WORLD NEWS: Afghanistan/Pakistan

[T-bone]

War on Terror Seen Limping in Afghanistan, Pakistan
By Tahir Ikram and Sayed Salahuddin

ISLAMABAD/KABUL (Reuters) - Despite a massive manhunt and billions of dollars spent on manpower and equipment, the U.S. war on al Qaeda in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Pakistan is still a long way from achieving its objectives, security experts warned.

The 9/11 commission's report, released on Thursday, described Afghanistan as the incubator for al Qaeda and for the September 11, 2001 attacks, noting that the country must not become a sanctuary again for international crime and terrorism.

Security and political analysts said Washington had been unable to root out the terror threat from the region and bring real stability to Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters and their Islamic militant allies carry out deadly attacks almost daily.

"The war on terrorism is being lost by the Western alliance. Al Qaeda and their local allies today are much stronger in Pakistan," author and Afghan expert Ahmed Rashid told Reuters.

He added that the Taliban were stronger in Afghanistan than at any time since their ouster to U.S.-led forces in late 2001.

"The Taliban are determined to disrupt the elections. Iraq (news - web sites) has diverted the Western military intelligence resources that should have sustained a long-term and consistent counter-terrorism strategy in this region," he said.

The commission report noted there was continuing controversy about whether military operations in Iraq had any effect on the scale of U.S. commitment to the future of Afghanistan.

"We welcome the emphasis of the 9/11 report on the fact that long term and sustained support is essential in the fight against terrorism," said Afghan presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin.

"The work we have started in Afghanistan is not only the war against terrorism, but also a political and reconstruction process," he said in Kabul.


PAKISTAN'S SIGNIFICANCE

Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman said Islamabad also welcomed the recommendation of the commission that Washington should give more assistance to Pakistan, and for praising President Pervez Musharraf's efforts to curb Islamic militancy.

"But the excerpts which have come to fore, these don't make clear whether the commission has correctly diagnosed the causes for terrorism," foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan said.

Poverty, religious education, widespread corruption and often ineffective government make Muslim Pakistan and its 150 million people a prime target for Islamist recruitment.

"It is hard to overstate the importance of Pakistan in the struggle against Islamist terrorism," the commission report said.

Pakistan estimates that up to 600 foreign fighters are hiding in its tribal areas, although dozens have been killed in a series of fierce clashes this year.

Brigadier Mehmood Shah, security chief in Pakistan's tribal belt, told Reuters recently in Peshawar that the border with Afghanistan was still not perfectly sealed.

But he added that once government forces defeated a hard core of 100 to 150 foreign fighters, some of whom had been there since the anti-Soviet Afghan campaign and others who escaped to Pakistan when the U.S. ousted the Taliban, the rest would flee.

"I think that they (the remaining militants) would leave, or disappear into thin air, because militant positions have been busted out ... Resistance would drop after this."

MORE ATTACKS TO COME?

Rashid said he feared the worst was yet to come from the Taliban ahead of a presidential election in October in which U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai is the frontrunner.

Around 900 people have already been killed in the last year, most of them in attacks blamed on Islamic militants.

Rashid said al Qaeda-linked militants had been active in Pakistan in the last seven months, making two attempts on Musharraf's life and carrying out several bombings and terror strikes in Karachi in May killing more than 50 people.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and leading Afghan expert, also believes the United States has been unable to meet two key objectives it laid down after the September 11, 2001 attacks; to capture or kill bin Laden and bring stability to Afghanistan.

He said the military campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan against bin Laden and associates had scattered them, hampering their ability to execute terror attacks themselves, but terrorist groups still existed and were working independently.

"Bin Laden is at large along with other important figures. Until they achieve this objective, the war on terror in this region has not been successful," he told Reuters. (Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White)

[T-bone]

Pakistan Arrests Embassy Bombings Suspect
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan said Friday it will only consider extraditing a senior al-Qaida suspect after its own interrogation of the man is complete, while top government officials said the arrest showed Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida terror network was crumbling.

A top Pakistani security official told The Associated Press the information that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was providing to his interrogators has already been shared with American intelligence, and that experts had begun to scour computer hard drives and diskettes found during his arrest.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat said the arrest was a "great blow to the al-Qaida" network of Osama bin Laden, but refused to say whether Ghailani had any knowledge of the terror leader's whereabouts.

Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the rugged mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites), though there is no hard evidence of his location.

"Pakistan is determined to flush out terrorists from its soil and dismantle their network definitively," Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said, in reference to al-Qaida. "The latest arrests indicate that the network is crumbling down."

Ghailani, one of the FBIs 22 most wanted terrorists and a man with a $25 million bounty on his head, has been indicted in the Southern District of New York for his alleged role in the 1998 twin U.S. embassy bombings, which killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. He could face the death penalty.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Rauf Chaudhry said his government had not yet received any request from Washington for Ghailani's extradition.

"So far, they have not made any such request, but we are expecting it," he said.

He said Pakistan would consider extradition: "But, first we would like to interrogate him thoroughly to check his links with other people in Pakistan."

Meanwhile, Tanzanian police spokesman Ernest Saria said his country had not yet decided whether to seek custody of Ghailani or clear his extradition to America.

Ghailani's arrest on Sunday after an intense 12-hour firefight in the eastern city of Gujrat ended a six-year odyssey that began when he boarded a Kenyan Airways flight to the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, leaving Africa before bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.

Until his arrest, that was the last known sighting of the baby-faced and slightly built explosives expert, believed to be about 30 years old.

The security official said he did not believe the $25 million reward would be paid, as the information that led to Ghailani's capture came from a Pakistani terror suspect already under interrogation in a separate case. The man has not been identified.

He denied that American intelligence agencies were involved in the sting that netted Ghailani.

"We have shared this intelligence with our American friends," the security official said on condition of anonymity. He would not comment on whether U.S. agents had been present during the interrogation.

Hayyat said Ghailani was providing "very valuable" information.

More information could come from retrieval of files on two computers and several diskettes found in the house in Gujrat, alongside AK-47 rifles, plastic chemicals and a large amount of money.

A Pakistani counterterror official said it appeared that Ghailani and the others, including his wife and several children, had come to Gujrat about a month ago to get fake travel documents to flee Pakistan.

It was not clear if they were plotting any attacks here or elsewhere.

Ghailani is suspected of buying the truck used as the vehicle bomb in the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in which 12 people were killed.

[T-bone]

Pakistan Arrests Show Progress in Terror
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Vital information gleaned from the arrests of a senior al-Qaida terrorist and a militant computer expert highlights the progress Pakistan is making in the fight against terrorism. But it also illustrates that this Islamic nation remains a refuge for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s group, where the most wanted men in the world can hide out for years.

"We know that al-Qaida is here. They have their sleeper cells in Pakistan, and we are trying to eliminate them," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told The Associated Press.

