Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Parliament speaker says delay to presidential election should be cancelled

THE speaker of the Lower House, Younis Qanuni, has called for Afghanistan’s election to go ahead as outlined in the constitution. Such elections would take place in March-April 2009. The election had been delayed until September 2009.

Qanuni told MPs that he had met with President Karzai on Monday. "He told me that he respects the Afghan constitution and the National Assembly. He told me that he does not want to be in power illegally for even one day," Qanuni said.

Under the constitution, President Karzai’s term expires on the "first of Jawza, five years after his election".

This falls on May 22 2009. Elections must take place 30 to 60 days before the end of Karzai’s term.

Under the constitution, the first duty of the president is to uphold the constitution, yet Quqnoos.com understands that President Karzai has been urged by high-ranking UN officials to delay the election until August at the earliest.

Many argue that the delay, while constitutionally embarrassing, will give the election greater turnout and therefore greater legitimacy. The planned delay had been blamed on winter snows and the poor security situation, which the Independent Election Commission said would hamper voter registration.

The security situation in particular could adversely affect turnout, which would bring the legitimacy of a spring election into question. However, it is difficult to see how any extension can occur without the assent of the Lower House and it is widely accepted that Qanuni favours a more parliamentary system of government over Afghanistan’s current, more presidential, model.

There are various scenarios if the election does not take place as constitutionally scheduled. Under Article 147, a state of emergency could extend the President’s term by an initial period of two months.

The Loya Jirga can extend the state of emergency beyond four months, but the National Assembly must ratify any state of emergency first.

It is unclear whether annual snowfall and the current security situation represent an emergency.

Alternatively, Article 161 provides a possible precedent for a transitional period during which Karzai could act as president pending election in the autumn, or beyond. Another possibility is the resignation of Karzai shortly before his term expires.

Under Article 67, one of the vice-presidents could then run an interim administration. Such an administration is obliged to call an election within three months.

These scenarios, and others that may emerge, are all based on the dangerous political game of constitutional conjecture – especially as Afghanistan’s constitution has not had time to develop a backdrop of precedents from which to argue positions.

"This is a political play by Qanuni," one international observer told Quqnoos.com. Further manoeuvrings in the months leading up to May 22 can be expected.

Atmar plans shake-up of security forces

Written by www.quqnoos.com - Thursday, 20 November 2008

Interior minister says security officials will be replaced throughout the country

THE new interior minister, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, has said he will replace security officials in all parts of the country. Atmar told Quqnoos.com that his ministry was looking for new ways to curb the growing insurgency in the country. "Some insurgents carry out terrorist attacks using police uniforms," he said.

Atmar, the former education minister, took over the ministry last month after President Karzai reshuffled his cabinet. He inherits a ministry frequently accused of commanding a corrupt and inefficient police force.

The ministry also plans to boost the collection of illegal weapons.

Muhammad Hanif Atmar, during the inauguration ceremony of a centre set up for the disarmament of illegal armed groups (DIAG) project, said his ministry planned to collect all illegal weapons. He said some security companies also possessed illegal arms.

The DIAG project has collected 42,000 weapons from 84 districts, almost one quarter of the country’s total number of districts. Almost 1,100 individuals belonging to various armed and criminal groups have been arrested or forcefully disarmed since July 2005.

Bomber attacks NATO base in Afghanistan

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber attacked a NATO base in eastern Afghanistan Thursday, inflicting some casualties, a NATO force spokeswoman said.

"We have ISAF casualties, but we don't know how many," said the spokeswoman, referring to NATO's International Security Assistance Force. The bomber blew himself up at the gate of the base, an Afghan district official in Khost province said.

Schoolboys kidnapped outside school

Written by www.quqnoos.com - Thursday, 20 November 2008

Taliban blame pupil's abduction on criminal gangs

UNIDENITIFIED men have kidnapped three pupils from a school in the Barki Barak district of Logar province. Logar’s education department said the schoolboys, who were kidnapped on Wednesday, are residents of the district’s Chalozay village.

Mullah Momin Hakimi, a local Taliban spokesmen, denied the Taliban were involved in the kidnapping, blaming the abduction on criminal gangs. Meanwhile, unknown men wrecked a newly built US-funded school using explosives in the Ismail Khan Mandozai district of Khost province.

Afghans pushing for a return to public execution
by Bronwen Roberts – Wed Nov 19,\

KABUL (AFP) – Afghans, encouraged by President Hamid Karzai's decision to execute seven convicted criminals this month, are calling for a return to Taliban-era public executions to deal with a surge in crime.

Rights groups and some of the governments funding post-Taliban Afghanistan recoiled at the executions, the first batch in a year, saying shortcomings in the notoriously inefficient and corrupt judicial system cast doubt on the legitimacy of trials.

But Afghans wholeheartedly welcomed them, with one newspaper praising the move in an editorial entitled "Thank you, Mr. President."

A council of women in the capital late last month called on Karzai to go one step further and have death sentences -- usually by firing squad or hanging -- carried out in public, as they were under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.

The president said at the time this was not something he would support. But at the weekend he told reporters he would consider public executions for those behind an acid attack on schoolgirls in the southern city of Kandahar last week.

If advised by the Supreme Court and religious clerics, "I will accept public execution so people can see those who have carried out such barbaric acts... are executed in front of the world's eyes," he said.

Meanwhile the religious council for provinces in western Afghanistan last week issued a statement calling for, among other things, public executions "as a lesson" to criminals.

This would "put horror and fear in the hearts of criminals and those who plan crime, and crime will decrease," the council's spokesman, Farooq Hussaini, explained to AFP.

