AFP: Another District in Farah falls to Taliban

November 2, 2007

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — Taliban fighters have overrun a second district in western Afghanistan, a district governor said Friday, warning the rebels could be planning to sweep into his own area.
The police and administration heads of the strategic Bakwa district in Farah province had fled after days of attacks by scores of rebels, the official said, after the militants late Monday took the adjacent Gulistan district.
Taliban insurgents have previously overrun several districts in remote parts of Afghanistan, including Bakwa, but are easily ejected by the international militaries here to aid the country’s own weak security forces.
They have, however, held the district of Musa Qala, close to Gulistan, since February and the area is considered a Taliban base.
Bakwa police had made a “tactical withdrawal” to Delaram district after a new Taliban attack late Thursday, said Delaram governor Yahya Riadth.
“Taliban have control over Bakwa district now and the police and district governor have retreated to our district,” he said.
Riadth warned his district, bordered by both Bakwa and Gulistan, could also be attacked.
“The government needs to reinforce our district urgently otherwise we have intelligence reports that the Taliban will attack us from both districts they have captured,” he said.
Bakwa district governor Mawlawi Janan said the district administration centre was burnt down in Thursday’s assault, which police said earlier was carried out by about 100 Taliban.
Officials had been forced to “temporarily” move elsewhere, he said, without confirming his whereabouts.
Farah police chief Abdul Rehman Sarjang said one policeman was killed and one wounded in the heavy fighting in Bakwa overnight. “An unknown number of Taliban were also killed and wounded,” he said.
Bakwa police chief Mohammad Hashim said the withdrawal had been on the orders of authorities but was not significant. “We are ready to take back the district,” he told AFP.
The main road to Iran, one of Afghanistan’s most important trading partners, runs through the volatile district, which has seen a surge in Taliban-linked violence in the past few months.
NATO-led and Afghan security forces were preparing a fresh attempt to regain control of Gulistan, police said.
The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001, when they were driven from power for harbouring Al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks.
The hardliners have regrouped to wage an insurgency that is focused on southern and eastern Afghanistan but has gained footholds in other parts of the country, such as Bakwa.
The violence has claimed at least 5,000 lives this year, with most of the dead rebel fighters, according to a tally of tolls released by various officials.
In other attacks linked to the insurgency, a remotely detonated bomb blew up a police vehicle near the border with Pakistan, killing three policemen and wounding three more, Kunar province police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal told AFP.
Elsewhere in the same mountainous province, Taliban militants attacked a police post overnight and killed a policeman and wounded another, Jalal said.
A suicide attacker blew himself up in the eastern town of Sharan, wounding four civilians, most of them taxi drivers, Paktika province deputy police chief Farooq Sangari said.
“The suicide bomber has been torn into pieces and only his head is remaining,” he said.
The target of the blast was unclear as there were no security convoys in the area. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the Taliban have carried out scores of such attacks this year.

Il Giornale: “No Vehicles for Italian Soldiers: This Is How the Budget Helps the Taliban”

Italian Commentary Fears Effects of Defense Budget Cuts on Afghanistan Mission

[Commentary by Fausto Biloslavo: "No Vehicles for Italian Soldiers: This Is How the Budget Helps the Taliban"]

This time the wall of silence surrounding the armed forces and our most difficult missions abroad has been broken. This was ensured by General Fabrizio Castagnetti, the army’s chief of General Staff, who denounced the shortcomings of the new budget. “If we go on like this, we risk not being able to replace the vehicles that the Taliban blow up,” the top officer said, referring to the worrying cuts planned for the defense budget.

A few hours later, at the NATO summit in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, there came another blow for the Prodi government’s low profile policy on Afghanistan, which is dictated by his governing majority’s pacifist blackmail. The NATO secretary, the Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, wants all member countries to rotate on the front line against the Taliban in the hostile southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. So, sooner or later, Italian soldiers will also be involved in the bloodiest part of the mission.