Intelligence agents found plans for new attacks in e-mails on the computer of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian arrested July 25 after a 12-hour gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat, said Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

"We got a few e-mails from Ghailani's computer about (plans for) attacks in the U.S. and U.K.," he told the AP, adding that the information has been shared with Pakistan's allies — a reference to the United States.

Officials also are getting a wealth of information from a militant computer and communications expert arrested in an earlier raid in July. The man would send messages using code words to al-Qaida suspects, a Pakistani intelligence official told the AP on condition of anonymity.

Ahmed confirmed the arrest but refused to give details.

"He is a very wanted man, but I cannot say his name now," the information minister said. He said the man was a militant, but refused to say if he was part of al-Qaida.

Pakistani officials would not speculate on whether the information from Ghailani and the computer expert is what prompted Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to issue a warning Sunday about a possible al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.

However, a U.S. counterterrorism official said Sunday's warning stems in large part from Pakistan's capture several weeks ago of an al-Qaida operative.

The operative was privately identified as Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, also known as Abu Talha, said to be a communications expert. The Pakistani intelligence official said, however, that the name was an alias; he would not say what the man's real name was.

At his news conference, Ridge specifically thanked Pakistan for its help in the war on terror.

The arrests of both men have raised hopes that more top suspects might soon fall. Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed hiding in the mountainous no-man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites).

But a second Pakistani intelligence official who was involved in the arrest of Ghailani cautioned against unrealistic expectations.

"Naturally, these interrogations help to gain an understanding of their network ... but that doesn't mean that we are closing in on bin Laden," he said.

Bin Laden and his deputy have spent nearly three years avoiding a dragnet by the 20,000-strong U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan and a 70,000-member Pakistani force on this side of the border.

Pakistan has arrested more than 550 al-Qaida suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks, turning most of them over to the United States. Among the higher-profile arrests are Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — all senior aides to bin Laden.

But that success is the silver lining to a dark cloud — this nation of 150 million remains a favorite hiding place for terrorists — from the teeming metropolis of Karachi, to the tribal regions along the Western border with Afghanistan, to towns like Gujrat in eastern Punjab.

Al-Qaida is believed behind the Friday attempt to assassinate prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz, as well as two bids to take out Musharraf in March. Both men survived, but more than two dozen Pakistanis died.

"When they tried to flush the terrorists out of Afghanistan they came to Pakistan. When they flushed them from the tribal regions, they spread all over the country," said Talat Masood, a security analyst and former Pakistani general. "What we are facing now is very complex. It is one of the greatest terrorist challenges and it is not going to end soon."

Despite the government's strong support of the United States, the nation is home to dozens of homegrown militant groups — some with roots in the Kashmir (news - web sites) conflict, others that sprung up during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

They and their sympathizers have helped al-Qaida fugitives hide, sometimes for years.

Ghailani arrived in Pakistan on a Kenyan Airlines flight to Karachi on Aug. 6, 1998, a day before the bombs went off in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. He was a ghost until his arrest nearly six years later, apparently as he was planning to flee the country.

[T-bone]

Up to 70 Militants Killed in Afghanistan
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan troops backed by American warplanes killed as many as 70 militants in a daylong battle near the Pakistani border, in one of the bloodiest clashes since the fall of the Taliban, military officials said Tuesday.

Only two Afghan soldiers were reported dead in the fighting, indicating the militants vulnerability to American air power while raising fresh suspicions that they are using Pakistan as a base for operations.

An Afghan commander claimed government forces heard militant radio messages in Arabic and the Chechen language, suggesting al-Qaida fighters were involved.

"We could hear the enemy," said Gen. Nawab, an Afghan commander who uses just one name. "I'm sure there were foreigners involved."

The battle began at about 2 a.m. Monday, when dozens of militants armed with rockets, mortars and machine-guns hit a border post in Khost province, a former al-Qaida stronghold about 120 miles south of the capital, Kabul.

The U.S. military said it sent a B-1 bomber, A-10 ground-attack aircraft and helicopter gunships and flew in Afghan reinforcements, eventually forcing the assailants to flee "in panic."

American spokesman Maj. Rick Peat said pilots flying over the area after dawn reported seeing 40 to 50 bodies on the battlefield near the mountainous Pakistani border. Several wrecked vehicles were also spotted.

Nawab put the rebel toll as high as 70, saying the militants had dragged away many dead and injured as they retreated into Pakistan. Afghan forces had recovered only ten dead bodies from the scene of the fighting, he said.

The U.S. military said one of more than 100 Afghan soldiers involved in the fighting was killed and three others injured. However, another Afghan commander, Khial Baz, said two of his men were fatally wounded.

Peat said no U.S. ground troops were involved.

The death toll appeared among the heaviest since the aerial poundings of Taliban troops by U.S. planes before the hard-line regime folded in late 2001, and confirms a surge in violence in the run-up to October presidential elections.

Assaults led by U.S. Marines in a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan (news - web sites) in May and June killed more than 100 militants, commanders have said, but it was unclear how many had fallen in a single engagement.

"The coalition and Afghan security forces continue to reap outstanding results" against militants, a U.S. statement said, "refusing to allow them to gather enough strength to affect progress toward a democratic government in Afghanistan."

Khost borders Pakistan's Waziristan tribal area, where officials in Islamabad say hundreds of foreign fighters have found refuge among sympathetic Pashtun tribesmen, the same ethnic group from which the Taliban draws its main strength.

Pakistani troops have mounted a string of operations in an attempt to crush the militants, sparking battles that have left scores of dead this year. American officials said recently they had no firm fix on the whereabouts of al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and Ayman al-Zawahri, who could also have found refuge in the area.

Peat said it was unclear if the attack in Khost was a response to that increased pressure, which has won praise from American commanders, or to a spate of high-profile arrests of suspected al-Qaida members in Pakistan.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, militants opposed to U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai have also targeted aid workers and government officials. At least ten workers and guards helping prepare for landmark elections in October have died so far this year.

In the latest incident, a bomb hit a vehicle carrying a local mayor and a judge in central Afghanistan on Sunday, missing the apparent targets but killing three of the judge's children.

The minors, aged 4 to 10, were in the open rear of the pickup truck when it was hit by a bomb attached to a bicycle in Logar province, local military commander Atiqullah Ludin said.

The officials were unhurt.

[T-bone]

More al-Qaida Arrests Made in Pakistan
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani authorities have arrested several al-Qaida suspects in recent days, believed to be linked to others in custody who provided intelligence leading to the arrest of a key fugitive and Washington's issuing a terror attack warning, officials said Tuesday.

Among those arrested was Raja Waqar, a policeman assigned to the office of Punjab province's top politician. Waqar is suspected of informing al-Qaida-linked groups about the whereabouts of top government officials, a high-ranking intelligence official in the eastern city of Lahore told The Associated Press.

