Today's News

The man, Sayed Hamid Noori, was a TV anchor for the state network Radio Television Afghanistan. He had been stabbed to death.

Police said that Mr Noori received a telephone call late on Sunday which prompted him to leave his flat.

President Hamid Karzai has told the interior minister to investigate.

So far there are no indications of who killed Mr Noori or why.

"Someone called him and asked him to come down from his apartment last night. His body was found later by police in a tree-covered area near his home," deputy Kabul police chief Khalilullah Dastyar told the AFP news agency.

Correspondents say that Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.

At least 14 have been killed because of their work since the Taliban were ousted by US-led forces in 2001, according to media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

Afghan Independent Journalists' Association (AIJA) head Rahimullah Samander said the government must do more to protect Afghan and foreign journalists.

"We strongly condemn this brutal act and urge the government not to ignore it like past incidents," he told the Reuters news agency.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday ordered an investigation into the beheading death of an Afghan journalist, his office said in a statement.st

Said Hamid Noori, a journalist for Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) was killed Sunday, according to Abdul Hamid Mobariz, the head of an Afghan journalists' union.

Mobariz said Noori left his home after receiving a phone call, and his decapitated body was discovered about an hour later.

"The killing of Noori is a big loss for Afghanistan journalists," Mobariz said.

He added that Noori had been working as the deputy chief of a journalists' union. He also directed an educational organization that taught students how to become broadcasters, Mobariz said.

Karzai has ordered the country's Interior Ministry to investigate the killing, the statement from his office said.

According to Journalists Without Borders, a group that defends press freedom and tracks the targeting of journalists, "Noori was a well-known TV anchor who went into politics and became the spokesman of Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, an opponent of President Hamid Karzai."

"While the motives are not yet known, it is important that the investigators should not rule out the possibility that this murder was linked to the victim's work as a journalist," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement on its website.

"Although he had resigned as a state TV presenter, he continued to be a politically committed journalist and was an active member of the National Union of Afghan Journalists. We offer our condolences to his family and friends."

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — It was a broiling fall evening in this southern Afghan battlezone, and U.S. Army Sgt. Charles Reed wanted to celebrate his birthday in style — at T.G.I. Friday's on the boardwalk.

So the military intelligence soldier ducked inside the Western diner with a dozen friends, climbed atop a chair, and began a slow, solo groove as smiling Asian waiters in baseball caps clapped a carefully practiced birthday cheer.

Two nonalcoholic Dutch beers and a $30 steak and shrimp dinner later, Reed stepped out of the air-conditioned cool of the wood-floored eatery — whose walls are plastered with guitars, surfboards and Elvis posters — and back into reality: the sweltering desert heat of a giant NATO military base ensconced in a rocky Afghan moonscape crawling with insurgents.

"It was kind of unreal," the Steamboat Springs, Colorado native said, describing his recent 34th birthday fete at Kandahar Airfield, better known as KAF. "At least for a few minutes, you could pretend you were somewhere else. It was like going back home."

The only difference, perhaps: most of the people ordering cheeseburgers and milkshakes were decked out in combat fatigues, and heavily armed.

T.G.I. Friday's is the apex of war-zone escapism on KAF's famed boardwalk, a Wild West-like quadrangle boasting three dozen glass-door shops and coffee bars that form a surreal counterpoint to the daily fighting going on just outside the base's walls.

Coalition forces arriving here this year as part of the U.S. surge to curb the mushrooming insurgency have been shocked to discover such elaborate dining and entertainment options.

Flashing neon signs beckon customers to the red and white tablecloths inside Mamma Mia's Pizzeria. The Green Bean cafe ("Honor First, Coffee Second") offers frozen iced latte and cinnamon buns. There is a barber shop, an AT&T call center, multiple Wifi networks, and a cyber cafe in which soldiers can video-chat with family and friends back home.

Around half a square mile (1 square kilometer) long, the covered walkway surrounds a dirt pitch hosting the occasional rock concert. Troops from NATO nations gather nightly in shorts and tennis shoes to watch basketball, flag-football and volleyball games. There is even a Canadian-dominated field hockey rink. And one night last week, an acoustic guitar jam.