For the time being, given the dark forecasts for the budget, it will already be a success if we continue to be fully operational in Afghanistan. Gen Castagnetti, speaking in Turin yesterday morning at the opening of the academic year of the army’s practical school, opened up a can of worms. It will be the army, with its 7,000 men engaged abroad, that will suffer most from the cuts. Thinking about Afghanistan, the general’s quip must have been spontaneous: “If we go on like this, we risk not being able to replace the vehicles the Taliban blow up.”

The latest of these are the Puma armored vehicles, which have fallen prey to several ambushes in the Musay Valley, on the outskirts of Kabul. There are still too few of the new Lince vehicles — which, according to the soldiers on the ground, are better equipped to survive bomb ambushes. Furthermore, according to the magazine Analisi Difesa, there are no funds to purchase either additional towers for the Pumas or the second version of the vehicle, to which further armor can be added.

The remark by General Castagnetti was not only a quip, because there are reportedly problems with the replacement parts for the five Mangusta attack helicopters, which have been operational for only a few months in Herat. In Afghanistan, vehicles are affected by wear and tear more than elsewhere. The ceremony in Turin was also attended by Defense Undersecretary Marco Verzaschi — who was kind enough to agree about the lack of funds. Despite belonging to the ruling coalition that will present a budget of blood and tears for our soldiers, he pointed out the following: “For the third year in a row, cuts are expected for the Armed Forces. These cuts limit training, education, and safe vehicles.”

Castagnetti also pointed out that if the security package — which is being blocked at the Council of Ministers by tit-for-tat vetoes — is not approved swiftly, “there is a risk of thousands of people being left without permanent employment, young people who, after they have ended their stint of voluntary enrolment, need to be sent home.” He was referring to the section in the package that reintroduces the so-called “transit,” that is, the possibility for army volunteers to join the police.

The informal meeting of NATO defense ministers — including Arturo Parisi [Italian defense minister] — which was held yesterday in The Netherlands poured cold water on the ultra-pacifist expectations held by fringes in our government. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that he “would like to see more rotation” of troops on the hottest fronts of the Afghan conflict. In the south and east, only Dutch, British, Canadian, and American soldiers are fighting on the front line. De Hoop Scheffer would like the other allies, too, to share the responsibility, on rotation, for the most difficult and bloody part of the ISAF mission.

Italy and Germany do not even want to hear about it, but the issue will come to the fore at the NATO conference called for November, aimed at sending more troops to the “hot” areas, too.

[Description of Source: Milan Il Giornale (Internet Version-WWW) in Italian -- right-of-center daily owned by the Berlusconi family. OSC EUP20071025058006 25 Oct 07]

Radio Sahar: Missiles fired at airport in Herat

Text of report by Afghan female-orientated community Radio Sahar on 30 October

[Presenter] Provincial security officials have reported that government opponents fired a number of missiles at Herat airport last night. It is said that the missiles targeted a police training site, but caused no damage.

[Correspondent] Gen Rahmatollah Safi, commander of the Border Brigade No 4, says that six missiles were launched at Herat airport on Monday night [29 October]. He says, however, that the attack has caused no damage.

Mr Safi added that the target was the police training camp to the east of the airport.

According to the commander, government opponents are organizing these offensives to prove that the situation is unstable. The police force is said to have launched an investigation to identify the perpetrators of the attack.

A self-proclaimed local Taleban commander in Herat Province called Hekmatollah has claimed responsibility for the missile attack, adding that their target was the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] military base at the airport.

This is the fourth time the airport has come under attack by unidentified armed men. The previous attacks did not cause any damage, either.

[Description of Source: Herat Radio Sahar in Dari -- local independent radio station in Herat run mainly by women. OSC IAP20071030950081 1230 GMT 30 Oct 07]

Slovene News Agency: Slovene troops in Herat come under rocket attack

Text of report in English by Slovene news agency STA

Herat, 30 October (STA) – Rockets have landed in the vicinity of the base in Herat in Afghanistan where Slovenian soldiers are stationed, but all of the troops are alright, STA was told on Tuesday [30 October] by army spokesman Simon Korez.

Korez told STA that as many as six rockets landed near the base, including some that hit very close to where the 60 Slovenian troops serving in the NATO-led ISAF mission are stationed.

The Slovenian soldiers were out of harms way and are performing their duties as normal, Korez added.