Another detainee identified himself as Juma Ibrahim, a Syrian. He was arrested Sunday at a bus station in Hafizabad, a town near Lahore, and was turned over to Pakistan's spy agency, said district police chief Aslam Ghauri.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a third man was arrested trying to board a plane in Lahore with questionable documents. He gave no further details.

It was not clear how significant the latest detainees were, but the official said they were believed to be linked to other al-Qaida suspects in custody, including a computer expert identified as Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan who was arrested July 13.

Information provided by Khan led to the arrest in eastern Gujrat on July 25 of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian al-Qaida suspect wanted in the United States for the 1998 twin East Africa embassy bombings, said an intelligence official in Lahore who was involved in the raid on Ghailani.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Monday that Ghailani's computers contained e-mails with instructions for attacks in the United States and Britain.

Intelligence gained from Khan's and other arrests was a major factor in U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's decision to issue a warning Sunday about a possible al-Qaida attack on prominent financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.

Pakistani officials are also pointing to the arrest in June of Masrab Arochi — nephew of former al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — as providing useful intelligence. Arochi was among 10 suspects arrested in raids in the southern port city of Karachi.

An intelligence official in the capital, Islamabad, said Arochi led police to a network of al-Qaida operatives and that several as-yet-undisclosed arrests have been made. He would not confirm any direct link between Arochi and the arrest of Khan, the computer expert, but said Arochi has been made available to U.S. intelligence agents.

Pakistan has vowed not to turn him over to the United States.

Meanwhile, details emerged about the hunt that led authorities to Ghailani, the suspect in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people — including 12 Americans.

Ghailani arrived in Pakistan on a Kenyan Airlines flight to Karachi on Aug. 6, 1998, a day before the attacks. He was a ghost until his arrest nearly six years later, apparently as he planned to flee the country.

A senior intelligence official told The Associated Press that Ghailani spent some time in the tribal area of South Waziristan before traveling in recent weeks to Gujrat. Al-Qaida "facilitators" arranged for him to hide in several local houses in the tribal area and stay out of sight, said the official, who asked that his name not be used.

Officials also believe Ghailani was in hiding for a while in the southern port city of Karachi, home to a number of local extremist groups as well as al-Qaida, and in Lahore.

"We were searching for him for a while and we were several days behind him in different cities, until the moment was right and we caught him," the senior Pakistani government official said.

Raja Munawar Hussain, the police chief in Gujrat, told AP that a front man who leased a car and opened a bank account for Ghailani also was arrested.

The police chief also said that during the 12-long shootout that led to Ghailani's arrest, he received several threatening calls on his cell phone in English and Urdu, Pakistan's main language.

'"The people inside the house are serving Islam and any harm to them will be dangerous for you,"' Hussain said the caller warned him.

"They were highly organized terrorists. They were so well informed that they remained in touch with their men (on the outside) during the raid."

[T-bone]

Taliban Say Attack Shows They Can Strike at Will
By David Fox

KABUL (Reuters) - A rocket attack aimed at Kabul's international airport showed the Taliban have the ability to target anywhere in Afghanistan (news - web sites), the group said on Friday, warning the Americans the country would become their "burial ground."

Although the four rockets fell well short or wide of their target, Mullah Dadullah Akhund -- the Taliban's military commander and a member of its 10-member ruling council -- said U.S.-led forces in the country were pinned down in their bases.

He was speaking a day after the Arabic satellite TV channel al Jazeera broadcast a video of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s Egyptian-born deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, claiming that mujahideen fighters had U.S. forces pinned down in Afghanistan and Iraq (news - web sites).

"The enemy are limited to their capitals," al-Zawahri said in the tape, broadcast two days before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Washington quickly blamed al Qaeda and sent troops to Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban.

"The Americans are hiding in their trenches and refuse to come out to face the mujahideen, as the mujahideen shell and fire on them, and cut roads off around them. Their defense is only to bomb by air, wasting U.S. money as they kick up dust."

Mullah Dadullah told Reuters by satellite phone early on Friday that four rockets which struck a crowded residential area in the Afghan capital late on Thursday night had been aimed at the nearby airport, where U.S. forces and the NATO (news - web sites)-led International Security Assistance Force have a strong presence.

Two adults and a child were slightly wounded in the attack, which Kabul's police chief said was an attempt to disrupt Afghanistan's first direct presidential elections on Oct. 9.

The Taliban also claimed on Friday that they had killed five soldiers and captured three in an attack near Tarin Kot, southwest of the capital in Uruzgan province.

Governor Jan Mohammed Khan confirmed an attack on an army vehicle, but said government forces had suffered two casualties with two soldiers captured.


AMERICANS "SCARED AND AFRAID"

"Ayman al-Zawahri's statement is based on reality that allied forces in Afghanistan were confined to their military camps because they were scared and afraid and they do not have the courage to fight with the Taliban and other mujahideen," Dadullah said.

"Inshallah (God willing) we will make Afghanistan the burial ground for the Americans," he said.

U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 after it refused to give up bin Laden and other al Qaeda figures.

A U.S.-led force of about 18,000 troops is still hunting Taliban and al Qaeda guerrillas in Afghanistan but has yet to capture bin Laden or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment on the Taliban remarks, but has dismissed such statements in the past.

In the al Jazeera broadcast, Zawahri said Iraq and Afghanistan were becoming quagmires for the United States.

"In both countries, if they continue they will bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything," said Zawahri.

U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan in the past three years have been less than a tenth of the 1,000 troops they have lost in Iraq since last year.

Wearing a white turban with a machine gun at his side, Zawahri spoke to camera for several minutes in the tape.

"In Kabul, the Americans and peacekeeping forces are hiding from the shells of the Mujahideen and expect martyrdom (suicide) attacks at every moment," Zawahri said.

The Taliban, who frequently exaggerate the effect of their attacks on U.S. troops, said they had also fired "many rockets" at a U.S. position in Uruzgan on Thursday night causing "a lot of damage to the Americans."

Governor Khan said no one was hurt in that incident. U.S. forces were, again, not immediately available for comment.

[T-bone]

Pakistan forces kill four Al-Qaeda militants in tribal area

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani troops killed four foreign militants believed linked to Al-Qaeda after skirmishes in which five troops were injured near the Afghan border, the military said.

"Four militants have been killed in an exchange of fire with security forces early Monday," military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP on Monday.

"Security forces have captured two bodies of miscreants, while they saw miscreants dragging the two bodies while escaping. The miscreants killed are believed to be foreigners," he said, without giving their nationalities.

Security forces and militants have been trading fire in mountainous South Waziristan tribal district, which faces the southeast Afghanistan (news - web sites) province of Paktika, since January.

Militants allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives have stepped up attacks on the Pakistani army as it tries to flush out suspected militants and their local allies in the region.

The military says it has killed around 150 foreign militants in the region over the past 12 months and destroyed several Al-Qaeda hideouts and training camps.