A preacher at a prominent mosque in the capital and a lecturer at Kabul University, Aiaz Niazai, said Afghanistan needed the death penalty now more than ever.

The Koran says executions should take place in "a gathering of people" so people learn from the punishment and are assured that the crime will not happen again, he said.

That such executions were carried out by the Taliban does not necessarily make them wrong, the cleric said. "We do not count everything the Taliban did as negative," he told AFP. Public executions also reassure people that the right person is punished for a crime, said Kabul resident Mohammed Naiem.

"If they are hidden, as Karzai says they should be, it is possible for it to be carried out on someone who is against the government or for another political issue," he said.

Government employee Ahmad Zia said the future of Afghanistan depended on strict punishment with its people "volatile" after 30 years of war and suffering from high levels of illiteracy.

"Yes, 100 percent they should be punished in front of people," he said. "This is so others should learn and stop bad works. With hidden executions only some people might even know that it has even happened."

Zia acknowledged there may be failings in the judicial system and said the courts should not be able to judge on political cases as they were not independent.

Deputy Justice Minister Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai would not be drawn on public executions or allegations of weaknesses in the system but said the death penalty was necessary in a place like Afghanistan.

"In a country where 90 percent of the population is illiterate, this is a lesson for those involved in committing crime," he told AFP. "The international community understands the rate of crime, especially abduction, murder and terrorism, is going up day by day," he said. About 120 more sentences of capital punishment were awaiting Karzai's final go-ahead, Hashimzai said.

The United Nations, European Union and Norway have condemned the recent executions, with the UN's top human rights official, Navi Pillay, saying there was a grave risk that innocent people may be put to death.

Amnesty International has called for the government to commute the outstanding death sentences and impose a moratorium.

Karzai is trying to "bolster his popularity among the Afghan people who increasingly complain of rising criminality and the government's failure to impose the rule of law," Asia Pacific director Sam Zarifi said in a statement.

There was no indication the death penalty was a deterrent anywhere in the world, he told AFP. Zarifi also questioned why some people were punished whereas others, including those said to be involved in more organised crimes, were not.

"There is strong suspicion in Afghanistan that behind every kidnapping and certainly in the drugs trade there are high-level people in government," he said.

"It is quite telling that we have yet to see a single high-level drug smuggler put on trial. It is interesting that we have not seen any of the errant police chiefs or militia leaders being investigated. "That would send a much stronger signal to the people of Afghanistan than the public execution of a handful of criminals."

Pashtun tribes seen as key to Afghan peace

Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:00pm IST- By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Everyone agrees that ethnic Pashtun tribes along the Pakistani border are key to bringing an end to Afghanistan's war but no one seems to be able to agree on how the Pashtuns might unlock the door to peace.

Most members of the Taliban are Pashtun, Afghanistan's biggest ethnic group, and most Pashtuns live in the south and east where the Taliban insurgency is at its worst.

Pashtuns also live over the border in violence-plagued regions of northwest Pakistan, where they too are fiercely independent-minded, well-armed, conservative Muslims.

President Hamid Karzai, who is also Pashtun, has for several years called for revival of tribal militias to help fight the Taliban, supplying leaders with small arms and money.

But the proposal is bitterly opposed by many members of parliament, who say it would be a huge mistake that could easily backfire and end up helping the Taliban.

The Taliban insurgency has intensified as the number of foreign troops has gone up to 70,000 and U.S. military officials have conceded that the United States is not winning.

U.S. military leaders are also paying more attention to the tribes after some success in Iraq where the so-called Awakening Council movement began with Sunni tribesmen in western Iraq joining U.S. forces against al Qaeda militants.

The top commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan this week recommended a plan to stem the growing violence by empowering local leaders and promoting reconciliation. But the commander, General David McKiernan, warned against empowering the tribes to fight the militants.

Despite that, Western countries with troops in Afghanistan were coming round to Karzai's idea of arming the tribes, the president's chief spokesman said.

"Now, our international friends move in this direction, that without their cooperation bringing security is difficult," the spokesman, Humayoun Hamidzada, said of the tribes.

Supplied with arms and funds from Western powers, the militias could work with the government in areas such as protecting roads, Hamidzada said.

But member of parliament Ahmad Ali Jebrayeli said arming the tribes would be a mistake that would only fuel violence.

"Foreign troops have been here for seven years but the Taliban are getting stronger and stronger. Arming the tribes will further help the Taliban," he said, adding the armed forces had to be strengthened.

Some analysts say resentment of the government and foreign forces is too strong for the militia proposal to work. Many Pashtuns feel alienated after years of what they see as heavy-handed tactics including indiscriminate bombing that has caused hundreds of civilian casualties, said Kabul University political scientist Wadir Safi.

"It's too late. We bombed them, then we ask them to make militias. It won't work," Safi said. "The Taliban are from the same villages. When the Taliban come, every house will be fighting against each other."

McKiernan said he had talked to Afghan ministers about a prototype plan that would assemble district leaders into a shura, or tribal council, backed by Western aid, in the hope of engaging what he called "small-t" Taliban members,

Safi agreed that shuras should be part of the process for winning over the tribes that he said should involve consultation with everyone from Pashtun clerics to intellectuals. Karzai should begin the consultations by calling an emergency Loya Jirga, or grand council, he said.

AFGHANISTAN: CAN KARZAI AND THE TALIBAN MAKE PEACE?
11/18/08 A EurasiaNet Commentary by Mark N. Katz

There have been several news stories recently about talks taking place between the US-backed Karzai government and the Taliban aimed at achieving a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Afghanistan. But can these two parties actually reach such an agreement? If so, what would it look like?

