Concern over burns on Afghans caught in battle

KABUL – Afghanistan's leading human rights organization said Sunday it was investigating the possibility that white phosphorus was used in a U.S.-Taliban battle that killed scores of Afghans. The U.S. military rejected speculation it had used the weapon but left open the possibility Taliban militants did.

White phosphorus can be employed legitimately in battle, but rights groups say its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitutes a war crime.

Afghan doctors are concerned over what they are calling "unusual" burns on Afghans wounded in last Monday's battle in Farah province, which President Hamid Karzai has said may have killed 125 to 130 civilians.

Allegations that white phosphorus or another chemical may have been used threatens to deepen the controversy over what Afghan officials say could be the worst case of civilian deaths since the 2001 U.S. invasion that ousted the Taliban regime. The incident in Farah drew the condemnation of Karzai who called for an end to airstrikes.

Nader Nadery, a commissioner for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said officials were concerned white phosphorus may have been used, but he said more investigation was needed.

"Our teams have met with patients," Nadery told The Associated Press. "They are investigating the cause of the injuries and the use of white phosphorus."

White phosphorus is a spontaneously flammable material that can cause painful chemical burns. It is used to mark targets, create smoke screens or as a weapon, and can be delivered by shells, flares or hand grenades, according to GlobalSecurity.org.

Human rights groups denounce its use for the severe burns it causes, though it is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory.

The U.S. military used white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004. Israel's military used it in January against Hamas targets in Gaza.

Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said the U.S. did not use white phosphorus as a weapon in last week's battle. The U.S. does use white phosphorous to illuminate the night sky, he said.

Julian noted that military officials believe that Taliban militants have used white phosphorus at least four times in Afghanistan in the past two years. "I don't know if they (militants) had it out there or not, but it's not out of the question," he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban could not be reached for comment Sunday.

The U.S. military on Saturday said that Afghan doctors in Farah told American officials that the injuries seen in wounded Afghans from two villages in the province's Bala Baluk district could have resulted from hand grenades or exploding propane tanks.

Dr. Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of the burn unit at the Herat Regional Hospital in western Afghanistan who has treated five patients wounded in the battle, described the burns as "unusual."

"I think it's the result of a chemical used in a bomb, but I'm not sure what kind of chemical. But if it was a result of a burning house — from petrol or gas cylinders — that kind of burn would look different," he said.

Gul Ahmad Ayubi, the deputy head of Farah's health department, said the province's main hospital had received 14 patients after the battle, all with burn wounds.

"There has been other airstrikes in Farah in the past. We had injuries from those battles, but this is the first time we have seen such burns on the bodies. I'm not sure what kind of bomb it was," he said.

U.N. human rights investigators have also seen "extensive" burn wounds on victims and have raised questions about how the injuries were caused, said a U.N. official who asked not to be identified talking about internal deliberations. The U.N. has reached no conclusions about whether any chemical weapons may have been used, the official said.

Afghan officials say up to 147 people may have died in the battle in Farah, though the U.S. says that number is exaggerated.

The U.S. on Saturday blamed Taliban militants for causing the deaths by using villagers as human shields in the hopes they would be killed. A preliminary U.S. report did not say how many people died in the battle.

The investigation into the Farah battle coincides with an appeal by Human Rights Watch for NATO forces to release results of an investigation into a March 14 incident in which an 8-year-old Afghan girl was burned by white phosphorus munitions in Kapisa province.

The New York-based group said Saturday white phosphorus "causes horrendous burns and should not be used in civilian areas."

Revitalise transitional justice system - UN human rights commissioner

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the international community involved in Afghanistan must recommit to the Action Plan for Peace, Reconciliation and Justice (APPRJ) - known as transitional justice - which is expected to address crimes committed in the past three decades in the war-torn country, said the UN high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour.

At the end of her week-long visit to Afghanistan, Arbour told IRIN it was time to renew the already missed deadlines for APPRJ targets, set two years ago.

“It is unthinkable to expect a full implementation of this whole document [transitional justice] within three years. It should be recommitted and renewed,” Arbour said.

Backed by the UN and several other international actors, the government and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) set an ambitious three-year agenda for the implementation of transitional justice in late 2005.

The APPRJ calls for the documentation of past crimes, the identification of alleged criminals, compensation to victim families, remembrance of all victims and prosecution of human rights violators.

Almost two years later, however, the AIHRC says the transitional justice project has been a “complete failure” due to various problems - mainly lack of political commitment and support.

Reiterating the AIHRC’s concerns, Arbour said: “I am very disappointed at the lack of progress in implementing the commitments made by the government and supported by the international community under the APPRJ.”

Need to broaden national debate about transitional justice

Whilst the UN and the AIHRC confirm there has been a lack of progress in all aspects of APPRJ, Arbour criticised concentration only on the prosecution of alleged criminals “some of whom continue to hold high positions”.

“Transitional justice is a multi-faceted process, which focuses on the needs of the victims - for truth, for compensation, for rehabilitation - as well as on the punishment of the perpetrator,” Arbour told journalists in Kabul on 20 November.

Afghanistan should re-energise and broaden its national debate about transitional justice, she added.

The UN top human rights official, meanwhile, called on the world body and the wider international community to provide better support and assistance to the Afghan government in the implementation of transitional justice.

“There is a sense that there is not a strong commitment very much from the international community and other actors to follow the implementation of transitional justice,” she said.

Women under attack in Iraq, Afghanistan

Women are facing increasing violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, especially when they speak out publicly to defend women's rights, a senior U.N. official told the U.N. Security Council.

Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women, called on for fresh efforts to ensure the safety of women in countries emerging from conflicts, to provide them with jobs, and ensure that they receive justice, including compensation for rape.

"What UNIFEM is seeing on the ground — in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia — is that public space for women in these situations is shrinking," Heyzer said Thursday. "Women are becoming assassination targets when they dare defend women's rights in public decision-making."

Heyzer spoke at a daylong open council meeting on implementation of a 2000 resolution that called for women to be included in decision-making positions at every level of striking and building on peace deals. It also called for the prosecution of crimes against women and increased protection of women and girls during war.

Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said that, in the past year, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first woman head of state in Africa, Liberia adopted an anti-rape law, women in Sierra Leone pushed for laws on human trafficking, inheritance and property rights and women in East Timor submitted a draft domestic violence bill to parliament.

Despite these positive developments, he said, women face widespread insecurity and in many societies violence is still used as a tool to control and regulate the actions of women and girls seeking to rebuild their homes and communities.

"In Afghanistan, attacks on school establishments put the lives of girls at risk when they attempt to exercise their basic rights to education," Guehenno said. "Women and girls are raped when they go out to fetch firewood in Darfur. In Liberia, over 40 percent of women and girls surveyed have been victims of sexual violence. In the eastern Congo, over 12,000 rapes of women and girls have been reported in the last six months alone."

Assistant Secretary-General Rachel Mayanja, the U.N. special adviser on women's issues, said that from Congo and Sudan to Somalia and East Timor, she said, "women continue to be exposed to violence or targeted by parties to the conflict ... lacking the basic means of survival and health care."

At the same time, Mayanja said, they remain "underrepresented in decision-making, particularly on war and peace issues."

Assistant Secretary-General Carolyn McAskie, who is in charge of supporting the new U.N. Peacebuilding Commission which was established this year to help countries emerging from conflict, said her office will try to ensure that "space is created for women's active participation in political, economic and social life."

"We cannot ignore the voices of the women from the time we broker peace onwards," McAskie said. "Peacemaking is not just an exercise involving combatants, it must involve all of society, and that means women."

At the end of the meeting, the council said it "remains deeply concerned by the pervasiveness of all forms of violence against women in armed conflicts." and reiterated its strong condemnation of all acts of sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeeping personnel.

Allegations of sexual abuse have also been reported in peacekeeping missions in Congo, Bosnia, Kosovo, Cambodia, East Timor and West Africa.

U.S. war prisons legal vacuum for 14,000

In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.

"It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release — without charge — last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.

Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross.

Defenders of the system, which has only grown since soldiers' photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action.

Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq.

But dozens of ex-detainees, government ministers, lawmakers, human rights activists, lawyers and scholars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States said the detention system often is unjust and hurts the war on terror by inflaming anti-Americanism in Iraq and elsewhere.