Officials suspect some 600 to 700 mainly Uzbek and Chechen fighters are still hiding in the area. Hundreds of militants poured into the region from Afghanistan in late 2001 when a US-led military offensive toppled Al-Qaeda's former Taliban hosts.

Pakistani forces have stepped up operations in the frontier tribal belt before Afghan presidential elections on October 9 to prevent cross-border attacks by Taliban insurgents who have vowed to disrupt the polls.

[T-bone]

Cloud of threats hangs over Afghanistan vote
By Kim Barker Tribune foreign correspondent

The letter came at night, written by hand on a piece of notebook paper and taped to the door of the election worker's guesthouse. "Taliban announcement," it proclaimed, warning people to stay away from Saturday's election.

Abdul Jabar, the election worker, now wakes up three or four times a night, to walk on his roof to make sure no one plants any bombs. Three weeks ago, the letter showed up. Last week, someone set fire to his garden door. On Wednesday, police stopped his convoy minutes from where a bomb had been planted.

"Definitely there are enemies ready to ambush the election," Jabar said. "They are ready to attack us."

Afghans will go to the polls Saturday to choose one of 16 candidates to be the country's first democratically elected president.

The vote is largely symbolic, as interim President Hamid Karzai is widely expected to win. But it represents a milestone for the war-torn country, which emerged almost three years ago from the repressive rule of the Taliban.

About 10.5 million voter registration cards have been issued. But Human Rights Watch said in a recent report that there were many duplicate registrations.

Rebels and remnants of the Taliban have vowed to disrupt the election. But much of their effort so far has been psychological, trying to scare voters into staying home.

Insurgents have distributed threatening letters. Purported spokesmen for the Taliban have called news agencies claiming, falsely, to have killed U.S. soldiers and grabbed control of various districts.

In this information war, the government has countered with its own news conferences declaring it has the upper hand.

Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said Thursday that security forces had disrupted 20 planned attacks since the beginning of the presidential campaign a month ago. More than 100 people have been arrested. At least 30 insurgents have been killed.

About 100,000 Afghan and foreign troops will protect polling stations on Election Day.

Insurgents have killed on average one person every day of the presidential campaign in a steady, numbing barrage of rockets and bombs and psychological warfare.

In recent weeks several letters were taped up in Jabar's village, warning children to stay home from school and adults to stay away from the polls. Last summer one letter was even put up near the district's jail, featuring a picture of an Afghan-American model and the warning that Afghans friendly with infidels would be killed. These are called "night letters," so named because they are left while people sleep.

School attacked

In a nearby village, a bomb placed in a toilet this week slightly damaged a girl's school that also is a polling station. Another girl's school and polling station in Kabul, the capital, was set on fire last week; 15 of the tents the school holds classes in were burned to the ground.

"We've had no night letters," said Basir Salangi, the police commander of Wardak province, just west of Kabul. "Only rockets."

Jabar, 44, is a United Nations (news - web sites) senior electoral district coordinator in Logar province, just south of Kabul. He drives a gray Jeep, No. 448, with a blue bumper sticker reminding people of the date of Saturday's election. "Please vote," it says. His driver carries a Kalashnikov rifle.

Everyone in his village, 35 miles south of the capital, knows Jabar works for the UN mission in Afghanistan (news - web sites). He is one of only two UN workers in Zarghon Shaher, a well-kept village that is a maze of high clay walls and narrow roads.

Everyone in the surrounding Mohammad Agha district knows Jabar as well. This week he rode in a convoy with his jeep, a police car and a truck, carrying 248 chairs, 186 tables and 15 tents to the 10 polling centers. He has set up polling booths in clinics and schools for the district's 36,000 registered voters. In one village that had no nearby school or clinic, Jabar set up booths in two homes.

Jabar's wife, Gul Sima, asked visitors whether they could give Jabar a private car instead of a known UN Jeep. She worried about the bomb, later defused, that his convoy neared on Wednesday. Jabar was an hour late coming from work that day, so Sima and several of the couple's nine children waited for him on the roof.

"Until he comes inside the house, I really worry for him," she said. "Sometimes, I'm guarding from the roof, to make sure no one is planting a bomb for him."

Prayers against violence

Jabar is not just trying to set up an election. He also is on the front lines of the information war to persuade people to vote.

In past weeks he passed out posters with cartoon Afghan voters at the local school, which handed them to voters such as Zamari, who runs a small grocery in Zarghon Shaher. Zamari, who like many Afghans uses only one name, pasted the posters on his grocery wall, along with a sample ballot. He is not certain how security will be on Saturday. He has heard rumors of mullahs who do not want people to vote.

"We pray to God, nothing will happen," Zamari said.

Most people in this village, with 5,800 registered voters, said they planned to vote Saturday, despite threats of violence. Villager Farid Ahmadi, who gives vaccinations in the local clinic, saw a letter taped to his water pump at 6:30 a.m. about a week ago. He ignored it.

"It was written: `Students should not go to school, government workers should give their vehicles back to the government in 48 hours. You should not go close to anywhere where people vote,' " Ahmadi recalled. "It was written, `Announcement of Taliban.' "

"It was not effective," added teacher Abdul Rahim, who plans to volunteer for the election.

[T-bone]

Opposition Alleges Afghan Election Fraud
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s first direct presidential election was thrust into turmoil hours after it started Saturday when all 15 candidates challenging interim leader Hamid Karzai alleged fraud over the ink meant to ensure people voted only once and vowed to boycott the results.

But electoral officials rejected their demand that the vote be called off, saying an apparent mix-up with ink used to mark voters' thumbs was not severe enough to halt the historic vote. They said they would rule on the legitimacy of the vote later.

"The vote will continue because halting the vote at this stage is unjustified and would deny these people their right to vote," said Ray Kennedy, vice chairman of the joint United Nations (news - web sites)-Afghan electoral body. "There have been some technical problems but overall it has been safe and orderly."

Karzai said the fate of the vote was in the hands of the electoral body, but he added that in his view "the election was free and fair ... it is very legitimate"

"Who is more important, these 15 candidates, or the millions of people who turned out today to vote?" Karzai said. "Both myself and all these 15 candidates should respect our people — because in the dust and snow and rain, they waited for hours and hours to vote."

Election officials said workers at some voting stations mistakenly swapped the permanent ink meant to mark thumbs with normal ink meant for ballots, but insisted the problem was caught quickly.

The boycott cast a pall over what had been a joyous day in Afghanistan, where millions of Afghans braved threats of Taliban violence to crowd polling stations for an election aimed at bringing peace and prosperity to a country nearly ruined by more than two decades of war. The Taliban was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

Voters queued for hours outside polling stations in bombed-out schools, blue-domed mosques and bullet-pocked hospitals to cast ballots, while more than 100,000 soldiers, police, U.S. troops and other security forces deployed to thwart attacks.

The international community spent nearly $200 million staging the vote. At least 12 election workers, and dozens of Afghan security forces, died in the past few months as the nation geared up for the vote.