Slovenia has a total of 66 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, with the majority stationed in Herat. Their task is to patrol the area in the vicinity of the base.

The western Afghan city has until now been spared most of the violence that has hit the south and east of the country.

[Description of Source: Ljubljana STA in English -- national press agency. OSC EUP20071030950052 1049 GMT 30 Oct 07]

Tirana ATA: More Albanian soldiers to Herat

Defense Minister Says Albania Ready To Send Military Experts to Afghanistan

Tirana, 26 October (ATA) — The Minister of Defense, Fatmir Mediu, confirmed Albania’s willingness to send military experts to Afghanistan, who will assist to enhance professionalism of the Afghan Army and Police. This is the current NATO’s and ISAF priority regarding Afghanistan.

The Press Office in the Ministry of Defense reported on Friday (26 October) that on October 24, Minister Mediu attended the meeting of defense ministers of the NATO and partner nations, that take part in ISAF mission in Afghanistan, held in Noordvijk of Holland.

Mr.Mediu stressed that “Albania will stand in Afghanistan up to completion of ISAF mission. This is a serious and constant commitment to build a democracy through peace and stability.”

He acquainted the participants with the reforms the Albanian government has implemented in the threshold of NATO summit in the coming spring in Bucharest, where our country is expected to get membership invitation in the North Atlantic Alliance.

“In Riga summit, the NATO Secretary General demanded additional contributions by the participating nations in ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Albania responded immediately to this appeal, through sending additional companies under Italian command in Herat,” said Mr.Mediu, while he announced that “actually, Albania is present in Afghanistan with three important contributions, one squad under Turkish command in Kabul, a company in Herat and the joint medical team in the framework of the Adriatic Charter under Czech command.”
[Description of Source: Tirana ATA in English -- government press agency. OSC EUP20071026005009 Tirana ATA in English 1231 GMT 26 Oct 07]

NYT: Afghan Ex-Militia Leaders Hoard Illegal Arms

October 28, 2007

By KIRK SEMPLE
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 27 — Many former militia commanders and residents in northern Afghanistan have been hoarding illegal weapons in violation of the country’s disarmament laws, giving the excuse that they face a spreading Taliban insurgency from the south that government forces alone are too frail to stop, Afghan and Western officials say.

After years of moderate success for government disarmament programs, rumors of widespread defiance in the north have arisen recently among government officials and intelligence agencies in Kabul and elsewhere. Although there is little hard evidence that commanders are greatly enlarging their arsenals, officials say, some have been thwarting government programs, refusing to disarm and possibly even remobilizing militias.

The talk of rearming underscores a deepening north-south ethnic divide that some diplomats and Afghan officials privately worry could lead the way toward a shift of power back to warlords — and toward a countrywide armed conflict — if left unchecked. And the situation poses a major challenge for President Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from the south, whose administration has failed to win the confidence of many non-Pashtun leaders and northerners.

Prices on the weapons black market in the north have skyrocketed as residents, governed by suspicion and foreboding, have kept their firearms, driving down the supply.

“There is an environment of mistrust” in the government, Brig. Gen. Abdulmanan Abed, a Defense Ministry official who works with the government’s demilitarization program, said in an interview this month in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province. “There is a fear of the return of the Taliban.”

A prominent political leader from the north, speaking on condition of anonymity, put it this way: “The Taliban are coming toward us. What should we do? Who will defend us? Who will protect us? This is in the minds of the people in the north.”

Col. Mats Danielsson, the Swedish commander of a 450-man military unit helping to provide security in four northern provinces, said the Karzai administration and its international allies must find a way to roll back the Taliban threat and reassure northerners.

“We have to keep the window of opportunity open, but I feel that the window is closing,” he said.

The Taliban insurgency is strongest in southern and eastern Afghanistan. And while it has been able to bedevil Afghan and international troops in some other regions of the country, before this year its reach rarely stretched into the northern provinces.

But government officials report an increase in Taliban activity in the north this year, particularly in the northwest. The number of Taliban attacks on Afghan and international security forces in Balkh and the other relatively peaceful provinces of north-central Afghanistan has risen from last year, the authorities say.