Building for the Long Term

Reports of extreme physical and mental abuse, symbolized by the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photos of 2004, have abated as the Pentagon has rejected torture-like treatment of the inmates. Most recently, on Sept. 6, the Pentagon issued a new interrogation manual banning forced nakedness, hooding, stress positions and other abusive techniques.

The same day, President Bush said the CIA's secret outposts in the prison network had been emptied, and 14 terror suspects from them sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial in military tribunals. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the tribunal system, however, and the White House and Congress are now wrestling over the legal structure of such trials.

Living conditions for detainees may be improving as well. The U.S. military cites the toilets of Bagram, Afghanistan: In a cavernous old building at that air base, hundreds of detainees in their communal cages now have indoor plumbing and privacy screens, instead of exposed chamber pots.

Whatever the progress, small or significant, grim realities persist.

Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons — unknown in number and location — remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn't cover CIA interrogators. And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law's oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned.

"If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York. "You can't have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there."

The U.S. government has contended it can hold detainees until the "war on terror" ends — as it determines.

"I don't think we've gotten to the question of how long," said retired admiral John D. Hutson, former top lawyer for the U.S. Navy. "When we get up to 'forever,' I think it will be tested" in court, he said.

The Navy is planning long-term at Guantanamo. This fall it expects to open a new, $30-million maximum-security wing at its prison complex there, a concrete-and-steel structure replacing more temporary camps.

In Iraq, Army jailers are a step ahead. Last month they opened a $60-million, state-of-the-art detention center at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad's airport. The Army oversees about 13,000 prisoners in Iraq at Cropper, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Neither prisoners of war nor criminal defendants, they are just "security detainees" held "for imperative reasons of security," spokesman Curry said, using language from an annex to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the U.S. presence here.

Questions of Law, Sovereignty

President Bush laid out the U.S. position in a speech Sept. 6.

"These are enemy combatants who are waging war on our nation," he said. "We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle."

But others say there's no need to hold these thousands outside of the rules for prisoners of war established by the Geneva Conventions.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared last March that the extent of arbitrary detention here is "not consistent with provisions of international law governing internment on imperative reasons of security."

Meanwhile, officials of Nouri al-Maliki's 4-month-old Iraqi government say the U.S. detention system violates Iraq's national rights.

"As long as sovereignty has transferred to Iraqi hands, the Americans have no right to detain any Iraqi person," said Fadhil al-Sharaa, an aide to the prime minister. "The detention should be conducted only with the permission of the Iraqi judiciary."

At the Justice Ministry, Deputy Minister Busho Ibrahim told AP it has been "a daily request" that the detainees be brought under Iraqi authority.

There's no guarantee the Americans' 13,000 detainees would fare better under control of the Iraqi government, which U.N. officials say holds 15,000 prisoners.

But little has changed because of these requests. When the Americans formally turned over Abu Ghraib prison to Iraqi control on Sept. 2, it was empty but its 3,000 prisoners remained in U.S. custody, shifted to Camp Cropper.

Life in Custody

The cases of U.S.-detained Iraqis are reviewed by a committee of U.S. military and Iraqi government officials. The panel recommends criminal charges against some, release for others. As of Sept. 9, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq had put 1,445 on trial, convicting 1,252. In the last week of August, for example, 38 were sentenced on charges ranging from illegal weapons possession to murder, for the shooting of a U.S. Marine.

Almost 18,700 have been released since June 2004, the U.S. command says, not including many more who were held and then freed by local military units and never shipped to major prisons.

Some who were released, no longer considered a threat, later joined or rejoined the insurgency.

The review process is too slow, say U.N. officials. Until they are released, often families don't know where their men are — the prisoners are usually men — or even whether they're in American hands.

Ex-detainee Mouayad Yasin Hassan, 31, seized in April 2004 as a suspected Sunni Muslim insurgent, said he wasn't allowed to obtain a lawyer or contact his family during 13 months at Abu Ghraib and Bucca, where he was interrogated incessantly. When he asked why he was in prison, he said, the answer was, "We keep you for security reasons."

Another released prisoner, Waleed Abdul Karim, 26, recounted how his guards would wield their absolute authority.

"Tell us about the ones who attack Americans in your neighborhood," he quoted an interrogator as saying, "or I will keep you in prison for another 50 years."

As with others, Karim's confinement may simply have strengthened support for the anti-U.S. resistance. "I will hate Americans for the rest of my life," he said.

As bleak and hidden as the Iraq lockups are, the Afghan situation is even less known. Accounts of abuse and deaths emerged in 2002-2004, but if Abu Ghraib-like photos from Bagram exist, none have leaked out. The U.S. military is believed holding about 500 detainees — most Afghans, but also apparently Arabs, Pakistanis and Central Asians.

The United States plans to cede control of its Afghan detainees by early next year, five years after invading Afghanistan to eliminate al-Qaida's base and bring down the Taliban government. Meanwhile, the prisoners of Bagram exist in a legal vacuum like that elsewhere in the U.S. detention network.

"There's been a silence about Bagram, and much less political discussion about it," said Richard Bennett, chief U.N. human rights officer in Afghanistan.

Freed detainees tell how in cages of 16 inmates they are forbidden to speak to each other. They wear the same orange jumpsuits and shaven heads as the terrorist suspects at Guantanamo, but lack even the scant legal rights granted inmates at that Cuba base. In some cases, they have been held without charge for three to four years, rights workers say.

Guantanamo received its first prisoners from Afghanistan — chained, wearing blacked-out goggles — in January 2002. A total of 770 detainees were sent there. Its population today of Afghans, Arabs and others, stands at 455.

Described as the most dangerous of America's "war on terror" prisoners, only 10 of the Guantanamo inmates have been charged with crimes. Charges are expected against 14 other al-Qaida suspects flown in to Guantanamo from secret prisons on Sept. 4.

Plans for their trials are on hold, however, because of a Supreme Court ruling in June against the Bush administration's plan for military tribunals.

The court held the tribunals were not authorized by the U.S. Congress and violated the Geneva Conventions by abrogating prisoners' rights. In a sometimes contentious debate, the White House and Congress are trying to agree on a new, acceptable trial plan.

Since the court decision, and after four years of confusing claims that terrorist suspects were so-called "unlawful combatants" unprotected by international law, the Bush administration has taken steps recognizing that the Geneva Conventions' legal and human rights do extend to imprisoned al-Qaida militants. At the same time, however, the new White House proposal on tribunals retains such controversial features as denying defendants access to some evidence against them.

In his Sept. 6 speech, Bush acknowledged for the first time the existence of the CIA's secret prisons, believed established at military bases or safehouses in such places as Egypt, Indonesia and eastern Europe. That network, uncovered by journalists, had been condemned by U.N. authorities and investigated by the Council of Europe.

The clandestine jails are now empty, Bush announced, but will remain a future option for CIA detentions and interrogation.

Louise Arbour, U.N. human rights chief, is urging Bush to abolish the CIA prisons altogether, as ripe for "abusive conduct." The CIA's techniques for extracting information from prisoners still remain secret, she noted.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government's willingness to resort to "extraordinary rendition," transferring suspects to other nations where they might be tortured, appears unchanged.

Prosecutions and Memories

The exposure of sadistic abuse, torture and death at Abu Ghraib two years ago touched off a flood of courts-martial of mostly lower-ranking U.S. soldiers. Overall, about 800 investigations of alleged detainee mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to action against more than 250 service personnel, including 89 convicted at courts-martial, U.S. diplomats told the United Nations in May.

Critics protest that penalties have been too soft and too little has been done, particularly in tracing inhumane interrogation methods from the far-flung islands of the overseas prison system back to policies set by high-ranking officials.

In only 14 of 34 cases has anyone been punished for the confirmed or suspected killings of detainees, the New York-based Human Rights First reports. The stiffest sentence in a torture-related death has been five months in jail. The group reported last February that in almost half of 98 detainee deaths, the cause was either never announced or reported as undetermined.

Looking back, the United States overreacted in its treatment of detainees after Sept. 11, said Anne-Marie Slaughter, a noted American scholar of international law.

It was understandable, the Princeton University dean said, but now "we have to restore a balance between security and rights that is consistent with who we are and consistent with our security needs."

Otherwise, she said, "history will look back and say that we took a dangerous and deeply wrong turn."