Karzai went into the election a heavy favorite, but needed to win a majority to avoid a runoff against the second-place finisher. Results were expected to take some time to tally because of the inaccessibility of many Afghan towns and villages.

The opposition candidates, meeting at the house of Uzbek candidate Abdul Satar Sirat, signed a petition saying they would not recognize the results because the glitches with ink opened the way for widespread fraud.

"Today's election is not a legitimate election. It should be stopped and we don't recognize the results," said Sirat, a former aide to Afghanistan's last king and a minor candidate given little chance of winning.

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the ink problem was not as pervasive as the candidates claimed.

"I don't think we can lose sight of the perspective. There are 23,000 polling stations in the country. We do not have indications it (the ink mix-up) was to a great extent," he said.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad arrived at Sirat's house after Karzai's challengers reiterated their charges in a second meeting. He made no comment other than to say he was there "only to help."

Khalilzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, has been widely criticized for perceived favoritism for Karzai, and he is seen by many Afghans as a puppet-master. After his arrival, several Afghans gathered outside the house joked that a resolution to the crisis was near because "the big man has arrived."

The issue of the ink was crucial because officials said before the vote that many people had received more than one registration card for the election by mistake. Vote organizers argued that the indelible ink would prevent people from voting twice, even if they had more than one card. About 10.5 million registration cards were handed out ahead of the election, a staggering number that U.N. and Afghan officials say was inflated by widespread double registration. Human rights groups said some people obtained four or five voter cards, thinking they would be able to use them to receive humanitarian aid.

Afghanistan has an estimated population of 25 million.

Massooda Jalal, the only woman in the field and one of the candidates to sign the petition, said she decided to protest after getting calls of complaint from her constituents.

"The ink that is being used can be rubbed off in a minute. Voters can vote 10 times!" she said.

Another candidate, ethnic Tajik newspaper editor Hafiz Mansoor, also complained.

"Very easily they can erase the ink," he said. "This is a trick that is designed to clear the way for cheating."

Earlier in the day, Karzai, accompanied by heavily armed bodyguards, voted in a room at what was once the prime minister's residence. He rubbed his thumb to show reporters the ink did not rub off.

"It is not important who wins, but it is important that Afghanistan makes its own future," he told reporters before the call for the boycott surfaced. "This is a very great day. God is very kind to us."

All roads leading to Kabul and other major cities were heavily guarded and closed to most traffic. Heightened security measures appeared to work, despite plenty of signs Taliban rebels were trying to disrupt the polls.

On Friday, a bomb-sniffing dog discovered a fuel truck rigged with anti-tank mines and laden with 10,000 gallons of gasoline that three Pakistanis planned to detonate in the southern city of Kandahar, said Col. Ishaq Paiman, the Defense Ministry deputy spokesman. The blast would have killed hundreds and "derailed" balloting in the south, he said.

The election offered a stark contrast in a nation that has endured many forms of imposed rule in the past 30 years — among them monarchy, Soviet occupation, warlord fiefdoms and the repressive Taliban theocracy ousted by the U.S.-led invasion following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"I came here to vote so we can have democracy and stability and peace in Afghanistan," said Aziz Ullah, a 19-year-old Kabul shopkeeper. "There used to only be a transfer of power by force or killing."

Women voted at separate booths from men, in keeping with the nation's conservative Islamic leaning.

The European Union (news - web sites) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation (news - web sites) in Europe sent observer missions, but neither said it planned to pass judgment on the fairness of the process, saying it would not be appropriate to try to hold Afghanistan to international standards. A small U.S. observer team also was monitoring the vote.

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Graham in Kandahar, Burt Herman in Mazar-e-Sharif and Amir Shah and Paul Haven in Kabul contributed to this report.

[T-bone]

Commander: Osama Probably Not in Pakistan Region

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) is unlikely to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, the top military commander in the area said on Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, military commander for northwestern Pakistan, said the strong presence of security forces in the rugged tribal region and on the border had made it hard for Washington's most wanted man to sneak into Pakistan.

"The way the army is deployed, there is nothing beyond my eyes and ears," he told reporters in the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

"I have a very good surveillance system ... I can say he (bin Laden) is not here."

A large number of al Qaeda men fled to Pakistan after U.S.-led forces launched a hunt in Afghanistan (news - web sites) for them following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, prompting U.S. officials to believe that their leader bin Laden might be hiding in the border region of the two countries.

The U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Barno, told Reuters last month Bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda figures were most likely to be hiding in Pakistan where they could be well protected by their foreign fighters in the remote tribal region.

Hundreds of al Qaeda fighters, including Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs, are believed to be hiding in the South Waziristan tribal region.

Hussain said middle-ranking al Qaeda officials, like Tahir Yuldashev, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, might be among the foreign fighters holed up in the rugged region but dismissed the possibility Bin Laden was there.

"There is no area which has not been swept through by us. Had he been there ... I would have gotten him by now."

South Waziristan has been the scene of fierce clashes between the security forces and al Qaeda-linked militants in recent months.

Hussain said at least 246 militants, including 100 foreigners, had been killed and more than 550 had been arrested since March. He said about 171 security forces had been killed in these clashes.

Pakistan has deployed more than 70,000 troops in its tribal belt since it joined U.S.-led war on terror in 2001, which was prompted by the Sept 11 U.S. attacks blamed on al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, three Pakistani soldiers were killed and three others were wounded when al Qaeda-linked militants attacked a military convoy in South Waziristan Tuesday.

A military spokesman said troops came under fire in Spinkay Raghzai, the area where a local al Qaeda-linked militant commander, Abdullah Mehsud, is believed to be hiding.

He said the troops also returned the fire but did not have details of casualties from the other side.

Pakistani authorities have vowed to hunt down Abdullah, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who masterminded the abduction of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in the area on Oct. 9.

One of the hostages was killed after army commandos launched a rescue operation last week.

[T-bone]

U.N.: Afghanistan Becoming 'Narco-State'
By PAUL GEITNER

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Afghanistan (news - web sites) is on its way to becoming a "narco-state" and U.S. and NATO (news - web sites)-led forces in the country should get involved in fighting the drug trade as well as terrorists, according to a U.N. report released Thursday.

"It would be an historical error to abandon Afghanistan to opium, right after we reclaimed it from the Taliban and al-Qaida," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

The agency found that this year's cultivation of opium — the raw material for heroin — was up by nearly two-thirds. Bad weather and disease kept production from setting a new record, although it still accounted for 87 percent of world supply, up from 76 percent in 2003.

The illegal trade is booming despite political progress in the country, including the first presidential election, and local drug control efforts directed by British military advisers.

Opium is now the "main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond among previously quarrelsome peoples," according to the report. It valued the trade at $2.8 billion, or more than 60 percent of Afghanistan's 2003 gross domestic product.