Residents here in Balkh Province and elsewhere in north-central Afghanistan say they are beginning to feel encircled.

“The Taliban is trying to start up its old networks here,” Colonel Danielsson said in an interview in early October at his headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif. “We have to figure out how to stop this influence.”

Afghan and Western officials also say that in addition to an increase in Taliban activity, there has been an escalation in crime and, in some areas, tensions among rival northern political factions. These officials say it is often difficult to determine who is to blame for specific violent acts.

The most apparent signs of rearming, officials say, are in Faryab Province, in the northwest, where commanders have organized an armed militia to fend off a growing Taliban presence in neighboring Badghis Province that has gone largely unchecked by Afghan and international security forces.

Gen. Dan K. McNeill, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a recent interview in Kabul that he had received unconfirmed intelligence reports that small shipments of weapons had been smuggled across the border “from one or two countries to the north” and delivered “to receivers in some of the northern provinces.” But he declined to provide further details.

Afghan government officials also say that in certain northern districts, militia commanders have evaded government weapons inspectors by breaking down their stockpiles of illegal firearms and redistributing them throughout their communities, making them harder to find.

Afghan and Western officials say that weapons are hidden everywhere: in grain silos and closets, in mountain caves and in holes in the ground.

And though the government’s demobilization programs have gone some way toward dismantling many of the hundreds of illegal militias, and have removed nearly all the heavy weapons from those factions, former warlords still hold considerable sway.

“They have the power of a phone call to put hundreds, or thousands, in arms,” Colonel Danielsson said. “There are a lot of weapons up here.”

All the weapons in Afghanistan were supposed to be in the government’s hands by now, all the private militias were to be a thing of the past.

After the Taliban fell in 2001 and fighting erupted among rival warlords, the Afghan government began the first of two disarmament and demobilization programs that were principally intended to dismantle warlords’ militias and other illegal armed groups. In three decades of war, weapons had poured across the borders and authority was often established by the rule of the gun.

The programs, which are voluntary, have dismantled at least 274 paramilitary organizations, reintegrated about 62,000 militia members into civilian life and recovered more than 84,000 weapons, including thousands of heavy arms that had fallen under the control of regional warlords. Afghan and NATO forces have confiscated and destroyed many other weapons, officials said. But Afghan and international officials acknowledge that hundreds of illegal armed groups still operate in Afghanistan. And hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of weapons remain in private hands, although they are mostly small arms rather than heavy weapons, the officials say.

Of the weapons that have been collected, they say, at least 40 percent were not functional.

“There is at least one weapon in each house,” said General Abed, who was an officer in the anti-Taliban mujahedeen. Government officials note that the demilitarization programs were not intended to collect arms and were instead focused on disbanding armed groups.

“I think it will take many, many years” to disarm the population, said Hameed Quraishi, manager of the government’s demilitarization program in the north. “It doesn’t matter how hard you try. It’s the level of confidence the people have in the government.”

But the talk about rearming is not entirely military. It also appears to be a means of pressing the Karzai government, which many northern leaders have accused of favoring the south, a region mostly populated by members of his Pashtun ethnicity.

“We selected Karzai to unify the country,” said a prominent politician from the north and former member of the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban. “But people who joined him have pushed him to being a Pashtun leader, not a national leader.”

Disproportionate amounts of aid money and weapons have flowed to the south to prop up the regional leadership and battle the Taliban. As part of this effort, the government has been trying to build an auxiliary police force among southern Pashtun tribes to confront the insurgency.

Many northern leaders say that they have been shortchanged in the distribution of development aid and worry about the militarization of the south as they are being asked to disarm.

“Northern commanders are saying: ‘We can’t disarm. This guy is trying to unite all Pashtuns. We have to defend ourselves!’ ” a European diplomat said in Kabul.

General McNeill doubts some of the northern claims. “There’s no question that there’s a hell of a lot of political posturing in the northern sectors,” he said. “Where they think they’re ignored in the reconstruction process, there often is a report: ‘They’re here! The Taliban! They got us surrounded!’ ”

In interviews, northern Afghan leaders said that in spite of their concerns about the central government, they were standing by Mr. Karzai. And most of them denied that any stockpiling of weapons was occurring.