Back here in Baghdad, at the Alawi bus station, a gritty, noisy hub far from the meeting rooms of Washington and Geneva, women gather with fading hopes whenever a new prisoner release is announced.

As she watched one recent day for a bus from distant Camp Bucca, one mother wept and told her story.

"The Americans arrested my son, my brother and his friend," said Zahraa Alyat, 42. "The Americans arrested them October 16, 2005. They left together and I don't know anything about them."

The bus pulled up. A few dozen men stepped off, some blindfolded, some bound, none with any luggage, none with familiar faces.

As the distraught women straggled away once more, one ex-prisoner, 18-year-old Bilal Kadhim Muhssin, spotted U.S. troops nearby.

"Americans," he muttered in fear. "Oh, my God, don't say that name," and he bolted for a city bus, and freedom.

The battle for human rights: In the shadow of the Taliban

The Independent Online - No place has been more synonymous with oppression of women in recent history than Afghanistan under the Taliban, and nowhere was the abuse more brutal than in Kandahar, the birthplace of the country's Islamist zealotry.

Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a report published yesterday by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission presents a catalogue of continuing and widespread mistreatment of women including rape, murder and forced marriages leading to suicides.

There were 230 cases of self immolation. More than 38 per cent of the women interviewed said they were forced to marry against their will and 50 per cent said they were unhappy with their marriage because of domestic abuse. The figures are consistently higher in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan than the rest of the country. Official acquiescence to reactionary social forces and a resurgent Taliban has meant that many of the hard-won gains made towards equality are now at risk.

While voter registration nationally was 42 per cent in last year's elections, in Kandahar it barely reached 20 per cent, with figures even worse in rural areas of the region. Islamists distributed postcards at polling stations of women being beaten along with severed hands of thieves and the destroyed statue of Buddha at Bamiyan.

Today it is still impossible to find women not covered by burqas, the symbol of Taliban gender domination, on the streets of Afghanistan's second city. And many women have to hide the fact that they work from their neighbours for fear of insults, or worse. The reinvigorated Taliban burn schools and behead teachers for daring to offer education to girls. Judges steeped in decades of the most conservative form of Sharia law routinely send women and girls to prison for disobeying their father's choice in marriage, or deserting violent husbands. Rape victims end up facing charges of adultery.

To commemorate International Women's Day today, President Hamid Karzai has ordered the release of women prisoners serving short sentences in an attempt to rectify this injustice.

Despite all this stacked against them, the women of Kandahar are fighting back. Girls attend classes where they can and working-class women go to workshops behind the back of male members of the family. Increasingly, women are also turning to the same legal system used to punish them to argue forcefully that the law has been subverted and to demand their rights.

They are encouraged in this by Commander Malalai Kakar, Kandahar's most senior female police officer who leads a team of 10 female officers focusing on women's issues. Commander Kakar has led raids to free wives and daughters held captive by families, and her office has become a refuge for women being threatened and mistreated.

"I have been accused of being rough with husbands who beat up their wives, and I admit this has happened at times. I had become angry," she said. "But what we try to do is apply the law in the right way and the constitution is supposed to protect women's rights."

Commander Kakar, 38, cooks breakfast for her husband ("I recently got him a job in a construction company" ) and six children before going to work. She was a police officer under Afghanistan's successive leftist governments before the Taliban came to power. Like other women she was confined to the house under Islamist rule, fleeing to Pakistan after hearing that they were trying to track her down. "I have been wearing the burqa at work until only eight months ago, I decided then that I must make a decision on this. I have been using the media to tell women about their rights, so I felt that I should make a gesture. I think my male colleagues were quite curious to see what I looked like. I have to say that I have not had any discrimination from them."

One girl who came to ask for her help was Rosina, 18. Her father had in effect sold her to a man in his fifties for marriage and she fled the house when he beat her for refusing to go through with the ceremony.

"I am never going back to get married to that man, never," she said, drawing her scarf across her face. "My father and brother beat me badly with sticks when I refused. They can send me to jail but I am not marrying him." The police will try to negotiate with her family. The problems start when that fails. There are no women's refuges, and Rosina may well find herself at the mercy of a spiteful male judge.

Captain Jamilla Mujahid Barzai, 35, also left the police when the Taliban came to power, but was, she said, persuaded to go back to work after they arrested her brother and beat him up. She left after witnessing the public execution of a woman in Kabul's football stadium, a judicial killing which was filmed and shown later around the world as an example of Taliban savagery.

"I knew the prisoner, her name was Zarmina and she was convicted by the court of killing her husband. I shall never, ever forget the way she died," said Capt Barzai. "They made her kneel on the ground in the stadium, in front of all those people and then a man in sunglasses came and shot her in the head.

"Zarmina had twins in prison, they were six months old. Her husband's brother came and took them away. There was nothing I could do. So I left the police. I know there are mistakes made now, but one cannot believe what went on in that time of night. I think women should join political life to stop things like that happening again."

Two of Asma Kakar's aunts have done just that and have been elected to the provincial and national assemblies. The 17-year-old student wants to be a doctor, and, unusually in a traditional Pashtun society, her parents have agreed to let her go alone to study at an university in India if she succeeds in getting admission. "I know things have improved since Taliban times but there are still lots of restrictions that I don't like," said Ms Kakar, who was attending a computer course run by the Afghan Development Association (ADA).

"Women still cannot go out much, we still have to wear the burqa when we go out. We cannot even go for a picnic. But I know I am lucky, I have got no money worries. And I can get away from here, at least for a while, if I get the right grades."

Economic problems have followed the loosening of social strictures for many women. They are now allowed to work, albeit sometimes grudgingly, but with high male unemployment they are often the main breadwinners at a time of rapidly rising prices.

Sadia Kamrani, 23, works at the Ministry of Social Works and her $150 (Ł86) a month is the only income for her extended family apart from the infrequent earnings of her father-in-law. "I cannot have a baby. I have a problem which needs an operation, but I have not got the money for it," she said. "My husband is unemployed and I am supporting him. But I also know he will divorce me if I do not have a baby."

Ms Kamrani's family fled to Iran at the start of the civil war and returned to Afghanistan two years ago. "They say that Iran is a conservative country, but we did not have to wear that there," she said, pointing at her brown burqa hanging from a hook on the door. "The first few weeks I had to wear the burqa I kept on falling down because I could not see where I was going, and hurt myself badly. I do not like wearing it and I do not know any woman who does, but we are forced to.

"A lot of people also don't like women going to work. So we have to take different routes, otherwise I will get problems ... Every day there is shooting. This is again something we never had to face in Iran."

Sherifa Popal, 30, a seamstress from a poor part of Kandahar, who has six children, also got involved in the election process, firstly going to courses and then training a team of 42, including 11 men, in supervising the polls.

But now she is out of work and, with an ill husband, has to be the provider for the family. "I went to school up to grade 10, but then we had the civil war and the Taliban and my education stopped. I have been involved in civic education and the elections, and I have also run sewing classes," she said. "Now all the government departments are short of money for projects and I have no work. The only money I am making is by making some clothes at home. It is not enough, Kandahar has become very expensive.

"But one cannot forget how bad things were under the Taliban. We were captives in our homes and we cannot let those times return."

One of the projects still working are sewing classes run by the ADA. Naseema Ali, an instructor, recalled the Taliban days was when her husband, Nour, had to shut down his clothes shop because the mullahs decreed that a man should not sell women's clothes, even the shapeless burqas. "The girls I am teaching will leave as tailors and have some way to support themselves."

One gets a glimpse of just how much the odds are stacked against girls like her at the cemetery of "Arab martyrs", al-Qa'ida fighters who died in the last war, in the outskirts of the city. The graveyard has become a shrine with reputed healing powers and a place of pilgrimage from Pakistan and Iran as well as all over Afghanistan and thousands congregate every week. Westerners are not welcome and for those who do come the views about infidels and women have not changed from Taliban times.

"All my friends come here, these martyrs are examples to us all. Because of the corrupt Karzai government we now have all kinds of evils," said Bari Ali Ahmed, 25. "We have alcohol, and women ... are flaunting themselves in public rather than being protected by staying at home. All this will change."

Afghan business thrives on Iran's border

When Hajji Zekrullah Ahmadyar drives out of Herat, he witnesses an urban tableau that is in many ways atypical of modern Afghanistan.