To test whether this might be possible, I ran a role-playing game in my class on revolution at George Mason University on November 4. While role-playing games cannot predict the future, they can help identify the opportunities and obstacles that the real actors might perceive in a given situation.

In order to keep things simple, the class was divided into nine teams: the United States government, the Karzai government, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, al-Qaeda, Russia, Britain, and France. The game took as its starting point the situation described by David Ignatius in his Washington Post column of October 26 reporting on the Saudi-sponsored talks between the Karzai government and the Taliban. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

According to Ignatius, the Karzai government has demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Omar renounce Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri; Mullah Omar has given a "positive response" to this demand; and he in turn has demanded a timetable for a US-withdrawal, integration of Taliban soldiers into the Afghan government’s army, and amnesty for Taliban fighters (among other things).

When the game in my class began, the Taliban and al-Qaeda quickly fell out with each other -- which was hardly a surprise given Mullah Omar’s reported willingness to renounce them. Al-Qaeda assassinated (figuratively, not literally) several Taliban commanders, and the Taliban retaliated by capturing Al Zawahiri. (The Pakistani government, meanwhile, captured bin Laden).

There is not sufficient space to describe all the various machinations that took place during the game. Toward the end, though, Mullah Omar and President Karzai agreed, after difficult negotiations, that 1) the Taliban would hand al Zawahiri over to the Karzai government for trial; and 2) the Taliban would become a legitimate political party.

But it was not meant to be. The two sides were still negotiating a military settlement, including whether the Taliban would disarm, when Mullah Omar was assassinated (again, only figuratively) by his own commanders, with the help and encouragement of Iran. Due to time constraints, the game ended here.

The outcome of this game, of course, may not resemble reality. The game, though, may provide some important lessons.

One is that while the United States sees al-Qaeda as a powerful actor and a primary opponent, it may actually be more of a pawn to both the Taliban and Pakistan. The United States may not be able to capture the al-Qaeda leadership, but the Taliban and Pakistan may well be able to do so -- if either wants to.

Another lesson is that even under the optimistic assumption that Mullah Omar would be willing to reach an agreement with the Karzai government, he may not be able to get his commanders to go along with him. Indeed, just trying to make such a deal could result in his losing whatever control he might have over them. Anticipating this may induce him not to go very far with these talks (especially if he reads this).

Finally, while it is not clear that Iran would help the Taliban commanders defy Mullah Omar, there may be some external party that is willing to do so -- such as anti-American elements inside Pakistan. What all this suggests is that making peace with the Taliban will not be easy.

Editor's Note: Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University.

Broader Approach Needed to Resolve Afghanistan Crisis

Author: Barnett R. Rubin, Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, Center on International Cooperation of NYU - Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor, CFR.org November 19, 2008

Barnett R. Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan, says to spur a political settlement there the United States should reach out to other parties such as Pakistan, Russia, India, and Iran and even support dialogue with Taliban insurgents willing to cut ties with al-Qaeda. As to dealing with the Taliban, Rubin says, "I think what you have now is some dialogue, mostly indirect and a little bit direct, between the Afghan government, some foreign governments, and the various forms of leadership of the insurgency, which is not a negotiation."

You've co-authored a very interesting piece in Foreign Affairs that calls for broadening the approach for resolving the crisis in Afghanistan and the neighboring areas. Could you summarize what you would like to see happen in that part of the world?

Basically, what we advocate is revisiting the politics of Afghanistan. On the one hand, we advocate something which has started by reaching out to the insurgents including the Taliban to see to what extent they would be willing to join an Afghan political process and cut their ties with al-Qaeda. The United States should talk to them, or the Afghan government should talk to them. Second, we really need to work on the interests of the regional powers and other great powers in the region because they have the capacity to destabilize or accelerate Afghanistan's destabilization.

We call for a multilateral approach to Pakistan, which had been totally lacking, but which is now starting. After we wrote the article, the president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, convened a meeting of a group called the Friends of Pakistan during the UN General Assembly, which is very similar to the contact group that we recommended in the article. Of course, we should also reach out to Iran and engage in a dialogue there. This has been one of the approaches advocated by President-elect Barack Obama during his candidacy and will presumably be one of his policies as president.

Obama, of course, has called, as McCain had called, for an increase in U.S. forces in Afghanistan as they leave Iraq. But, you're saying the actual increase in force levels is not necessarily a winning strategy?

Well, first, I think that actually the two positions were quite different from each other. Obama said that Afghanistan and Pakistan was the location of the "real war on terror" and that should receive a higher priority than Iraq. Therefore, his position was: withdraw troops from Iraq and send some of them to Afghanistan. McCain's position was Iraq is the center of the war on terror: let's win there and as we can let's transfer some troops from Iraq. So actually, while the implications for Afghanistan might not be very different in terms of troops, they are extremely different in indicating what priority they give to the issue. I know that President-elect Obama and the people around him understand very well -- obviously so do the people around Senator McCain -- that it is not primarily a military problem and cannot be solved solely with troops. And nobody understands that better, I might add, than the U.S military. It might be useful to have some more troops in Afghanistan in the coming year to try to provide more security for the national elections that are scheduled next summer.

Let me come back to one of the main points. I've gotten different opinions from different people. It's this question of negotiating with the Taliban, who are not affiliated with al-Qaeda. Have there really been serious contacts?

Well, first I think the general principle with any insurgency is you look for a political solution. And your military activities are aimed at promoting that political solution. It sometimes happens, but is rare in a domestic insurgency that it can end simply through a full military victory by one side. Now, in this case, it's very much of an overstatement to say that there are negotiations going on with the Taliban. I think what you have now is some dialogue, mostly indirect and a little bit direct, between the Afghan government, some foreign governments, and the various forms of leadership of the insurgency which is not a negotiation.