“If we take up arms, it means the democratic process is defeated,” said Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, spokesman for the National Front, a political coalition mainly composed of non-Pashtun leaders from the north. “We want this government to survive its entire term because we don’t want the process to be defeated.”

NYT Columnist Roger Cohen: A Once and Future Nation

October 22, 2007

QALAT, Afghanistan

Once upon a time there was a country, more a space than a nation, landlocked, mountainous, impoverished and windblown.

There resided many peoples, including Pashtuns and Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen, and a new tribe called the Americans.

They had come, the Americans, after 30 years of bloodshed, to bring peace to this land called Afghanistan. But what did they know — what could they know — of life behind burkas, or on the other side of mud walls, or inside minds made mad by war?

Past goat herds and yellowing almond trees, the helmeted Americans drove armored Humvees. Beside lurching stacks of battered tires children gathered in villages and, unlike those in another broken land called Iraq, they smiled and waved.

The Americans talked about empowering Afghans. Sometimes they took to Blackhawk choppers and swooped along the dun-colored river beds and sent goats scurrying for cover.

The 26,000 U.S. troops meant well. They wielded billions of dollars. They calculated “metrics” of progress. They had learned, to their cost, how this faraway place — invaded and used and at last abandoned to pile rubble upon rubble — could nurture danger.

Not only was it once home to the American-financed Islamists who humbled the Soviet empire. It also housed their jihadist offspring, who, like sorcerers’ apprentices, turned on a distracted sponsor and brought the dust of two fallen towers to Manhattan.

To help forge a better Afghanistan — or merely an Afghanistan — the Americans involved their NATO friends. An alliance forged to defend the West against the Soviets was transformed into an agent of democratic change in southwest Asia.

How strange! The enemy now was Taliban Islamofascists rather than Kremlin totalitarians. On a hillside in south-eastern Afghanistan rose “Camp Dracula,” a garrison of 700 Romanian soldiers on this NATO mission.

It would take a great fabulist to make up such stories. Yet they wrote themselves after reports that the cold war’s conclusion marked the end of history proved greatly exaggerated.

And so, one recent morning, Lt. Col. James Bramble, a reservist from El Paso, Tex., with a job there as a pharmaceuticals executive, found himself visiting the Romanian forces and then going to the nearby village of Morad Khan Kalay.

Nations are built one village at a time. Or so Colonel Bramble has come to believe. He is a thoughtful man, commanding a NATO provincial reconstruction team, one of 25 across the country, at a base in Qalat, between Kandahar and Kabul. His team is supposed to deliver the development and good governance that will marginalize the Taliban.

That’s the theory. The practice looks like this. Seven armored U.S. Humvees form a “perimeter” on the edge of the village and newly trained members of the Afghan police — the “Afghan face” on this mission — are dispatched to bring out village elders.

Looking apprehensive, the Afghans appear swathed in robes and headgear whose bold colors mock dreary U.S. Army camouflage. Staff Sgt. Marco Villalta, of San Mateo, Calif., steps forward: “We would like to ask you some questions about your village.”

The following is elicited: There are 300 families using 25 wells. Their irrigation ditches get washed away in winter. A small bridge keeps collapsing. They send their children to a school in nearby Shajoy, but it’s often closed because of Taliban threats to teachers.

Sergeant Villalta takes notes. “We’ll share this information with the governor and make sure that something is done.”

“No! No!,” says Sardar Mohammed. “We don’t trust the governor. If he gets food, he gives it to 10 families. He puts money in his pocket. We trust you more than him. Bring aid directly to us.”

Bramble’s view is that the governor is as good as officials get around here. The U.S. officer, like his country and NATO, is caught in the hall of mirrors of contested nation-building. The exchange at the village has traversed cultures, civilizations and centuries. For Western soldiers trained to kill, and now in the business of hoisting an Islamic country from nothing as fighting continues, that’s challenging.

Still, Bramble thinks this first contact will lead to others and perhaps he can arrange for the bridge to be bolstered soon. Another community will be brought around in “the good war” against death-to-the-West Islamists.