Mr. Ahmadyar navigates over smooth asphalt as the car passes this city's broad, clean-swept avenues. He soon reaches some 70 factories fed by 24-hour power. When he arrives at his own mineral-water bottling company, he strolls to the new plant he is building. Business is good, he says, so he is expanding his operations.

In many places, paved roads, clean sidewalks, constant power, and relative security would be considered modest achievements. But in Afghanistan, they make Herat a model for what the country could someday become. The city is a window on how Afghan entrepreneurism can take hold when given the time and security to flourish – and what role Afghanistan's neighbors can play in helping to create these conditions.

Yet Herat's culture is still unique among Afghan cities. Its success is a blend of geography and good business sense, each intertwined with this city's vaunted history as the Silk Road's gateway to Central Asia.

Where once spices and camels found passage through this parched desert outpost, now cars and televisions from the Middle East are taxed in its customs houses, generating the wealth for what one expert calls the Dubai of Afghanistan.

"This is the culture of the people of Herat, and this is the positive influence of Iran," says Mohammed Rafiq Shahir, president of the Council of Professionals, a group of analysts and businesspeople here.

In contrast with Pakistani border areas, which have been overrun by the Taliban, Herat – just 75 miles from the Iranian border – has flourished with the help of Iran, one of the Karzai government's strongest supporters. In Herat, for example, Iran has linked the city to the Iranian power grid and built a highway to the border.

More important, the border areas have been largely peaceful, allowing Herat to concentrate on what it does best: business. Since 2001, Herat has attracted $350 million in private investment for industry – more than any other Afghan city, including Kabul, which is some 10 times larger. In total, 250 medium- and large-scale factories have been built in Herat, according to the Afghan Investment Support Agency. The northern city of Mazar-e Sharif comes second with 100 fewer.

It is a legacy of Herat's location. As a trading hub for more than a millennium, Herat has always had money. By some estimates, the money collected at customs houses in Herat is Afghanistan's largest source of revenue, bringing in $1 million a day in duties on goods imported from Iran and Turkmenistan.

Successive administrations – from the Communists to the Taliban to the Karzai government – have sought to take their share. But strong local warlords and diffuse national authority have kept much of it here.

In the shade of Khorasan Street, beneath tarps strung from second-floor windows to offer relief from the desert sun, Herati shopkeepers say they are eager for Afghan-made products. Among the multicolored boxes and bottles that look like a rainbow avalanche of soaps, shampoos, and cookie wrappers, merchants say many of the goods were made locally.

"Compared with the past, we have fewer things from Iran and we have more things from Afghanistan," says Abdul Qader, a shopkeeper.

It is a sign that Herat has used its business acumen to stand on its own, says Gov. Syed Hossein Anwari. "Different parts of Afghanistan have different talents," he says, adding that what sets Herat apart is its creativity. "If I explain the success of Herat to other governors, I tell them that it is the people," he says.

Neighbors have collected money among themselves to pay to have their streets paved, taking bids from Afghan and Iranian contractors. The city's streets are relatively free of garbage. It is the culture of independence and pride drawn from Herat's legacy as a leading city of Khorasan, the ancient Persian homeland whose remnants still resonate from the blue-tiled mosques and minarets of Herat, says the governor. To others, however, it is merely the fresh expectations that have come with a prosperity unique in Afghanistan.

"It is possible if we speak of the culture of Herat, we are speaking of a culture that demands more," says Mr. Shahir.

With such wealth at hand, Herat has become Afghanistan's finishing school for entrepreneurs. "As our elders always said, 'When a Herati is born, a businessman is born,' " says Ahmadyar, the mineral water entrepreneur.

Though he was the youngest son of his family, Ahmadyar never had any notions of becoming anything other than a businessman. "I was not making castles in the sky," he says. "I was thinking I would make the business of the family."

That meant importing cigarettes from Bulgaria. And so he did for a time. But the new regime has brought new opportunities. "Since 2003, when the government of Afghanistan was established, the Herati people have started to focus more on industry – before that, we were just involved in trade," Ahmadyar says.

He now is involved in construction – Afghanistan's largest legal industry – and when the government offered land in a new Herat business park tax-free for five years, he saw another opportunity. He didn't even know what he would do – perhaps make soda. But a lab test of the water showed it was so pure that he decided to open a mineral-water business.

So far, he has invested $600,000 in Zalal water, and it is profitable, he says. With his new facilities coming on line, he might consider starting a soda brand, after all.

Afghanistan to gain debt relief

BBC News - Afghanistan has made sufficient steps in improving its economy to qualify for debt relief, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have said. Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, Afghanistan will now have its net public and private debt payments cut by 51%.

The World Bank said that the move would free up extra funds for healthcare, education and other essential services.

Afghanistan's total overseas debt stood at $11.9bn (Ł5.9bn) last year.

"Afghanistan's authorities are building a credible track record for implementing economic governance reforms," said the World Bank's director for the country, Alastair McKechnie.

"Debt relief will support national reformers to sustain and deepen this record."

Afghanistan becomes the 31st country to quality for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. Most of the others are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Coca Cola returns to Afghanistan

BBC News - More than a decade after the Coca Cola bottling plant in Afghanistan was ravaged by artillery fire, the company is back with a gleaming new facility in capital, Kabul.

The new bottling plant in the Bagrami Industrial area of Kabul has been set up with $25m, creating jobs for 350 people on a 60,000 square metre site.

Inaugurating the state-of-the-art plant on Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the investment was "an important step forward for economic growth, self-sufficiency and better future of Afghanistan".

But many Kabul residents disagree with the president.

The Associated Press news agency quoted Jomaa Gul, whose father worked in the bombed-out old Coke plant, as saying, "What Afghanistan needs now is investment not to make soft drinks, but for new hospitals and to end the violence."

Easy target

Mr Gul who lives in the ruins of the old plant says, "We have no running water, no electricity and no sanitation. Hospitals and security are more worthy investments for $25m than a soft drink plant."

Although the administration is upbeat about the plant and hopes that other foreign investors will follow Coke into Afghanistan, many admit that the plant could become an easy target for the Taleban militants fighting the US-supported Karzai government.

Violence has been increasing in recent months. A car bomb in Kabul last Friday killed 16 people.

"Knowing the image worldwide of Coca Cola as an American icon, we told our local partner that you may be noticed more now than before," Coke's Turkey-based regional manager Selcuk Erden told AP.

'Bright future'

The facility's owner, wealthy Dubai-based Afghan businessman Habibullah Gulzar, says he is aware of the dangers.

"There is a security problem, I cannot hide that, but the future is bright," Mr Gulzar told AP.

"My first priority is how we can build up the skill of the people, because once the employment comes to the country and there is economic growth, peace and security will follow," he said.

The facility, which can produce 15 million, 24-bottle cases of the soft drink annually, will initially produce Coke's three most popular brands - Coca Cola, Fanta and Sprite - for the Afghan market.

IMF approves $119 million loan for Afghanistan

Reuters - The International Monetary Fund on Monday approved a loan arrangement of about $119 million for Afghanistan to help fight poverty.

Afghanistan will receive an initial disbursement of $19 million under the three-year Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), the IMF said in a statement.

The PRGF, the IMF's concessional lending facility for poor countries, is designed to support Afghanistan's economic program through March 2009, the IMF said.

The IMF hailed Afghanistan's economic performance, citing rapid growth and declining inflation. It also noted the government in Kabul had implemented key structural reforms in fiscal and monetary policy.

"These achievements, carried out in an extremely challenging environment characterized by lingering insecurity, poor infrastructure, and weak institutions, have paved the way for a comprehensive three-year reform program to be supported by a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility arrangement from the Fund," said IMF Chairman Agustin Carstens.

Afghanistan has the assets to regain momentum

There is an emerging consensus, domestic and international, that Afghanistan is likely to slide into chaos. This misses the central point: there are assets in place that, if organised coherently, could re-establish momentum towards creating a stable, prosperous and democratic Afghanistan. If failure is not an option for the international community, attention must be focused on renewing Afghans’ trust in a bright future to make them active partners in the fight against violence and disorder.