Calling the problem too big for the weak Afghan government to tackle alone, Costa said U.S.- and NATO-led forces should participate in military operations against drug labs and convoys of traffickers.

International donors also have to lend support with measures to alleviate poverty in the countryside and to root out corruption in the Afghan army, police, judiciary and provincial administrations.

NATO has said it recognizes the seriousness of the problem but had no immediate comment.

Costa also urged the Afghan government to pursue a "significant eradication campaign," prosecute major drug trafficking cases and take "measurable actions against corruption in government."

"The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is slowly becoming a reality," he said in the report. "Opium cultivation, which has spread like wildfire throughout the country, could ultimately incinerate everything: democracy, reconstruction and stability."

The Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004 found cultivation rose 64 percent over 2003, with 323,701 acres dedicated to the poppies that produce opium.

That set a double record, Costa said: "the highest drug cultivation in the country's history, and the largest in the world."

The total output of 4,200 tons was only 17 percent higher than last year because bad weather and disease reduced yields by almost 30 percent, the survey found. Still, 2004 production was close to the peak of 4,600 tons in 1999 — a year before the Taliban banned new cultivation.

By contrast, opium production in southeast Asia's notorious "Golden Triangle" has diminished 75 percent and "may soon be declared drug free," he said.

Most heroin from Afghanistan ends up on the streets of Europe.

British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, whose country is leading the counternarcotics effort in Afghanistan, said there was an international commitment to support the Afghan government fight the problem.

"The challenge is substantial and complex, but we and the Afghans are in this for the long haul," he said in a statement.

[T-bone]

Three U.N. Hostages in Afghanistan Freed
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan - Three U.N. workers kidnapped in Afghanistan (news - web sites) four weeks ago were released unharmed Tuesday, a day after a string of raids by U.S. and Afghan security forces.

The release was a relief to foreign aid workers and U.N. staffers among Kabul's 2,000-strong expatriate community, under virtual lockdown since the kidnapping. Large tracts of the country are already off-limits to relief workers because of a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency.

Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan, British-Irish citizen Annetta Flanigan and Shqipe Hebibi of Kosovo were seized at gunpoint from a U.N. vehicle on Oct. 28 in Kabul.

They were first foreigners abducted in the Afghan capital since the Taliban fell three years ago, and their abductions raised fears that the Afghan capital could become prey to the kind of deadly kidnappings by insurgents that have plagued Iraq (news - web sites).

"They are out," U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said. "I'm told they are in good spirits and they seem to be fine."

Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said the trio were "abandoned in one location inside Kabul" at around 6 a.m. Tuesday.

Jalali said discussions had been held with the kidnappers, whom he declined to identify, but insisted no deal was done and that the releases were unconditional.

"None of the hostage-takers conditions have been met," he told a news conference. "All those people who had a hand in this — directly or indirectly — will be brought to justice."

Afghan officials have said they believe a criminal gang carried out the abductions, and have said that negotiations centered on a ransom demand.

Jalali said it was "possible" that a Taliban-linked group which has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings had hired some criminals to abduct the three, who helped organize the country's Oct. 9 presidential elections.

The group, Jaish-al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, had demanded that Afghan and U.S. authorities free jailed comrades.

"I cannot say they were not involved," Jalali said.

The foreigners were freed a day after U.S. and Afghan forces raided two houses in downtown Kabul on Monday and detained 10 people in connection with the abductions.

Most of the detainees were released after being questioned, an Afghan intelligence official said, and it was not clear if the arrest of a doctor who worked at a U.N. clinic in the city had hastened the hostages' release.

Jalali also said one person was killed and four injured in another police operation linked to the kidnapping north of Kabul on Monday. He declined to give details, saying it could endanger efforts to round up more suspects.

Officials said the three U.N. workers underwent medical examinations at a NATO (news - web sites) base in Kabul that showed all were well and were then given time to call relatives and friends and to relax.

"It's a very happy moment, but also a very private moment," said Almeida e Silva, the U.N. spokesman. He said all three would travel home to their families "very soon."

Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Jose Brillantes told Manila radio DZMM from Kabul that he talked with Nayan.

He said Nayan spoke by phone to his sister in Manila and had an "emotional telephone conversation" with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (news - web sites). He "was a bit apologetic" that everyone had to go through so much trouble, Brillantes said.

The British government released a statement by Flanigan's family expressing their joy at the peaceful end to the crisis and their thanks to the authorities.

"After all the terrible anxiety of the last 27 days it is an incredible relief to know that Annetta is safe and well."

In Flanigan's native Richhill in Northern Ireland where her mother and siblings live, the Rev. David Coe said "the entire village has been praying for her release, and thank God it's happened. It will be a happy Christmas for the family after all."

The news united Northern Ireland's usually divided British Protestant and Irish Catholic politicians with joy. And political and religious leaders throughout the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland, and the neighboring Republic of Ireland also welcomed her release.

"I know that this will be a tremendous relief to the family, who have been to hell and back. Let us thank God they have been released," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik where he was attending a conference on Iraq.

Syed Khalid, a spokesman for Jaish-al Muslimeen, told The Associated Press on Tuesday it had freed the hostages overnight against an "assurance that the release of our 24 people would begin today."

His claims could not be verified. Silvestre Afable, a Philippine government spokesman, also insisted there was no prisoner-for-hostage exchange.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad hailed the releases as a "major defeat to terrorists who wanted to export an Iraq-style of hostage-taking in Afghanistan."

Khalilzad said the Afghan government, people, the United Nations (news - web sites), as well as NATO peacekeepers and U.S.-led coalition forces had worked together to bring about the releases, sending "an important message to those who wish to disrupt the new Afghan democracy."

Jalali appealed to Afghanistan's international backers not to lose their nerve in the face of the kidnapping which "must not be repeated and will never be tolerated."

"We hope it will not discourage the resolve of the international community to continue their work to assist the Afghan people in the pursuit of lasting peace and security," he said.

[T-bone]

Hidden Battles In Afghanistan
Navy Seals' Afghan Mission

"Iraq is a very dangerous place, but there's still a lot of fighting being done here in Afghanistan."

(CBS) Correspondent Lara Logan spent three-and-a-half weeks in Afghanistan with the elite U.S. Navy SEALs, the first time a journalist has been allowed to go with them into combat. She followed them on the hunt for one of the most sought-after members of the Taliban.

It was night at their base in southern Afghanistan. The SEALs, whom 60 Minutes can't identify for security reasons, were receiving final instructions from their team chief for a mission that would start in just a few hours.

Their plan was to go after a mid-level Taliban commander, but new intelligence had just come in that compelled them to switch targets at the last minute. They had a possible location for Rosie Khan, the most powerful Taliban commander in the south.

The SEALs knew he was the man financing and recruiting Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, and bringing them over the border from Pakistan.

Logan flew in with Army pilots from the National Guard, right into the heart of the Taliban insurgency. As they approached, people in the village were able to hear the pounding chopper blades, so the SEALs prepared to take fire and braced for impact.