This process will be very slow. The West’s stomach for investing blood and treasure here for another decade is unclear. But I see no alternative if Afghanistan is to move from its destructive gyre and the global threat that brings.

The children’s smiles suggest hope still flickers. To lose Afghanistan by way of smile-free Iraq — and do so on the border of a turbulent nuclear-armed Pakistan — would be a terrible betrayal and an unacceptable risk.

That, alas, is no fairy tale.

•

Blog: www.iht.com/passages.

Herat TV: Foreign Minister says no proof Iran sends arms to insurgents

October 21, 2007

Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar-Spanta has said there is no proof Iran is sending arms to insurgents in Afghanistan. Speaking at a joint news conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Dr Manuchehr Mottaki and Tajik Deputy Foreign Minister Dr Abdollah after they attended an Economic Cooperation Organization meeting in Herat, he also said Afghanistan did not want to be drawn into any disputes between Iran and the USA because it wanted good relations with both. The following is an excerpt from a recording of the news conference, broadcast by provincial state-owned Afghan Herat TV on 21 October; subheadings inserted editorially:

Current discussions in Herat

[Spanta] [Passage omitted: Current meeting continues work of earlier talks in Tajikistan.]

This afternoon, a partnership agreement will be signed among these three countries and we, the foreign ministers, have agreed to hold another meeting within three months, at which the representatives of the relevant ministries, including the ministries of foreign affairs, transport and energy, will take part in designing the outline of joint cooperation among the three countries. We are now talking about this framework in general. In addition, the experts should draw a mechanism through which our countries coordinate their activities and learn from the experience of each other in their campaign against poppy growing and drug production and trafficking.

[Passage omitted: Spanta welcomes guests]

[Mottaki] In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Good morning dear journalists. I thank the honourable Dr Spanta for his hospitality. We had a tripartite meeting among Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Esteemed Dr Abdollah, the first deputy foreign minister of Tajikistan took part in this meeting. Our objective has been to continue the discussions previously held between the three presidents in Tajikistan last year. As the honourable Dr Spanta mentioned earlier, and in view of the many shared values and interests among the three countries and at the same time the shared concerns, we emphasized cooperation between the three countries as one of the priorities of our countries. We will also hold meetings on transit and energy and will exchange experiences on our counter-narcotics efforts. In addition, in view of the shared religious and cultural beliefs, we would like to expand these relations. To that end, we are to hold discussions with the relevant departments, experts, professors, the ministry of education and cultural foundations. As a matter of fact, we have been responsible for continuing these discussions in line with our presidents’ order. We think the practical programme we have already set up will draw a brighter future for better collaboration among the three countries.

[Dr Abdollah] [Passage omitted: Thanks to Spanta for hosting Herat meeting]

Iran’s stance on West’s contacts with “extremists”

[Stanezay, Radio Liberty reporter western Afghanistan] My first question is for the Iranian foreign minister. You said yesterday that there are a number of extremist groups in contact with some European countries. Please clarify your comments. My second question is for the Afghan foreign minister. The Islamic Republic of Iran is concerned that a number of Western countries are cooperating with fanatical groups. Will this have an adverse impact on your relations with Iran?

[Manuchehr Mottaki] Yes, as I said yesterday a number of fanatical groups have established contacts with a number of European countries and this has worried us. We hope that such contacts will be stopped and I think the relevant departments will reveal more information on this subject. In short, I can say that such contacts have been established.

Afghanistan’s wish for goods ties with Iran, USA

[Dr Spanta in Pashto] It goes without saying that there are disagreements over Iran’s nuclear proliferation programme between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West [the USA]. However, both sides share one idea, that is to continue helping Afghanistan reinforce stability and peace. Our efforts are to maintain these ties with both countries. This is our policy and we are working on it. [Spanta translates the correspondent's question and his own comments into Dari, stressing that disagreement between Iran and the USA should not affect Afghanistan's friendship with either country]

Cooperation n Persian TV channel, road links

[Iranian correspondent] My first question is about the agreement among the three presidents on establishment of a Persian TV. My second question is about route linking Iran to Central Asia via Afghanistan.