The problem has arisen from failure to adapt to a changed context, loss of momentum in pursuing a credible programme of development and mis-calibrated use of violence. In contrast to 2001, when there was a global consensus on the imperative of stability in Afghanistan, the regional, international and domestic environments have changed. The regional consensus has either frayed or broken, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trading accusations rather than forging the partnership that their mutual interests demand, and Russia, Iran and India sending mixed signals and taking increasingly unilateral approaches. While international consensus on state-building has been forged, the innovative mechanisms of implementation, co-ordination and monitoring required are not yet in place. Meanwhile, the public mood in troop-contributing nations is becoming sceptical of the wisdom of engagement.

Between 2001 and 2005 progress was made towards establishing a legitimate central government that gradually earned the people’s trust. Now the government seems to have lost momentum. It has yet to forge a consensus around an agenda for dealing with current challenges or to build the institutions that can deliver rule of law, security and economic development. The aid system, instead of building the government’s capability, has created a parallel bureaucracy that has forced a brain drain from the government and fuelled the resentment of the population and underpaid civil servants.

While most Afghans suffer immense poverty, a small elite of traffickers and profiteers has amassed fortunes and is corroding the state’s authority. Using the scepticism of the population as an opening, the networks of terror have moved in aggressively. The two theatres of Afghanistan and Iraq are now increasingly co-ordinated with a repertoire of common tactics. But the violence used to control terror is in turn feeding the people’s sense of insecurity.

These negative trends can be arrested. There are assets that can be marshalled. A series of national programmes has been implemented, demonstrating Afghans’ leadership and management capability. Monetary and fiscal reforms were carried out. ­Regulation has been used to secure more than $500m in private sector investment in the telecommunications sector and secure service delivery by the private sector to the population. A medium-term programme of public investments that would generate ­sufficient domestic revenue to provide the financial basis of governance has been prepared. With rising commodity prices, Afghanistan’s deposits of ­copper, iron, marble and coal could make it a significant regional player. Nato’s first deployment outside Europe should leave no doubt about international support.

A new approach requires avoiding obvious traps. Afghanistan and its partners must not perpetuate a blame game; no one participant can solve the problem alone. Neither can they afford to wait, letting the worst happen before taking matters in hand. The temptation of privatising security – whether through militias or private security firms – must be resisted as it would only worsen trust in the rule of law by unleashing unregulated daily violence.

What are the elements of a strategy? Hamid Karzai, president, and his government have a choice: act decisively and become founding fathers of a dignified nation or go down as those who squandered a golden chance. They must show commitment to rule of law and accountability. First, they must establish a supreme court that is a model of independence. Second, they must confront corruption through a commission of Afghan and international people who could investigate allegations at the highest levels and impose sanctions. Third, they must pursue good governance. Fourth, they must build equality of opportunity for the young generation. Fifth, security strategy must be overhauled.

Regional support must be renewed: in particular, Pakistan should be persuaded that stability in Afghanistan provides the basis of its own stability and prosperity. The imbalance between military and developmental expenditure by the international community needs to be redressed, with new mechanisms that would reinvigorate the Afghans’ energies for reconstructing their country. As the key to prosperity lies in regional trade and investment, the Gulf countries could play an important role. While use of force is going to be required, it must be placed within a comprehensive strategy of state-building. The anti-drugs strategy must be revisited to ensure it is aligned with the overall objective.

Contrary to stereotypes, Afghans welcomed the International Security Assistance Force and the coalition with open arms in 2001. With the right measures, this goodwill can and must be regained. Their government and their international partners should have the wisdom, commitment and staying power to deliver solutions rather than yield to self-fulfilling prophecies.

The writer, chancellor of Kabul University, is former finance minister of Afghanistan

Afghan parliament passes budget

KABUL (The News) - The Afghan parliament approved its first national budget on Saturday after allowing for a pay hike for civil servants that had delayed its passage by a fortnight, officials said.

The parliament rejected the budget two weeks ago saying it did not go far enough to improve civil servant salaries, which start at around $60 a month.

But cuts in certain areas approved on Saturday would allow the government to raise civil servant salaries by 300 Afghani, or six dollars, said a spokesman for the parliament secretariat, Haseeb Noori.

There are around 325,000 civil servants in Afghanistan, excluding those in the military, state-owed enterprises and municipality.

The budget also provides for a two-dollar rise in the state grant to people disabled in the country’s decades of war. The money for the rises was found after spending was cut from other areas, including around four million dollars from the public works and the president’s office, 1.5 million from defence and 1.2 million from education, Noori said.

This meant the ordinary budget remained unchanged at about $800 million. A separate development budget amounted to around $1.2 billion.

Around two-thirds of Afghanistan’s budget comes from international donors, many of whom channel billions of dollars more spent on development and security outside the national budget.

The parliament was inaugurated in December after the first general elections in war ravaged Afghanistan in three decades.

Illiteracy undermines Afghan army

KABUL – Afghan army recruit Shahidullah Ahmadi can't read — and neither can nine out of 10 soldiers in the Afghan National Army.

The lack of education points to a basic challenge for the United States, as it tries to expand the Afghan army in the hopes that U.S. and allied forces can one day withdraw. Just as in Iraq — and perhaps even more so — the U.S. is finding it no small task to recruit, train and equip a force that is large and competent enough to operate successfully on its own.

"I face difficulties. If someone calls me and tells me to go somewhere, I can't read the street signs," Ahmadi, 27, a member of a logistics battalion, said while walking through downtown Kabul. "In our basic training, we learned a lot. Some of my colleagues who can read and write can take notes, but I've forgotten a lot of things, the types of things that might be able to save my life."

The Associated Press interviewed recruits and visited a training center to gain a better understanding of the obstacles toward eventually handing over responsibility of security to the Afghan army so that international troops can go home.

The speed with which NATO trains and equips more Afghan security forces has become an issue in the United States, Europe and Canada as governments decide whether to commit more deeply to a war that is losing public support.

Carl Levin, the leading Senate Democrat on military issues, said Friday that he wants heightened training of Afghan armed forces before sending more American combat troops. Levin urged the Obama administration to expand Afghan forces to 240,000 troops and Afghan police to 160,000 officers by 2013.

Current plans call for boosting the army from 92,000 soldiers to 134,000 by late 2011. U.S. officials say the combined army and police forces need to increase to about 400,000 by 2014.

"It's absolutely essential that over time Afghanistan assumes responsibility for its own security, and combat troops draw down," said Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy for the region. "The current force levels of police and army are clearly going to have to be increased."

Violence in Afghanistan has already soared to record levels, requiring more troops to secure wide stretches of countryside. U.S. and NATO troops can clear areas of Taliban fighters, but they need Afghan soldiers to make sure the militants don't return.

The rapid expansion of the army, however, has already raised questions about whether Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, can sustain a force of that size, as well as maintain discipline and ethnic balance in the ranks. It is likely that the cost of training, equipping and sustaining Afghan forces at a level big enough to maintain security will primarily fall on U.S. taxpayers for years to come.

In Iraq, the U.S. disbanded Saddam Hussein's army in 2003, but six years later has still not managed to create a force capable of operating without American logistical, technical, intelligence and other support. And in Iraq, the U.S. was able to tap resources unavailable in Afghanistan, including a pool of retired military officers and one of the Arab world's most literate populations.

Polls show that the army is the most trusted Afghan institution, a testament to the relative success it has had, especially compared with the police, who are widely derided as corrupt. But about 90 percent of those deciding to join the army are illiterate, according to U.S. military officers involved in the training.

That's higher than the 75 percent national illiteracy rate, because military recruits come from lower classes where few know how to read.

The lack of basic reading skills slows down progress in an already short 10-week training course. It means soldiers cannot use maps properly or understand the army's code of conduct. It also increases the difficulty of building a solid core of noncommissioned officers — sergeants who are the backbone of every successful army, responsible for conveying a commander's written orders to the troops.

U.S. Maj. Gen. Richard Formica, who is in charge of training both soldiers and police, says the high illiteracy rate is not a "show-stopper."

However, he added that illiteracy "particularly becomes a challenge for those recruits that we want to advance to become noncommissioned officers, because the higher you get in rank and responsibility, the more expectation there is that you can read and write at some basic level."

Most Taliban guerrillas also can't read and write, but they don't need to as much.

Understanding maps and signs is important for the Afghan army, which is supposed to deploy anywhere government control is challenged.