The insurgents want some guarantee that foreign troops will be withdrawn. Of course, their rhetoric right now is [withdraw] 100 percent of foreign troops out of Afghanistan, but I don't think that's the bottom line. Their bottom line is no hostile military action. But most Afghans recognize some forms of international presence. They need guarantees for their security. And in the past, many leaders of the insurgency have actually approached the government asking for security, especially when they were in a much weaker position. But the Afghan government was never able to give them adequate security guarantees for a number of reasons, partly because they couldn't protect them from U.S. detention policy. So, I think that is the evolving framework for negotiations. It cannot be just domestic negotiations, and not just United States, the Afghan government, and the Taliban. After all, the insurgency is based in Pakistan and there are political groups in Afghanistan who have been supported by Iran or Russia. Also, it's worth noting that the only country that has denounced the initial dialogue in Saudi Arabia as "appeasement of terrorism" has been Iran.

This was the dinner meeting at the end of Ramadan that the Saudis held that the Afghan government and the Taliban were at?

It wasn't a two-party type of dinner. Let's just say there were some representatives of various parties involved [that] met in Saudi Arabia and that's what I'm referring to. The Iranians are the only government that has actually criticized it. They see it as potentially part of the U.S. policy of allying with Sunni groups to surround Iran.

Afghanis are by-and-large Sunnis, right?

Yes, it's about 85 percent Sunni although, of course, the country is more evenly divided ethnically into Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns than it is in terms of sect. And the non-Pashtun groups, who are also the ones the United States armed the most in 2001 to fight against the Taliban, are also supported by Iran regardless of sect. The Iranians are not against the peace talks per se but they want to be sure that it is on the basis of achieving a national peace. Russia has its own concerns as well. So, it's very complex. It involves a lot of international actors and of course the insurgency is not a unitary actor either, neither is the government.

Let's talk about Pakistan now. I noticed that President Zardari invited Afghan President Hamid Karzai to his inauguration, which I guess was a symbolic gesture. What's going on now between those two governments?

What's happening in Pakistan now, however, is that the government of Pakistan -- meaning the elected civilian government, which is something relatively new in Pakistan -- and the government of Afghanistan led by President Karzai are, as they say, very much on the same wave length regarding issues such as terrorism. However, military and security policy, including policy towards Afghanistan, Kashmir, and so on in Pakistan has never been under the control of civilians. The Pakistani parliament received the first intelligence briefing in the history of Pakistan a couple of weeks ago as part of the debate they're having on how to respond to internal militancy. The military's view of national security threats to Pakistan is very much still focused on India. And the government has a very different view and there's quite an important political struggle over the definition of Pakistan's national interests and national security threats going on inside Pakistan itself. It's unclear how that will turn out -- [whether the] internal conflict within Pakistan itself is greater than that between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I've been reading that the Pakistan army has been trying to crack down on the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) or at least bordering on the FATA areas.

I think both the military and the civilians in Pakistan believe that the problems they are having on the border are the result of pressure put on them by the United States and that they could solve these problems politically if they weren't under so much pressure. They also know that the reason they are under so much pressure is because Osama bin Laden is there. We're putting pressure on them to do it quickly and militarily because of the presence of international terrorists who attacked the United States and attacked a number of our allies and are trying to do so again.

To some extent, the Pakistan military point of view is that they need to cooperate with the United States but they've had a very bad experience in actually succeeding in achieving goals that the United States wanted in the past, mainly the collapse of the communist regime in Afghanistan. Because when that happened, in their view, the United States abandoned them, put them under sanctions for their nuclear program and stopped the aid relationship. What they want to do is keep the aid relationship open, which means continuing to help the United States solve this problem of terrorism but never quite solve it. The civilian government, I think, would much prefer actually to solve it because that would weaken the military within Pakistan and actually force the military to go to a more legitimate national defense posture. The fighting that's lately going on in the Bajaur area of the FATA now looks very much like it is aimed at the leadership of al-Qaeda. I talked to a senior Pakistani politician that happened to be in the United States. He's saying tunnels being built [in the area], that's not tribal Pashtuns who are doing that. It looks more like they are making another Tora Bora [where Osama bin Laden escaped in 2001].

Do you think it is possible to get a meeting together with Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, among the major players? They could solve a lot of problems.

Yes. But, if they could agree on these things, we wouldn't need to have a meeting. The problem is if you have a meeting like that, well first, Pakistan will say India has no business in Afghanistan since it doesn't border on India. And India will say Pakistan has no business in Afghanistan; Afghans are sovereign they should talk to whom they want. So unfortunately, the process has to be much more complex. You need someone who can act as a mediator, or maybe that's not the right word. If you say mediator, than the Indians won't talk to this person. But someone should be there to talk separately to each of the parties to get an idea of what they might be willing to do and encourage them to do it and maybe provide some additional resources or security to help change the situation so that they no longer fear the consequences of reaching an agreement on certain issues.

Pakistan holds solution to solving Afghan conflict

Claude Salhani MIDDLE EAST TIMES - ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The key to the solution of the Afghan problem lies in Pakistan; however, as long as Pakistan is dependent on the three A's - the army, Allah and America - the conflict against the Taliban is unlikely to go away.

"Terrorism has become a lucrative industry for Pakistan," a senior Afghan official told this reporter.

"It has been seven years since the United States launched the war in Afghanistan to hunt down the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda," an Afghan diplomat told the Middle East Times.

Given the resources available to the United States in modern technology, firepower, manpower and financial power, greater strides should have been accomplished by now, he said. Instead, the situation is regressing, with the Taliban making major inroads and regaining influence.