The SEALs immediately surrounded the village to stop anyone from trying to escape into the nearby mountains. Meanwhile, the team commander was tracking his men over the radio.

They'd spotted a lone man heading away from the village. No one knew if he was the man they were after, but he had to be stopped. The Apaches dropped flares to mark the man's position.

But before the team commander could order his forces to hold their positions, he lost contact with the Apaches, so the SEALs on the ground returned fire and killed the man.

He appears to have been the primary target, the man the SEALs say they've been looking for during the past two years.

The SEALs moved through the village, expecting further resistance. Their job was to root out enemy fighters from the innocent people in the village. Any time they're fired upon, the SEALs automatically detain all the men.

An assault team secured each house, but they didn't find any other fighters. By now, the SEALs had brought the dead body down from the hill. They said he had $10,000 in U.S. dollars, and a stack about a half-inch thick of Pakistani rupees.

That's an extreme amount of money to have in this type of environment, an isolated little village in the middle of nowhere. The SEALs were able to identify the man, and found letters on him that were addressed to the exact individual they were targeting: "We feel like a 100, like 99 percent, that this has to be him."

Khan had become a legendary outlaw in southern Afghanistan, where American
forces had been hunting him for more than two years. He'd always managed to escape.

The SEALs said the death of Khan would cripple enemy operations in this part of the country.

When they're taking down a target like this, do they ever wonder if they'll find Osama bin Laden? "That would be sweet," says one SEAL. "You always think about that. You think you're gonna get lucky."

All the locals asked to identify Khan denied knowing him, which seemed unlikely in such a tiny village. Then, each detainee was fingerprinted, and his DNA was added to a portable database that's used all over the world.

The database contains profiles of potential terrorists like one man who gave the SEALs false information. When they ran his fingerprints, he turned up on the database as someone else. So while the other men were cut free and released, the SEALs took him back to base for further questioning.

But there would be little time for the SEALs to relax. Back at the tented compound, they had to prepare for the next mission. That meant cleaning their weapons, a constant battle against the dust that gets into everything. It also means testing their rifles at the range to make sure the sights are properly aligned.

Just two days after killing Khan, the SEALs were on the attack again. They heard that Khan's lieutenants were meeting in a remote village. "They potentially may be in this compound. So they're probably trying to re-group themselves and get some leadership established," says one SEAL. "So we're trying to take advantage of the opportunity and going in and either capturing them or killing them also."

The SEALs cautiously approached, but once they got inside the village, they found mostly women, children and old men. There were no obvious signs that enemy fighters had been there until they started searching.

They were looking for anything electronic – batteries, wires, and any kind of bomb-making material. This search turned up RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds, complete with grenade launchers. It's a sign that there are people there who are not just simple farmers, even though everything looks peaceful and normal in the village.

When they questioned the people, the SEALs discovered that they'd missed the men they were after by just a few hours. So was this a wasted effort?

"No, they're really never wasted efforts, because when you come in here, what you do is you disrupt," says one SEAL. "Like we know that they've been watching us while we've been here, so they're ever presently, they're sitting around trying to watch what's going on."

And he says that most likely, the SEALs are being watched at that moment, which means they can never let down their guard. But they don’t want to needlessly create more enemies, so they’re quick to offer reassurances, especially to the women and children who're often frightened when these heavily armed strangers suddenly drop in.

The SEALs frequently bring along a special operations soldier, whose job is to help win over the locals by handing out basic gifts, and finding out what aid is needed in these poor villages.

The SEALs' role in targeting terrorists is a specialized part of the broader military effort to help stabilize Afghanistan. They've been on 58 missions over the last five months.

What is the most important thing that people should know?

"I would want them to know that this place is still dangerous, you know, you don't see it on the news all the time," says one SEAL. "Iraq is a very dangerous place, but there's still a lot of fighting being done here in Afghanistan."

[T-bone]

U.S. Moves to Defuse Afghan Tension By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jul 27, 7:32 AM ET



U.S. military officials moved to defuse tension after a riot outside their main base by handing six villagers accused of being bombmakers over to local Afghan authorities, officials said Wednesday.

The riot — unusual in an area that has been largely peaceful and pro-American — was sparked Tuesday after U.S. forces detained the suspected insurgents in raids on their homes. Demonstrators said they were angry that U.S. troops arrested the villagers without consulting local authorities.

More than 1,000 protesters chanting "Die America!" and throwing stones tried to break down a gate at the Bagram base, where thousands of U.S. and other foreign soldiers live behind razor-wire fences and land mines left from Afghanistan's civil war.

U.S. troops fired in the air, as did Afghan soldiers who also used batons to beat back the demonstrators.

There did not appear to be any serious casualties, although an Associated Press reporter was hit and kicked by protesters who accused him of being a spy for the Americans. Other demonstrators punched an AP photographer.

U.S. military spokesman Col. James Yonts confirmed the six were handed over to Afghan authorities after the provincial governor gave a guarantee to present the men for questioning at any time.

Local police chief Abdulrahman Mawlana said the six were transferred to police late Tuesday and spent the night in custody.

However, regional tribal leader Latifullah Rahimi said the men had been allowed to spend the night in their homes and had returned to the police station in the morning.

"The power of the people of Bagram won their release," he told the AP in a telephone interview.

Mawlana said one of the six, who goes by the single name Hamidullah, was a former commander in the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance, which helped oust the Taliban in 2001. Before that, in the 1980s war against Soviet troops, he had been a senior militia leader for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a renegade former premier now wanted by the United States.

Another one of the six is an Islamic cleric, while the four others are farmers and laborers, Mawlana said.

Local government chief Kaber Ahmad said the mood in the town adjoining the base was calm Wednesday and there were no protesters. The main outer gate at the base, which had been closed Tuesday, was open and U.S. military convoys were traveling through it.

The riot at Bagram, an hour's drive north of the capital, Kabul, came amid a major surge in violence that has killed more than 800 people since March and raised fears that the fighting is a threat to parliamentary elections scheduled for Sept. 18.

[T-bone]

Pakistan to expell foreign students from Islamic seminaries: Musharraf 9 minutes ago



Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said all the estimated 1,400 foreign nationals studying in the country's madrassas would have to leave the Islamic seminaries.

"All foreigners are to be removed" from Pakistan's more than 10,000 madrassas, Musharraf told reporters, and no new visas would be issued to non-Pakistanis wishing to study in the seminaries and Islamic prayer schools.

The ban would also apply to holders of dual nationality.

"An ordinance to this effect will be adopted in the next coming days," General Musharraf said.

He also reiterated that all Islamic prayer schools in the country would have to register with the government by the end of the year.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged Pakistan to move against extremists and radical madrassas following news that some of the London July 7 bombers had recently visited the South Asian country.