[Dr Abdollah] As regards the television, we have started work. The project naturally requires trained staff and we are now offering such training. In response to your second question, there are certain capacities and I believe they will be used for the project linking Iran to Central Asia via the Afghan soil.

[Dr Spanta] I want to add something. Since cooperation between the countries is a priority for our presidents, I should add that the construction of the ring road in Afghanistan will be completed next year. As a result, it will be possible to link the Republic of Tajikistan to the Islamic Republic of Iran via Afghanistan in the near future. By order of the president, I reiterate that we will do our best to provide all possible facilities to improve trade with Tajikistan and open its doors to the Persian Gulf.

Iranian threat against US bases in Afghanistan

[Correspondent, Sada-ye Jawan Radio - Herat] My question is for the honourable Dr Mottaki. Iranian officials have said they will target US military bases in Afghanistan if the USA invades Iran. Do you stand by this view?

[Mottaki] Well, we think America does not have the ability to levy more taxes on Americans and wage another war and conflict in the region. We do believe it is for the good of America to correct its policy and resolve the current crises in the region. Even if there is a remote possibility of war, our policy is crystal clear. We have told the Americans what we would do in that case and they are aware of the consequences.

Allegations about Iranian-made arms in Afghanistan

[Correspondent Ariana TV] Mr McNeill [NATO commander in Afghanistan] has said Iranian-made weapons and ammunition have allegedly brought into western Afghanistan. Iranian officials have rejected the claim. I want to ask Mr Spanta if the foreign military forces do not coordinate their activities with the Afghan forces or if these comments are aimed at dragging Iran into the case? You have already said there is no proof.

[Spanta] As the foreign minister of Afghanistan, I want to say that we, the Afghan Foreign Ministry, have no evidence suggesting that the Iranian government is trying to destabilize the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. You have heard this from the president, too. We do not have any proof that the Iranian government is giving weapons to the insurgents or training them. You and my brother Mottaki clearly know that I have a reputation for blunt speaking, which has even caused me harm. If there was any evidence suggestive of this, I would speak directly to Mr Mottaki.

Need for regional trade cooperation

Other countries have established common markets among themselves. Why then should we, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Central Asian countries, create problems for each other? I believe we would do better to cooperate with each other with good will and friendship to establish a unified market in Asia and Central Asia. It is crystal clear that Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan will be the core and heart of this unity; otherwise we will fail to carry out our responsibility before the future generations. On the other hand, I should add that we will bluntly and frankly speak to our friends if our national interests are in danger. Right now we have no proof to blame them. So there is no reason to create tension with our friends. We yet again thank the Islamic Republic of Iran for its contributions. Two or three days ago, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, voiced support for the [Afghan] elected, legitimate government established in line with democratic principles. This is the official stance at the moment. Mr Mottaki emphasized this yesterday and what they what say is acceptable. Thank you.

[Description of Source: Herat Herat Television in Dari -- state-run television. OSC IAP20071021950074 Herat Herat Television in Dari 0640 GMT 21 Oct 07]

AFP: US general implicates Iran military in Afghan weapons find

October 18, 2007

KABUL (AFP) — The top US general in Afghanistan said Thursday it was hard to believe a convoy of high-technology explosives intercepted here last month could have arrived without the knowledge of the Iranian military.

The convoy from Iran, which was stopped on September 5 in western Afghanistan, reportedly contained armour-piercing bombs likely intended for insurgents fighting Afghan and international security forces here.

General Dan McNeill, head of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), confirmed to journalists in Kabul that the convoy had contained “a number of advanced technology improvised explosive devices.”

“It is difficult for me to conceive that this convoy could have originated in Iran and come to Afghanistan without at least the knowledge of the Iran military,” he said.

McNeill has said before that the shipment clearly came from across the border with Iran but that he could not say whether the Iranian government was involved.

US and British officials have alleged for months that weapons from Iran are going to the Taliban rebels fighting the Afghan government and its international allies. Tehran has denied the allegations.