The Taliban, however, strike on their own timetable — usually wherever government and NATO forces are weakest. They move among friendly, generally ethnic Pashtun communities and rely on local guides. Many Taliban fighters operate in areas of the country where they grew up, making maps and compasses unnecessary.

The Taliban also generally operate in small units. They use hit-and-run insurgency tactics or lay bombs along roads, highly effective techniques that don't require the same level of sophistication and attention to detail as conventional military tactics, which often use helicopters, artillery, armored vehicles and large numbers of troops.

To overcome the problem for the Afghan army, a private company, Pulau Electronics of Orlando, Fla., has been hired to run a program that aims to make 50 percent of the troops "functionally literate," within the first year of the program.

"The target is for them to be able to write their name and their weapon's serial number," said Joe Meglan, 39, of Savannah, Ga., who works for Pulau.

The main training effort takes place at the Kabul Military Training Center. The road to the training camp is littered with the rusting hulks of tanks destroyed during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, a reminder of the last superpower's failure to tame this war-torn land.

Afghan trainers lead the effort with coalition teams mentoring them. After 10 weeks of training, regular soldiers are put into units before being sent to the battlefield.

There are 5,000 coalition trainers who work with both army and police. Some 256 teams work with the army and 85 with the police, according to Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama has ordered 4,000 additional U.S. military trainers as part of his surge of 21,000 new U.S. troops into the country. The training for recruits also has about half the number of mentors it needs from the coalition, said Lt. Col. Daniel Harmuth, 43, from Bakersfield, Ca., who runs the basic warrior training.

In the meantime, illiterate soldiers in the army are scraping by.

"Unfortunately all my friends and I cannot read," said soldier Rosey Khan, 19. "It is very bad, particularly during the fighting. They taught me a lot of things, but I've forgotten most of them. ... Even the officers cannot read."

Afghans question what democracy has done for them

KABUL – Mubaruz Khan didn't bother to vote when Afghans went to the polls in the country's second-ever democratic election last month. He was too busy eking out a living selling cigarettes and soda for $3 a day, and didn't think voting would make a difference in his life.

Millions like Khan stayed home on Aug. 20, a sharp contrast to 2004, when Afghans jammed polling stations to give President Hamid Karzai his first term. Ominous warnings from the Taliban suppressed turnout, but some Afghans said they were also discouraged by the government's failure to halt endemic corruption, spiraling unemployment and crumbling security.

"We want peace. We want security. We want job opportunities," the 55-year-old Khan said Monday. "Otherwise, the democracy and the elections that they are all shouting about every day mean nothing to us."

Nearly a month after Afghanistan voted, the election's messy aftermath has exposed the difficulties of installing a Western-style democracy in a land that has never seen one — and raised questions over whether an electoral system can take root eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that ended Taliban's radical Islamist rule.

The country's election commission originally hoped to declare a certified winner this week, but claims of ballot-stuffing and phantom voters have pushed that timeline back weeks, if not months, leaving the country in political limbo at a time the Taliban is unleashing a record number of attacks. Thousands of fake ballots were submitted across the country, and many returns showed Karzai winning 100 percent of the vote in some districts.

The latest partial count has Karzai leading with 54 percent to leading challenger Abdullah Abdullah's 28 percent, and a full count was expected later this week. If enough votes are eliminated for fraud complaints, Karzai's tally could fall below the 50-percent threshold, forcing a two-man runoff.

In a country dominated by tribal and ethnic loyalties — and scarred by years of civil war and Taliban rule — it's not yet clear if democracy will take hold.

"We can't say that democracy has worked in Afghanistan. Democracy has failed in our country," said Abdul Khaliq, 48, a shopkeeper who voted for Karzai in 2004 but this year cast his ballot for Abdullah. He's one of the few people he knows who voted at all. Last election, there were hundreds of people waiting in line at his polling station; this year, there were 10.

President Barack Obama has made Afghanistan the Pentagon's No. 1 priority after the Bush administration for years poured most of its resources into Iraq.

But as the U.S. considers sending thousands more troops into the country to counter rising Taliban violence, American political leaders are wondering whether creating Western-style democracy should be among their goals.

"I do not believe we can build a democratic state in Afghanistan," Sen. Diane Feinstein, a Democrat from California, told CNN on Sunday. She said American troops in the country should focus on preventing the Taliban from returning to power.

A six-month study by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent think tank in Kabul, indicates that Afghans are disillusioned with their experience of democracy so far.

Some even expressed fear that competing political parties could further destabilize a country already wracked by near-daily bombings, rocket attacks and other Taliban assaults, said Anna Larson, a British researcher and author of the study.

Most of the dozens of Afghans interviewed defined democracy as a foreign import associated with Western values, Larson said. Many had expected the new system would automatically bring peace, prosperity and clean government — and expressed bitterness that it has not.

"There is widespread disappointment with the benefits democracy can bring," Larson said.

Even so, most still favor a system of one-person, one-vote to choose leaders, but they picture a vaguely defined system of "Islamic democracy" that combines elections with Afghan culture.

Wadir Safi, a political science professor at Kabul University, said Afghans are swiftly losing faith in democracy because Karzai's much-heralded elected government has been so ineffective. He warned that if the election fraud complaints aren't addressed, the new government would have little legitimacy.

"This is a very dangerous situation," he said.

It's not yet possible to calculate the exact election turnout, but it appears to be low. Preliminary numbers indicate turnout will be around 35 percent of the 17 million registered voters, down by half from the 70 percent who voted in 2004.

The spokesman for Karzai's campaign, Waheed Omar, rejected the idea that Afghans might be losing faith in democracy.

"People showed their support for democracy by participating in the election, although in smaller numbers, even in the face of great threats and obstacles," Omar said.

The head of the Electoral Complaints Commission, a U.N.-backed body charged with investigating allegations of fraud, added that even the complaints showed a level of interest in the election.

"People are engaged, people are interested, people feel that we're here and they want to utilize the process," commission chairman Grant Kippen said. "So from our perspective this is a good sign."

Afghan attacks kill dozens; Karzai leads in poll

KABUL (Reuters) – Roadside bombs, gunbattles and a suicide strike killed five Americans and dozens of Afghan civilians, troops and police, officials said on Saturday, a bloody day that showed how unrest has spread across the country.

Afghanistan is mired in a drawn-out dispute over election fraud that could test the patience of U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western leaders contemplating whether more troops are needed to defend its government.

Attacks took place in all corners of the country, not only in southern and eastern areas that have long been violent but also in the north and west, which had been comparatively quiet until recent weeks.

Bloodshed has reached its worst level of the eight-year-old war despite record numbers of U.S. and NATO troops.

Election authorities released new, near-complete preliminary results showing incumbent Hamid Karzai headed for a single round victory. That could yet be challenged by a U.N.-backed watchdog that says it has found proof of fraud and has begun voiding ballots from areas where Karzai won overwhelming support.

The latest results gave Karzai 54.3 percent to 28.1 percent for his main opponent, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, with 92.8 percent of polling stations tallied and another 2.15 percent of them set aside due to suspected irregularities. Karzai needs 50 percent of the vote to avoid a second round run-off.

In the worst incident reported on Saturday, the Interior Ministry said a roadside bomb in Uruzgan province in the south had struck two passenger cars, killing 14 civilians.

In Kunduz province in the north, fighters attacked a police post, killing seven policemen including the commander at the checkpoint in a battle that ran from the middle of the night into morning. Two other police were missing, feared captured.

A roadside bomb killed three American service members in the west of the country, and another killed two in the east, a press officer for U.S. and NATO-led troops said.

A roadside bomb in Kandahar province killed six civilians, the Interior Ministry and provincial governor said.

Two suicide bombers struck a detention center for the National Directorate of Security in the provincial capital, killing a guard and child.

Fighters killed four policemen in an attack on a patrol in Nangarhar province in the east of the country. Six guards from a local security firm were killed when fighters attacked their office in nearby Kunar province.

In Farah province in the West, seven Afghan soldiers died in a lengthy gunbattle with Taliban fighters, and three civilians died when a rocket struck their home, provincial officials said.

INSURGENCY AT STRONGEST

The Taliban insurgency, at its strongest since the militants were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, has spread from its traditional heartland into once-safe northern areas like Kunduz.