How did the United States get to this point? Much as in Iraq, the initial phase of the war went smoothly. The U.S. military, with assistance from anti-Taliban Afghan forces, drove the Taliban from power and routed al Qaeda from their safe havens. But soon after, things started going wrong.

Several major mistakes were committed along the way. First, was the launch of the Iraq war, which numerous observers, military officers and officials, as well as Afghan officials, now say was an unnecessary and disastrous distraction from getting the job done in Afghanistan.

"Unfortunately, the Americans allowed themselves to be side-tracked by Iraq," said an Afghan official.

The Taliban, recognized by only two countries in the world and which gave refuge to bin Laden and his followers, was chased out of power by U.S. forces after the horrendous attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "But, regrettably, the job was not terminated," said the diplomat.

Among the errors committed was leaving an escape route open to both the Taliban and al Qaeda to Pakistan, where many members of both organizations found refuge.

The key to solving the Afghan problem now lies beyond the borders of that war-torn country in neighboring Pakistan. Several U.S., European and Afghan experts are adamant on that point.

Francesc Vendrell, the European Union's special representative in Afghanistan, told a conference in Geneva last month, attended by some 380 security and conflict-resolution specialists, that "the situation in Afghanistan today is getting worse than it has ever been."

"The Taliban have been able to mount attacks," Mr. Vendrell said, warning against any urge Western countries might have to pull their troops out. "We must definitely not think about moving out of Afghanistan. This is not the time to leave.

"We need to stay as long as the Afghan public, through their elected officials, want us to stay," he said.

Summing up what went wrong for the coalition and warning against a premature withdrawal of coalition troops, Mr. Vendrell placed part of the blame on the coalition for trusting former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

"It was one of the coalition's greatest errors," Mr. Vendrell said.

Indeed, there were numerous errors.

The first great mistake was the international community's delay in convening the Bonn conference, which grouped representatives from Afghanistan's major tribes and factions. By the time the Bonn meeting took place, "we were faced with a fait accompli," Mr. Vendrell said.

The second mistake was the decision by the United Nations "to go for a light footprint in Afghanistan," he said.

The United Nations took a low profile. For example, there was no attempt to reform the police. There was no international force deployed to remove weapons, which were in abundance.

The third mistake was the U.S. intervention in Iraq, which distracted from the main objective.

The fourth mistake was to limit the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

And the fifth mistake, immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the United States failed to take advantage of the sympathy shown to the United States.

"After September 11, Canadians and Europeans were ready and willing to send forces into Afghanistan," Mr. Vendrell said. "By the time the decision was made, it was too late."

A Russian military officer said that until the recent war in the Caucasus, when Russian troops fought a brief though fierce war with Georgia, Moscow would have been willing to assist the United States in the war effort in Afghanistan.

"But the Americans never asked for help," said the Russian officer. "We have gained valuable experience in fighting in Afghanistan ... And now the resurgence of the Taliban poses a threat for Russia even more than for America, given our proximity."

"We should not have taken Musharraf at his word," Mr. Vendrell said. "The result is that we've just now realized that we cannot solve the Afghan problem without solving the problem in Pakistan."

But for that to happen, there is an urgent need of a comprehensive policy for the region. "We didn't have one then, we don't have one now," Mr. Vendrell said.

Indeed, one of the multitude of problems the next U.S. administration is going to inherit is what to do with Afghanistan. The United States has pumped more than $10 billion to Pakistan, much of it to combat terrorism.

But so long as the Pakistan army continues to see substantial profits to be made from American financial aid, the terrorism industry - because that is exactly what it has become - will remain impossible to eradicate.

• Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.

UZBEKISTAN: TASHKENT HAS THE POWER TO INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME OF THE AFGHAN WAR
11/19/08 - Eurasia Insight:

The battle for Afghanistan may well be won or lost in Uzbekistan. With the Taliban making it increasingly difficult to re-supply NATO and US troops in Afghanistan via Pakistan, Tashkent offers the easiest solution to a vital logistical dilemma.

For much of 2008, the United States and European Union have been attempting to open a new overland transit corridor that connects Western Europe and Afghanistan. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Those efforts have faced numerous geopolitical hurdles, including souring US-Russian relations. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Another complication, at least until recently, was tension in relations involving Washington and Brussels on the one hand and Uzbekistan on the other. The sides had a falling out over the Andijan events of 2005, when hundreds if not thousands of Uzbek protesters were gunned down by security forces. Little has changed to reconcile the differences connected to the Andijan events. But the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan has prompted both sides to start working again with the other. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Without US-EU-Uzbek cooperation, any West-East resupply route would not be feasible, as Uzbekistan controls the only rail route into northern Afghanistan, crossing the border over a bridge at Termez.

Following weeks of secretive negotiations in the spring, Tashkent granted NATO access to Uzbekistan's railway system, and eased air-transit restrictions. Significantly, Tashkent made the decision to open its railway system for NATO cargoes without consulting its partners in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), including Russia. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Since NATO's April summit in Bucharest, Uzbekistan has repeatedly demonstrated its political and economic independence from Russia, most recently by discontinuing its membership with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Community. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Despite securing Tashkent's cooperation, however, the Eurasian transit corridor has been slow to materialize, mainly due to the political fallout associated with the Russian-Georgian conflict. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Moscow had given tentative approval to a transit corridor that would have traversed Ukrainian and Russian territory before passing through Central Asia to Afghanistan. But Russia only assented to the transport of non-lethal supplies, and, now, mutual suspicion is running higher than at any time since the Soviet collapse of 1991. Meanwhile, the need for another secure resupply route seems to be growing by the minute. At present, the bulk of supplies that keep NATO and US military operations going in Afghanistan, arrive via Pakistan. The Taliban, well aware of the strategic importance of the supply line, have focused much of their energy on destroying trucks and intimidating drivers. For example, a raid on a supply convoy in early November at a key border crossing in the Khyber Pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan brought deliveries to a halt for a week.