Musharraf last week ordered a crackdown on extremists. By Friday security forces had rounded up more than 600 suspected militants and Islamic clerics.

No one connected to the London attacks had been arrested, they said.

[T-bone]

Afghan Women Put Lives on Line To Run for Office
By N.C. Aizenman, Washington Post Foreign Service

CHARKH, Afghanistan -- The note slipped under Mahmoud Shah's front gate was written in a tidy, graceful hand. But the message brimmed with venom: "If you don't stop campaigning for Noorzia Charkhi, your life will be in danger. Also tell Noorzia Charkhi that she should give up her candidacy. Aren't you ashamed to put up posters of your family's women in the bazaar?"


Charkhi, 36, is a journalist based in the capital, Kabul, who is campaigning for a seat in Afghanistan's new parliament. But in this mud-walled village in Logar, the home province she hopes to represent, Charkhi's candidacy is such a challenge to tradition that she and her relatives, including her cousin Shah, have faced repeated threats.


"I'm not going to quit, because I want to show people that a woman should be able to do these things. But definitely I fear for my life. . . . The people who did this already have blood on their hands," Charkhi said during a visit to Shah's home, 50 miles south of Kabul. "I'm even more afraid that they will smear my reputation," she added. "That would be worse than death."


Charkhi's situation underscores both the difficulties facing female candidates running for office in the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections and the determination many have expressed as they embark on an unprecedented bid for political power.


Even though many Afghan families still prohibit wives and daughters from showing their faces in public, 328 women are running for the lower house of parliament, where 68 of 249 seats have been set aside for female representatives. An additional 237 are running for seats on provincial councils that will in turn appoint a third of the upper house.


Despite the traditional restrictions on women, the guaranteed quota of legislative seats for them has given political parties, tribal leaders and powerful families an incentive to promote female candidates whom they might otherwise have ignored -- or even banned from running.


"There is quite a bit of support for women running in the parliamentary elections -- much more than we expected," noted Rina Amiri, a U.N. political affairs officer who is monitoring the elections.


Yet female candidates in provinces across the country have complained of receiving phone calls and letters threatening them with death if they don't withdraw.


In southern Helmand province, U.N. officials are investigating reports of letters circulating that offer a $4,000 reward for killing female candidates. In southeastern Zabol province, unknown gunmen tried to hijack a car belonging to Zarmina Pathan, a candidate and employee of a local aid organization. Afghan and U.N. officials said they are investigating whether the attack was a routine crime or an attempt to intimidate her.


In Logar, Charkhi is not the only female candidate to face threats. Zobaida Stanekzai, 52, a school supervisor running for parliament, said she has little doubt about the motives of whoever set fire to the door of her mud-walled home several weeks ago.


"They were trying to scare me into dropping out," said Stanekzai, whose home was also attacked with a grenade last year when she took a job registering women to vote in the presidential election. "But my decision to be a candidate is unshakable."


Despite the large number of female candidates, women are still seriously underrepresented in the coming elections. They make up 12 percent of candidates for parliament and 8 percent of candidates for the provincial councils.


In remote, conservative Uruzgan province, not a single woman signed up to run. And in the past several weeks, 50 female candidates have dropped out.


In Paktika province, a desolate tribal area without a single girls' secondary school, an election monitor told of a village teacher who traveled to the provincial capital to register as a candidate -- and made a second arduous trip there just four days later to resign her candidacy.


The monitor, Peter Murphy of Britain, said the teacher recounted that a group of religious leaders "had seen her sign up and had gone to her village to tell the elders that it would be wrong for her to run. I tried to talk her out of withdrawing, but she was really terrified. She said people in the market were already saying bad things to her husband, and she was convinced that they would be totally ostracized."


Much of the animosity toward female candidates appears to reflect a traditional discomfort with women in public roles, a view that was further entrenched during the 1990s, when the country was controlled first by warring Islamic militias and then by the extremist Islamic Taliban movement.


Officials from the election management commission, which is composed of both Afghans and foreign nationals, said the complaints they receive about female candidates frequently assert that the woman in question should be disqualified because she has loose morals or a "notorious character."


Still, observers said, it is not always clear whether female candidates are being targeted because of their gender or whether that issue is being used by adversaries who oppose them for other reasons.

In Charkhi's case, for instance, opposition to her candidacy may be tangled up in both family and religious politics. She believes the threats have originated with Shah Mohammed Yousafzai Charkhi, a burly, bearded rival candidate and distant relative from her home village.

Yousafzai Charkhi's brother-in-law is the fugitive former Taliban governor of eastern Nangahar province. Noorzia Charkhi and other villagers claim that Yousafzai Charkhi was a powerful Taliban subcommander in his own right. She said relatives told her that at a recent tribal gathering, Yousafzai Charkhi called her candidacy shameful and said someone should kill her.

"He's totally against women candidates," Noorzia Charkhi said. "During Taliban times, he would go after women with a whip in his hand. Now he's still going after us." However, she also acknowledged that her family had a long-running feud with Yousafzai Charkhi that predated her candidacy.

For his part, Yousafzai Charkhi said he had never been active in the Taliban movement. He charged that Noorzia Charkhi was simply trying to get attention by denouncing him.

"I don't have a problem with women running," he said in an interview at a gas station his family owns, just down the mud road from Shah's house. "According to Islam, women are given a lot of rights, including participating in elections."

His expression darkened, though, as the discussion turned to the quotas guaranteeing women seats in parliament.

"The government should let the people decide who they want to represent them," he said with a scowl. "It's very unfair."

[Cassus Fett]

Al-Qaeda broadcasts new message

The deputy leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has appeared in a new videotape shown by Arabic satellite television station al-Jazeera.
In the tape, he claims that US hints of a future reduction of troops in Iraq are "a victory for Islam".

And he calls on US President George W Bush to admit defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan and says he will soon be defeated in Palestine.

Al-Jazeera says the videotape dates from December.

The Egyptian-born former eye surgeon wears a white turban and a grey robe with an automatic rifle positioned behind him, in a pose typical of past videotaped recordings.

"I congratulate the Muslims on Islam's victory in Iraq. I said more than a year ago that the Americans' departure from Iraq is only a matter of time," he says.

"Bush, you must admit that you have been defeated in Iraq and that you are being defeated in Afghanistan and that you will soon be defeated in Palestine, with the help and strength of God," he also says.

Wanted men

Mr Bush said on Wednesday that the US would aim to put more Iraqi territory under the control of Iraqi security forces during 2006.

He added that if Iraqis made good progress, "we can discuss further possible adjustments" in US troop levels, although he refused to outline a timetable for withdrawal.

However, Zawahiri is likely to have made the tape before Mr Bush gave his comments. Al-Jazeera says the video carried the date of the Muslim lunar month which ended in December.

Zawahiri is regarded as Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man. The two have evaded capture since US-led forces brought down the Taleban regime in Afghanistan in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on the US.

[T-bone]

bump