Globe and Mail: Some Canadians wish they had chosen Herat instead of Kandahar for PRT

Ex-minister denies Martin to blame for Kandahar mission
ALAN FREEMAN AND MICHAEL VALPY
From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail
October 16, 2007 at 4:10 AM EDT

OTTAWA and TORONTO — Bill Graham denied yesterday that indecisiveness by former prime minister Paul Martin led to Canada deploying troops in Afghanistan’s bloody Kandahar province, but he conceded that lengthy discussions within the government meant other NATO partners succeeded in being posted to less dangerous parts of the country.

Mr. Graham, foreign affairs minister and later defence minister, refused to take sides in the dispute touched off by former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who accused his successor Mr. Martin of putting the lives of Canadian soldiers in danger by taking too long to decide where the troops should be positioned in 2004-2005.

Mr. Graham pointed out that it was Mr. Chrétien himself who committed Canadian troops to Kabul and committed soldiers through NATO to the support and rebuilding of Afghanistan.

But he also said he believed Mr. Chrétien would not have agreed to send troops to Kandahar if he had remained prime minister. “Mr. Chrétien was very careful that way.”
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Chrétien’s new book

In the second volume of his memoirs appearing over the weekend, Mr. Chrétien said that because Mr. Martin took so long to make a decision, Canadian troops wound up being sent south to fight the Taliban “in the killing fields around Kandahar.”

Mr. Graham said in an interview: “I wouldn’t describe it as dithering. There was certainly a lot of discussions that went on at the lower levels about where Canada should be committed for a PRT [provincial reconstruction team to assist in rebuilding Afghanistan].

“And you can make the case for saying that because it took so long other people took other places that were more attractive from a security perspective and therefore there were fewer choices available when it came time for Canada to say yes.”

Kenneth Calder, at the time the assistant deputy minister of defence for policy, who is now retired, put the case more strongly, saying in an interview yesterday that there was no delay in decision-making either by Mr. Martin or defence and foreign affairs officials.

The issue, he said, moved forward rapidly.

Mr. Graham said the PRT choice at the end was between Herat in the western part of Afghanistan, where Canada would have served with Italy, and Kandahar province in the south.

Kandahar has showed itself to be much bloodier than Herat, but Mr. Graham said that was not the way it looked when the decision was taken in the spring of 2005.

“Kandahar didn’t have anywhere near the violence it does today,” he said, noting that “somebody had to be in the south.”

Nonetheless, the various accounts of what lay behind the Kandahar deployment pose major questions.

Mr. Chrétien in his memoirs writes that what led to troops being sent to Kandahar was Mr. Martin taking too long to make up his mind about whether Canada should extend its term with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) positioned in Kabul and its environs.

Yet the book The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, co-authored by University of Toronto scholar Janice Gross Stein and former top Liberal aide Eugene Lang, makes clear that Canada was only committed to ISAF for one year ending in the summer of 2004, a decision made when Mr. Chrétien was prime minister.

Prof. Stein, director of the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies, said in an interview yesterday that at no time was a significant extension of Canada’s commitment to ISAF under consideration.

Moreover, after Mr. Martin became prime minister in December of 2003, ISAF was being absorbed into NATO with Canada’s support.

The second question is how Mr. Martin could not have known for a whole year that his government’s delay in deciding where to locate its PRT was inevitably leading to Canadian troops being sent to Kandahar.

Prof. Stein says the issue of committing combat troops was not on the agenda during the year that officials in the departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence debated where to put the PRT (although one senior defence official says it was always on the agenda). And the location of a PRT was not high on anyone’s priority list – either for officials dealing with the Afghanistan file (there were far more important issues, such as bringing NATO into the country) or for the prime minister’s team preoccupied, among other things, with the Quebec sponsorship scandal.

The issue of combat troops in Kandahar went to the prime minister for decision only after General Rick Hillier became Chief of the Defence Staff in February, 2005, and recommended a Canadian commitment to Afghanistan much broader than a PRT.

He placed his proposal before Mr. Martin in March and the prime minister gave his approval in May.

Mr. Graham said Gen. Hillier was a keen backer of the Kandahar deployment, contingent on the Canadians being accompanied into the south by the British and the Dutch, who now serve in neighbouring provinces.

He also said that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had been pressing for a broader NATO presence in the south that was not simply American.