Under the present circumstances, US and European strategic planners are looking to open a different West-East route, one involving greater cost but which avoids having to pass through Russia. The route would start on Georgia's Black Sea coast and head across the volatile Caucasus by rail to Azerbaijan. There, supplies would have to be loaded on to ships for passage across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan. Once in Central Asia, the supplies would again be transported via rail to Termez in Uzbekistan.

Uzbek leaders are reportedly seeking a high price for their cooperation, even though Tashkent is eager to see the Taliban threat contained. According to some local experts, Uzbek officials are trying to obtain a security guarantee for President Islam Karimov's administration, along with an expansion of military assistance and economic cooperation. They want all these benefits despite the fact that Tashkent has made scant progress on improving a woeful human rights record. Both Washington and Brussels are on record as insisting on human rights improvements as a condition for closer cooperation.

NATO seems determined to pursue the Central Asian re-supply route project despite the costs, especially given the US President-elect Barack Obama's pledge during the recent presidential campaign to focus additional resources on Afghanistan.

Seeming to confirm the new NATO approach on the resupply issue, Kazakhstan in early November ratified two long-dormant bilateral agreements with the United States that covered the transit of military supplies across Kazakhstani territory and airspace. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

If the Caucasus-Central Asian-Afghanistan route proves feasible, Germany likely would proceed with plans to extend the Termez-Khairaton railroad link - which presently goes only three kilometers into the Afghan territory - by another 67 kilometers to Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan's key strategic city. Whatever the case, a solution to the existing resupply conundrum seems to be months, if not more than a year away.

The Road Ahead in Afghanistan

November 19, 2008, Greg Bruno

As the war in Iraq appears to wind down, U.S. strategists are zeroing in on the "good war" (Stratfor) , as the seven-year struggle for Afghanistan has been called. President-elect Barack Obama campaigned on plans to end the war in Iraq and bring U.S. more resources to this second front, a pledge he has continued post-election. "We will start executing a plan that draws down our troops" in Iraq as soon as the new administration takes office, Obama said in a November 16 interview with "60 Minutes" on CBS. Referring to problems in Afghanistan, Obama said: "We've got to shore up those efforts."

Yet injecting troops alone will not solve the Afghan puzzle, experts say. In a new interview with CFR.org, New York University's Barnett R. Rubin urges greater efforts to spur a political solution among Afghan's warring sides, and his call for a more regional approach appears to be under consideration by the incoming Obama administration.According to the Washington Post, Obama's plan could see the United States turn to neighbors like Iran for assistance , and negotiate with elements of the Taliban. Efforts are also underway to work with Afghan tribes to loosen the Taliban's grip on rural reaches of the country, especially in the east and southeast, as this new Backgrounder explains. But Afghanistan's neighbors are also seen as impediments to progress. Iran, for one, has been accused of supporting proxy attacks (Guardian) against coalition soldiers (though the level of Iranian involvement is unclear). In Pakistan, Taliban and al-Qaeda elements are regrouping and gaining strength , CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said on November 13. And attacks against coalition forces in northeast Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan have surged in recent months (RFE/RL) , despite an increase in cross-border strikes (WashPost) by U.S. unmanned aerial drones.

A number of analysts also say the United States and the broad coalition of international actors in Afghanistan will have to vastly improve reconstruction efforts that have failed to resolve severe problems since the Taliban's ouster in 2001. Drought, poverty, and persistent unemployment (World Factbook) in one of the world's poorest countries now mix with a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda as chief concerns for the international community. Aid organizations are warning food shortages and early snows could leave as many as eight million Afghans starving this winter (IRIN) -- 30 percent of the population. Some observers now say famine will outpace violence as Afghanistan's top crisis in coming months. "Whatever the effect of insurgent violence on the UN-mandated mission in Afghanistan," the London-based Royal United Services Institute said in an October briefing, "it is widespread hunger and malnutrition that will place a greater obstacle in its progress ."

There are signs of hope amid the gloomy forecast. Wheat (PDF) and fuel prices declined slightly in the first two weeks of November, signaling a possible reprieve for poor Afghans. Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, the country's finance minister, said at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in October 2008 that an increase in government revenue and a jump in donor dollars is helping to stabilize his country (PDF) . And yet significant political and social hurdles remain. President Hamid Karzai, widely seen as an ineffective administrator overseeing a corrupt government, has sought to counter such criticism in recent weeks by reshuffling his cabinet (IHT) , moves that could position him for a reelection bid in late 2009. CFR Senior Fellow Daniel Markey says Washington may have to live with Karzai (IHT) , simply because there isn't anyone better. Coalition members, meanwhile, are sounding increasingly wary. "2008 has been a tough year for UK forces and coalition forces," Britain's Defense Secretary John Hutton said on November 11 (AFP) . "And with national elections in 2009, the coming 12 months are likely to be equally as tough."

When Will Obama Give Up the Bin Laden Ghost Hunt?

