Sons of this land dying, slams Karzai

Afghan National Army personnel train with British troops. Picture / Reuters

KANDAHAR - Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has attacked Britain, the United States and other nations with troops in Afghanistan, calling on them to "reassess the manner in which the war on terror is conducted", as the death toll in Afghanistan passed 600 in four weeks.

The Afghan President, who has seen support for his Government collapse in the violent and economically stagnant south of the country, distanced himself from the ongoing military operations there, which involve 11,000 troops.

"It is not acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying," he told reporters at his first press conference for at least six months.

"In the last three to four weeks, 500 to 600 Afghans were killed. [Even] if they are Taleban, they are sons of this land."

The Afghan President's words are a blow for US and British forces in the country. The British Armed Forces minister, Adam Ingram, defended the continued British presence in Afghanistan.

He told the House of Commons in London: "Completing this process is not simply a moral obligation to the Afghan people, success is also essential for future British security interests.

"If the Karzai Government were to fail and Afghanistan were to be an unpoliced and impoverished black hole, there could be no greater boost for worldwide Islamist extremism and no more certain way of ensuring abundant and uninterrupted supplies of heroin on our streets."

But political commentators remain fearful that the Afghan President has lost support across the south, with the Taleban displaying an aptitude for the sort of sophisticated propaganda campaign waged by Iraqi militants.

The Taleban now have three different press spokesmen covering three separate regions of the country.

In Kandahar this northern summer, Taleban cassettes, DVDs and magazines are available in numbers never previously seen. Their focus is the "puppet" Government of Karzai and its complicity in what is portrayed as the Western military persecution of ordinary Afghans.

"This propaganda does have an effect, particularly when it is repeated again and again," said Hamidullah Tarzi, a political analyst and former Finance Minister.

"As Goebbels used to say, it doesn't matter whether propaganda is a lie or not, if you repeat it enough people will believe it."

Most of the Afghan population are illiterate, but hundreds of tapes on sale in the bazaars of the south feature songs against the Government and foreigners, eulogising the martyrs of the Taleban. Typical are titles such as The Martyrs of Showli-kot and Bush the Infidel.

"The buyers have increased for these tapes with all the recent fighting," a tape-seller named Zalmai said. "The Government banned them, but we just take the covers off."

The Taleban have also begun broadcasting a pirate station called the Voice of Sharia from mobile transmitters in at least two southern provinces.

On the internet, unknown in Afghanistan while the Taleban were in power, there is also a sophisticated website, www.alemarah.org.

In Arabic and Pashto it offers news, poetry, messages from the Taleban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, and regularly updated videos of the last messages of Taleban suicide bombers.

A DVD called Lions of Islam is one of a number that is widely available.

It was largely filmed in Pakistan's tribal areas and includes the beheading of an Afghan alleged to be an American spy and the execution of local criminals according to Taleban Sharia justice.

In response, Western forces in the country are extending a fledgling, military-funded radio channel called Radio Peace into the south to counter anti-government propaganda.

"It is perhaps something we haven't paid enough attention to in the past," a Nato military spokesman, Major Luke Knittig, said.

The Government issued a directive through its intelligence service on Tuesday which banned Afghan journalists from filming or interviewing alleged members of the Taleban.

The directive also included a ban on reports "that aim to represent that the fighting spirit in Afghanistan's armed forces is weak".

The Afghan media were also told not to lead with stories about "terrorist activities". The directive was later said to be a request by Karzai's office reflecting "the need to help the nascent media sector in Afghanistan to approach the complex issue of terrorism and terrorist activities in a principled manner".

- INDEPENDENT