NATO-led forces said they had raided compounds in the province overnight, where they "killed a number of militants."

The province has been the scene of escalating fighting over recent months, including a NATO air strike called in by German forces that killed scores of Afghans, including civilians.

The NATO-led force now stands at a record strength of more than 100,000, including about 63,000 Americans, half of whom arrived this year as part of an escalation strategy pursued by Obama.

Obama is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to send more troops, based on a classified assessment of the war by his new commander, General Stanley McChrystal.

Other Western leaders have shown clear signs of frustration with a war that is increasingly unpopular at home.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have jointly proposed a conference this year to set timelines for Afghanistan to take on a bigger role in its own security.

Afghanistan's disputed election could make it more difficult for Obama to seek more troops, by deepening differences between Karzai and the international community.

The day after the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission announced it had found fraud in the Afghan election, Karzai issued a statement praising it as honest and impartial.

Afghan commandos' esprit de corps transcends tribe

RISH KHOOR, Afghanistan – Col. Farid stood in front of Afghanistan's first commando unit two years ago and posed a simple question.

"How many Afghans do we have?" the Afghan commander asked the more than 700 commandos standing in formation.

The commandos hesitated for a moment, and then all raised their hands.

It might seem an obvious answer, but it wasn't. Before their 12 weeks of advanced commando training, many of the recruits would have been more likely to respond that they were Pashtun, Tajik or another of Afghanistan's more than a dozen ethnic groups, Farid said, recounting the story.

Setting aside ethnic differences to form a national identity and a soldier's bond has been one of the keys to the progress of the Afghan Commando Brigade.

The brigade is one of the few modest successes of the U.S. effort to train their Afghan counterparts. Training an effective national army is a crucial piece of the strategy to stabilize Afghanistan laid out by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, after he took charge in June.

As the U.S. public tires of rising troop deaths and increasing Taliban violence almost eight years after the U.S. invasion, expanding the size of the Afghan army — so that American troops can withdraw sooner — has attracted an increasing number of supporters.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin on Friday urged the Obama administration to enlarge the Afghan army to 240,000 troops by 2013. Current plans call for boosting the army from 92,000 soldiers to 134,000 by late 2011.

The commandos, nicknamed the "Wolves," are the army's elite counterinsurgency force, and work in the most violent parts of Afghanistan. Trained by U.S. Special Forces, they play a critical role by capturing or killing insurgent leaders and bomb makers.

Last week, the 3rd Kandak Commandos, with their Special Forces trainers, found over 5 tons of ammonium nitrate and other bomb-making materials in a bazaar near Kandahar. The commandos also uncovered more than 800 pounds (360 kilograms) of opium and a cache of rocket-propelled grenades.

Arturo Munoz, an analyst for the RAND Corp. think tank in Washington, said the elite unit is one example of U.S. progress in training the Afghan army. The commandos have shown the ability to work independently from their U.S. trainers, a measure of progress, he said.

Duplicating that achievement across the wider army may be more difficult, because the commandos are the army's best recruits and receive intensive training, Munoz said. Still, they are proof that training can produce results, and Munoz said "you win the war" if the U.S. can extend the results to the rest of the army.

Ethnic and sectarian problems plagued U.S. efforts to build a national army in Iraq, and the problems have not yet been entirely overcome. For years Sunnis refused to join or serve in non-Sunni areas, considering the army and police extensions of Shiite militias.

In Kurdish areas, American trainers routinely roamed the training barracks, tearing down flags and banners of the Kurdish political parties that commanded recruits' loyalty ahead of the national government.

Afghanistan's wider army has not suffered from those problems, and is largely considered a success. Eliminating the ethnic tensions that drove Afghanistan's 1990s civil war is a crucial hurdle in training the force.

"The big challenge of the Afghan army from day one was: Can they create a multiethnic army — a truly national army?" Munoz said.

In the commandos, at least, the answer appears to be yes.

Farid was born to a Tajik father and a Pashtun mother, but when anyone asks, he says he is Afghan. Now deputy commander of the brigade, he insists his commandos adopt the same attitude.

"We have problems in our society, but not in the commandos," said Farid, who like many in Afghanistan uses only one name. "We can kill many enemy, but most important for me as a leader is building identity. I am seeing the benefits of that unity of identity."

Commandos from different ethnic groups live, eat and fight side-by-side without trouble, U.S. troops say, a level of pride and discipline that is not as common across the wider army.

A Special Forces captain who served with units from the Afghan National Army in the past said he expected to deal with ethnic and tribal issues. But when he arrived in Afghanistan to train the commandos, the issue never came up.

"It is like the U.S. — nobody cares if I am Italian, Irish or Polish," said the captain. Military embed rules for Special Forces units do not allow him to be identified by name. "The only thing that matters is the quality of the soldier. It's the example of what we are trying to accomplish here."

Modeled after U.S. Army Rangers, the commandos use American weapons, wear older versions of American uniforms and drive around in tan Ford Ranger 4X4s.

Six of the eight planned Afghan commando battalions — with more than 700 commandos each — are operating. Commandos first attend 10 weeks of basic training that all army recruits go through. After being selected for the commandos based on intelligence, physical fitness and personality traits, they train an additional 12 weeks.

Trained in a former Soviet and Taliban military base near Kabul, the commandos are taught marksmanship and tactics. The training ends with a combat operation near the training base.

"We live with a force, eat with a force and train with a force," said Lt. Col. Don Randle, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group, which is training the commandos. "That is how you build your bond."

It is during training that the commandos shed their ethnic identities and put the unit first, commando officers said.

Col. Nahim, the 6th Kandak Commando commander, is an Uzbek. His executive officer is a Tajik and his command sergeant major is Pashtun. His soldiers come from all over Afghanistan.

"As you can see, we have all of these tribes here but no problems," he said.

US, British, NATO troops killed in Afghanistan

KABUL (AP) – An improvised bomb attack killed two U.S. service members Monday in southern Afghanistan where U.S. and NATO troops have stepped up their operations against insurgents in recent months, NATO said.

Also in the south, a British soldier was killed in an attack on a foot patrol and another NATO service member died in a blast Sunday, NATO and British officials said Monday.

Taliban militants this year have increased their use of roadside bombs, which now account for the majority of U.S. and NATO casualties.

NATO spokesman Brigadier General Eric Tremblay said two NATO service members died Monday in a bomb attack. U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo confirmed that the two were Americans. No other details were provided.

The British soldier, who has not been named, was shot while patrolling in the Babaji district of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, Britain's defense ministry said.

The soldier's death brings to 214 the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since operations there began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Another service member from NATO's International Security Assistance Force was killed Sunday in a bomb blast in the south, NATO said Monday. No other details, including the service member's nationality, were released.

Violence has risen across Afghanistan in the last three years as the resurgent Taliban regained control of large swaths of countryside.

Fighting has been particularly harsh this summer in the south, where thousands of U.S. troops have deployed to bolster the Canadian and British-led operations in the Taliban heartland.

The U.S. and NATO have a record number of troops in Afghanistan — nearly 100,000 in total — and the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is likely to soon request thousands more.

This year has been the deadliest for U.S. and NATO troops since the 2001 invasion.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, as of Thursday morning at least 746 members of the U.S. military had died in the Afghan war since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Wave of Attacks Engulfs Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — Five Americans were killed on Saturday amid a wave of bombings, ambushes and killings that swept across Afghanistan and seemed to emphasize the ability of the Taliban and other insurgents to carry out attacks in most parts of the country.

At least 39 Afghan civilians and members of the Afghan security forces were also killed in attacks that struck the north, the south and the east on Friday and Saturday, Afghan officials said.

Three American service members were killed in western Afghanistan when they were attacked with a roadside bomb and then came under small-arms fire, said Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, a press officer for the United States military command in Kabul.

He said two more American service members were killed in eastern Afghanistan, also by a roadside bomb. The military will not disclose the branch of service of the five who died or the provinces where the attacks took place until next of kin have been notified, he said.

The largest death toll in an attack came from a roadside bombing in Oruzgan Province on Friday afternoon that killed 14 people in a minivan, including four women and three children, Afghan officials said. The police chief of Oruzgan, Juma Gul Himat, said in a phone interview that the high-powered explosive had been planted by the Taliban.

But the most alarming attack came in the increasingly volatile northern province of Kunduz, where some of the police in the northern district of Emam Sahib have strong links to the insurgency.