TIME MAGAZINE, By ROBERT BAER - Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008

In a talk to the Atlantic Council this week CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said Osama bin Laden is alive. I'll take his word for it. But bin Laden's strange disappearance makes one wonder what exactly happened to him. The last relatively reliable bin Laden sighting was in late 2001. A video that he appears in last year shows him with a dyed beard. More than a few Pakistani intelligence operatives who knew bin Laden scoff at the idea he would ever dye his beard. They think the tape was manipulated from old footage, and that bin Laden is in fact dead. But then again, they would have an interest in making us believe bin Laden is dead, since it would relieve American pressure to find him by any means necessary, including going into Pakistani territory.
And what about all the other audiotapes bin Laden has put out since 9/11? Experts will tell you that off-the shelf digital editing software could manipulate old bin Laden voice recordings to make it sound as if he were discussing current events. Finally, there's the mystery why bin Laden didn't pop up during the election. You would think a narcissistic mass murderer who believes he has a place in history would find it impossible to pass up an opportunity to give his opinion at such a momentous time, at least dropping off a DVD at the al Jazeera office in Islamabad. (Read "Barack Obama on Homeland Security")

I asked a half dozen of my former CIA colleagues who have been on bin Laden's trail since 9/11. What surprised me was that none would say for certain whether he is alive or dead. Half assumed he is dead, the other half assumed he is alive. I suppose a lot of their timidity has to do with the still open wounds about the CIA's missing an event like Saddam's destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It would be so much easier to miss the death of a single man.

The important point of Hayden's Atlantic talk Thursday was that Muslims have turned against bin Laden, realizing that his campaign against the West has ended up killing more Muslims than it has Islam's enemies. Al-Qaeda may be picking up adherents in North Africa and Yemen, preparing its return, but it certainly is no longer in a position to destabilize Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country. And, although Hayden didn't say it, there is no good evidence bin Laden is capable of mounting a large-scale attack. He failed to pull off an October surprise, as many in the FBI and CIA had feared he would.

Despite all this, whether bin Laden is alive or dead is actually pretty irrelevant. Obama has no real choice but to revitalize the search for him, if only for political considerations. If al-Qaeda were to attack in the United States the first months of his term, Obama would end up for the rest of it explaining why he wasn't more vigilant.

But what if bin Laden really is dead, buried under a hundred tons of rock at Tora Bora or so weakened that he might as well be dead? Indefinitely crashing around Afghanistan and Pakistan's wild, mountainous tribal region on a ghost hunt cannot serve our interests. The longer we leave troops in Afghanistan the worse the civil war there will become. One day Obama will need to give up the hunt — declare bin Laden either dead or irrelevant. He has more important enemies to deal with, from Iran to Russia.
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.

UN delivers 26,000 tonnes of food aid

Written by www.quqnoos.com - Thursday, 20 November 2008

870 tonnes of food lost due to insecurity - enough to feed 100,000 Afghans

THE World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered 25,000 tonnes of food assistance to vulnerable Afghans before winter snows close off vital roads. Another 11,000 tonnes are awaiting distribution.

The supplies will reach 950,000 Afghans in 23 provinces in the joint WFP-Afghan government mission.

Soaring food prices have left many Afghans at risk, says Stefano Porretti, UN WFP Country Director, Afghanistan.

"In 2005, the average household spent 56% of its income on food. That figure is now around 73%, which places households in a far more vulnerable position," he said.

Security issues have hampered aid efforts. This year, 26 WFP convoys have been attacked. About 870 tonnes of food have been lost, enough to feed 100,000 people for a month.

Herat police burn two tonnes of drugs

Written by www.quqnoos.com - Thursday, 20 November 2008

Drugs go up in smoke along with cache of illicit alcohol

Authorities in Herat burnt 2 tonnes of drugs and destroyed 200 alcoholic beverages on Wednesday.

The haul came from 78 separate operations over four months. 138 suspects were arrested in connection with the raids.

On a bad note for Herati authorities, one policeman was killed and four injured in a traffic accident, also on Wednesday. A senior border police officer was injured in the accident, which happened on the Herat-Torghandi road.

Afghanistan at the crossroads: Afghan returnees assess the lay of the land

KABUL, Afghanistan, November 19 (UNHCR) – Land and shelter are among the biggest problems facing Afghan refugees returning home after decades in exile. Many never owned land in this mountainous country; others' ancestral homes were occupied in their absence. Yet others have seen their families grow in size over the years and can no longer survive in their place of origin.

In late 2005, the Afghan government started a land allocation scheme for landless returnees and internally displaced people (IDPs). So far, some 300,000 families have applied for land under this scheme, but only 32,586 families have received temporary land ownership deeds. The problems do not cease once they get their plots. Challenges in these townships include a lack of water and basic services such as health and education, as well as a shortage of livelihood opportunities.

The Beneworsik land allocation scheme is a case in point. Located 45 kilometres north-east of Kabul in Parwan province, this township is now home to more than 450 families of returnees and IDPs who used to live in slums in Kabul. Some inhabitants think it offers good opportunities, others complain about the lack of work and have left to become squatters in Kabul. Four of them tell their stories in their own words:

Soorgul, 32, heads a family of eight, including six children. He also owns sheep and chicken at the Beneworsik township.

"I was an IDP for 10 years. I fled from Ghorband in Parwan province to the Shomali Plain to Kabul. We were living in tents in Kabul when the government moved us to Beneworsik. There were about 180 families with us. There was nothing and winter was coming. Life was difficult in the first month. We had to dig trenches to create a bunker to stay warm. One month later, we got emergency one-room shelters. That gave us reason to hope, at least our children had a roof over their heads for a change.

"This year, an Italian NGO [Cesvi] provided 160 shelters for the other families. That gave us work all year. Some families wouldn't move in until the whole house was completed, so they needed to hire people like me for building. I'm hopeful. This plot is allocated for 10,000 families. If 1,000 plots are allocated every year, we'll have jobs for another decade. And as we work, we save money. You must be wondering, how can such a poor family buy and feed our sheep and chicken? It's an investment in case the work runs out. At least we can survive through the winter with this livestock.

"Some people couldn't struggle like us, so they went back to Kabul. I can't have my children begging on the streets. I'm happy to live with the difficulties here, but not to return as a displaced person to Kabul. Here we have land, shelter, a place to bury the dead. This is the solution. The families who went back to Kabul made a mistake. I'm confident they'll come back for a long-term solution."

Khan Agha, 20, lives with his widowed mother, his sister, and his brother's family in three adjacent plots at Beneworsik.

"We were among the first to return from Iran in 2002. We had nothing and stayed in a tent village beside the Kabul stadium. For four or five years, I sold samosas and burgers to staff of the Ministry of Energy and a TB hospital. I made US$20-US$30 a day. My brother was also working. So when we moved to Beneworsik, we had money to build immediately.

"At Beneworsik, I used to run a grocery shop and provide gas from the market. This year I started doing land demarcation and building foundation walls for the Italian shelters. I've also been selected to maintain and repair the 12 water pumps.

"If someone wants to work, there is work. My neighbour is relying on assistance from NGOs. Those who went back to Kabul – some were urbanized in Pakistan or Iran and expected a lot. Some traditionally relied on their women to sell bangles in the streets, and there was no market here. Maybe some didn't have a house before, and didn't know how to do construction. I understand their concerns, but they should stop complaining and waiting for people to come and help them.

"My family has three plots of land here. We just bought another 400-square-metre plot across the street for US$1,000. It's an investment, a good way to spend my savings. When they build a proper road, it'll double in price.

"There are two main problems in Beneworsik. There's no proper school, no regular building or education system like in Kabul, with different classes and separate for boys and girls. There are also no long-term jobs. I'm waiting for the school and electricity projects to start, but what will happen after all this is completed?

"We've just started our lives. I know what is needed to start a township – time, energy, people – it'll be a long journey for us. If I make enough money, I plan to go back to Iran next year with a passport and visa. Not to work, but to be a tourist."

Ahmed Rasul, 28, recently moved his wife and six children from Beneworsik to a tented squatter camp in Kabul's District Eight.

"I lived in Jalozai camp in Pakistan for about 25 years. Three of my children were born there. We decided to return when we heard Afghanistan was now independent and President Karzai announced that all refugees should return and get land. We lived at different sites in Kabul before we were moved to Beneworsik.

"At Beneworsik, it was just a plot of land. There was nothing there. We collected firewood from the mountains nearby. There was the danger of mines. There were no jobs, so the land wasn't useful for us.

"We came back to Kabul in June. Now I work in the fruit market and wash cars. My wife says we have nothing here – no firewood, no charcoal, no blanket. The weather is getting cold. It's difficult, but it's better than Beneworsik. At least I am working and my children are getting bread and charity from the nearby families.

"Of course we are worried about the children's education. I wish I had gone to school. I'm illiterate, that's why I'm facing so many problems. But we have no choice, we have to tolerate the situation.

"My eldest son Rehmanullah washes cars for about 30 Afghanis (60 US cents) per car. The younger ones clean the floor mats. They also beg. Altogether, we make about 250-300 Afghanis a day at best. It's enough to live. In future, if work conditions improve at Beneworsik, we prefer to stay there. Otherwise we'll have to keep moving – spending winter there and summer in Kabul."

Fadal Mohammed, 40, also left Beneworsik for the Kabul tented camp with his wife and five children.

"Beneworsik is better than Kabul – we have clean houses there. The problem is work. We can't afford our daily expenses. That's why we have to come here. Health services at Beneworsik are no good. Last year, my daughter fell sick there. At midnight, I had to get a taxi and spend 2,000 Afghanis to take her to a children's hospital in Kabul. There's a government clinic at Beneworsik, but it has limited medicines and even more limited manpower. For births, we must transfer the women to Kabul.

"In Kabul, the price of commodities is too high. Our daily wage is not enough to cover our needs. The kids go to houses nearby and ask for leftovers. But we can still earn money through winter. We'll probably stay in Kabul till at least December. We can erect walls around the tent to keep warm. While I'm here, I lock my house in Beneworsik. I'm not worried someone will occupy it in my absence – security is good and there's a police post. I just bought some straw to plaster the walls with. I'll go back tomorrow to work on the roof."
By Vivian Tan, In Kabul and Beneworsik, Afghanistan

US seeks help of Indian American doctors in Afghanistan

The Times of India - NRI News - 20 Nov 2008 - NEW YORK

The Bush administration has sought the help of the powerful Indian American doctors' community to help it improve and build the fragile healthcare facilities in Afghanistan. "We are keen to work in Afghanistan," Prasad Srinivasan, secretary of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), said.

Representing some 46,000 physicians of Indian origin in the US, AAPI is one of the largest and most influential ethnic physicians body in the US.

Srinivasan said Assistant Secretary of Health, Admiral Joxel Garcia, had conveyed that the US Department of Health and Human Services would like to engage AAPI in providing health care to the people of Afghanistan.

Indian physicians with their wide-ranging experience and knowledge could provide invaluable service and collaborate in rebuilding the system in Afghanistan, Garcia said.

This is an exciting opportunity for AAPI to get involved with the federal government in a big way, Srinivasan said, adding: "Our services are required in areas like general health, child health, anaesthesia and maternity healthcare."

The US is keen on reducing the high maternal and infant mortality rate in Afghanistan. Garcia requested AAPI to ask Indian American doctors to volunteer in Afghanistan to improve clinical training and care besides offering clinical mentorship to local health professionals.

Srinivasan said Garcia had assured that adequate security would be provided to the doctors who volunteer to go to Afghanistan. Following the request, Srinivasan said this would be discussed within the AAPI leadership and a detailed action plan would be prepared soon.

[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.]