Early Saturday morning, one of the district policemen poisoned the eight other police officers assigned to a guard post about 12 miles south of the district’s government center, said the Emam Sahib district police chief, Juma Khan Baber.

The turncoat officer killed his commander on the spot, and then called his true comrades: the local Taliban. The militants entered the guard post and dragged away the seven other policemen, who were beheaded or shot, the district chief said. Then the Taliban burned down the guard shack.

Chief Juma Khan blamed the Taliban’s “shadow” district chief in the region, Mullah Naimatullah, for the attack. Across large parts of the country, the Taliban operate shadow governments, complete with appointed judicial and security officials, that in many places are more influential that the official government and security forces.

In a separate episode in northeast Kunduz, NATO said a raid conducted with Afghan forces early on Saturday left “a number of militants” armed with machine guns and rifles dead after they fired on the raiding party.

In Kandahar, the large southern city that spawned the Taliban movement, a trio of suicide bombers tried to destroy the city’s intelligence offices on Saturday afternoon. One blew himself up at the front gate, and the two others opened fire and then their explosives ignited before they could enter the building, said Zulmay Ayoubi, the spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor.

The bombers killed a 7-year-old girl and a security guard, he said. Dr. Mohammed Dawoud Farhad, the director of Mirwais Hospital, said three other security guards were treated for wounds from the attack.

Six civilians were also killed in Kandahar by roadside bombings, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.

Four police officers were killed in Nangarhar Province late Friday when insurgents attacked a checkpoint, news agencies reported. But a police spokesman in Nangarhar said he was unaware of the attack.

In Kunar Province, five security guards were killed and 10 others wounded Saturday morning when militants ambushed a truck carrying guards hired to protect workers building a road in the Manogay district, said Idris Gharwal, the spokesman for the provincial governor.

In Kabul, the Afghan Independent Election Commission said President Hamid Karzai was leading with 54.3 percent of the vote from the Aug. 20 election, with votes from 92.8 percent of polling stations counted, according to a preliminary tally.

While that percentage would be enough to secure his re-election without a runoff, the election was marred by rampant fraud, and it remains to be seen how many votes will be taken away from Mr. Karzai’s total during a review of voting irregularities by the country’s United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission. If Mr. Karzai’s vote total fell below 50 percent, he would face his most popular challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, in a runoff.

Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Russian envoy cautions US on Afghan troops surge

KABUL – Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan has some advice for top NATO commanders fighting the Taliban based on the Soviet Union's bitter experience battling Islamist insurgents here in the 1980s: Don't bring more troops.

"The more troops you bring the more troubles you will have here," Zamir Kabulov, a blunt-spoken veteran diplomat, told The Associated Press in an interview.

In 2002, he noted, there were roughly 5,000 U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and the Taliban controlled just a small corner of the country's southeast.

"Now we have Taliban fighting in the peaceful Kunduz and Baghlan (provinces) with your (NATO's) 100,000 troops," he said this week, sitting on a couch in the Russian Embassy in Kabul. "And if this trend is the rule, if you bring here 200,000 soldiers, all of Afghanistan will be under the Taliban."

Kabulov served as a Soviet diplomat in Afghanistan from 1983 to 1987, during the height of the Kremlin's 10-year Afghan war, when Soviet troop levels peaked at 140,000.

The Soviet war here, which is estimated to have cost the lives of 14,500 Soviet soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Afghans, ended in 1989 in a humiliating withdrawal.

Kabulov has little sympathy for the U.S. or NATO. He said the U.S. and its allies are competing with Russia for influence in the energy-rich region.

But the 55-year-old envoy speaks from experience, and NATO leaders have sought his advice.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, asked Kabulov a number of "precise" questions about the Soviet war at a diplomatic function last month, the Russian envoy said.

McChrystal is supervising the expansion of U.S. combat forces to 68,000 and is likely to soon request thousands of more troops. Forty-one other NATO countries have another 35,000 troops here.

Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a public affairs officer assigned to the NATO commander's staff, said: "Gen. McChrystal is a voracious student of Afghan history and welcomes any opportunity to learn from people with experience in Afghanistan or perspectives on our situation here. That certainly includes the Russians."

While Kabulov called raising troop levels a mistake, he said he approved of McChrystal's overall strategy, which includes holding and clearing Taliban areas, training more Afghan security forces and better-coordinated intelligence efforts.

But he said the NATO commander faces daunting challenges.

"Gen. McChrystal is trying to do his best to make this mission a success and to reduce the number of casualties of his soldiers, which is very noble and normal," Kabulov said. "But I'm afraid at this stage it will be very difficult for him to change the direction" of the war.

The Soviet war here was by most accounts a brutal one, with Soviet forces mounting indiscriminate attacks on civilians. But in Kabulov's view, the war effort was successful overall, though crippled in the end by the decline and fall of the Soviet Union.

The U.S. and NATO, he said, made the same fundamental mistake the Kremlin made after its December 1979 invasion, when Soviet special forces killed President Hafizullah Amin and Moscow replaced Amin's Communist regime with another judged more loyal.

"We should have left Afghanistan as soon as possible after the job had been done," Kabulov said. "It should not have taken more than six months. Same as you. You came and you stayed. And all the problems have started."

In some ways, Kabulov, named ambassador to Afghanistan by then President Vladimir Putin in 2004, is an unlikely figure to be advising NATO.

The New York Times said in October 2008 that he served covertly as the KGB's Kabul resident, or top officer, during the Soviet war. But when asked about this, Kabulov insisted he was just a diplomat.

"My career was quite transparent and well known," he said. His only role in Afghanistan during the Soviet war, he said, was as the embassy's second secretary, serving as press attache, from 1983 to 1987.

While NATO has made some of the same mistakes the Soviets made in Afghanistan, in some ways the Kremlin was more successful, Kabulov said.

The Soviets, he asserted, were better than NATO at providing security in major cities and along main highways. And he said the Soviets completed more major construction and development projects.

The Soviet government bankrolled those efforts out of its own pocket, he said, in contrast to the U.S. and its Western allies, which have made what amount to charity appeals at donor conferences.

"We never arranged international conferences with high pledges of dozens of billions of dollars which never came to this country," he said.

And Kabulov said the Soviets trained and employed Afghans, rather than importing highly paid and, in his view, pampered foreign contractors. When it comes to Westerners, he said, "guards also need guards."

Afghanistan, a resource-poor, landlocked country of mountainous deserts, has long played a pivotal role in Moscow's dealings with the West.

In the 19th century, Russian and British spies and diplomats competed for access to markets here in what was known as "The Great Game." During the 1980s Afghanistan became the principal battlefield of the Cold War, as the U.S. covertly supported Muslim resistance groups fighting the Soviets.

Today, Kabulov said, Afghanistan remains a strategic prize because of its location near the gas and oil fields of Iran, the Caspian Sea, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.

Russia has a major stake in NATO's success in Afghanistan, Kabulov said. If the alliance withdraws before Afghanistan is stabilized, he said, the aftershocks could weaken Moscow's allies throughout former Soviet Central Asia.

But the Kremlin has bitterly opposed NATO's expansion into former Eastern bloc and former Soviet countries, and has accused the alliance of trying to encircle and weaken Russia.

Kabulov said Russia has questions about NATO's intentions in Afghanistan, which he said lies outside of the alliance's "political domain." He suggested that Moscow is concerned that NATO is building permanent bases in the region.

"We agreed and supported the United States and later on NATO operation in Afghanistan under the slogan of counterterrorism" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., he said.

"And we believed that this agenda is a genuine one and there is no other hidden agendas. But we are watching carefully what is going on here with the expansion of NATO's military infrastructure in all of Afghanistan."

From Russia's perspective, Kabulov said, NATO should accomplish its goals in Afghanistan and quickly leave.

"We want NATO to successfully and as soon as possible complete its task and to say goodbye and to go back to their own geographical and political domain," he said. "But before their departure they should help establish a real, independent, strong, prosperous, peaceful Afghanistan with self-sustainable government."

NATO's Sholtis said the purpose of the alliance's presence in Afghanistan is "not some kind of imperial project," but an effort to stabilize the country.

"U.S. and NATO officials have been clear that we have no long-term interest in a military presence in Afghanistan," he said.