There are ATM bank machines, too, and plenty to shop for: Cuban cigars, condoms, suits. The German military store sells a "Terror Chess" set pitting American forces against Taliban guerrillas on a map of Afghanistan (the American queen is the Statue of Liberty, while George W. Bush and a newly added Barack Obama are kings; their counterparts: a woman clad in a blue burqa and Osama bin Laden).

U.S. Capt. Braden Coleman, a 30-year-old pilot from North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, remembered sitting down on the boardwalk shortly after being deployed here in May.

"I couldn't believe I was in Kandahar eating a double-dipped chocolate ice cream at sunset on a Saturday afternoon," said Coleman, who was downing a strawberry smoothie from the French bakery behind him, where an Eiffel Tower climbs a wall above picnic tables with fake potted plants.

"It was a surreal experience," he said, as a jet fighter roared across the sky, letting loose a stream of defensive white flares. "I remember thinking, 'We're in the heart of the war-zone. The bad guys are 10 miles away. And here we are eating soft-serve ice cream.'"

Since a small American Marine contingent first landed here in late November 2001, KAF has expanded into a small city housing 30,000 multinational troops and support contractors. The population consumes nearly 37,000 gallons (140,000 liters) of water and 50,000 meals daily at seven free dining facilities known as D-FACs, according to U.S. Maj. Steven A. Williams, a senior acquisition officer.

Though far from the front lines, KAF residents endure frequent rocket attacks which rarely cause casualties but force everyone — including patrons of T.G.I. Friday's — to hit the ground whenever the alarm sounds.

In May, militants tried to storm the base's northern perimeter in a coordinated assault. One rocket hit about 50 yards (meters) outside a boardwalk coffee shop.

For the most part though, base life is monotonous. The walkway offers a welcome diversion, a place to kick back and relax. It's "a good morale booster," Williams said. The troops "see it as a slice of home."

The fast food outlets became controversial under former commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who questioned the utility of using vital supply lines transiting ambush-prone highways for nonessentials that could make troops too fat to fight. A Thai massage parlor was closed down (yes, a Thai massage parlor), and this spring, the U.S. military shut three American takeaways: Burger King, Pizza Hut and Subway.

T.G.I.'s, which opened in January and features the company's huge bright red and white sign outside and a dry bar with dangling wine glasses inside, appears to have escaped the austerity measures because the franchise is not American-owned.

McChrystal's replacement, Gen. David Petraeus, has hinted he may be kinder to the fast-food cause, saying through a spokesman in June that "all options are on the table."

Last month, a foreign-owned Kentucky Fried Chicken opened. And a new sign advertises a Coney Island specialty: "Nathan's Famous" hot-dogs, "Coming Soon."

KABUL, Afghanistan — A $250 million program to lure low-level Taliban fighters away from the insurgency has stalled, with Afghans bickering over who should run it, and international donors slow to put up the money they had promised.

Six months after Afghanistan’s foreign backers agreed to generous funding for a reintegration effort, so far only $200,000 has been spent by the United States and little or nothing by other donors.

During the same period, the flow of Taliban fighters seeking to reintegrate has slowed to a trickle — by the most optimistic estimates, a few hundred in the last six months. It is not clear whether that is because of the lack of a program that would provide them with jobs, security guarantees and other incentives, or because most Taliban no longer see the insurgency as a losing proposition.

In the past five years, a poorly funded Afghan reintegration effort, the Peace and Reconciliation Commission, recorded 9,000 Taliban who sought to join the government side — compared with 100 since April, officials said.

“It’s almost dead,” said Muhammad Akram Khapalwak, a top official at the nearly moribund commission in Kabul. He said employees there had not been paid in three months. “The Taliban know the government doesn’t have a single policy for peace and reconciliation.”

Support for a more ambitious initiative has had broad American and international support. When Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal took command in Afghanistan last year, he argued in his initial assessment that there was a need for a program that would “offer eligible insurgents reasonable incentives to stop fighting and return to normalcy.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, testifying in favor of such a program before Congress, said, “This is really about getting the foot soldiers to decide that they don’t want to be a part of the Taliban any more.”

Congress this year earmarked $100 million to support reintegration programs, while at the London Conference on Afghanistan in February, several countries, Britain, Germany and Japan among them, promised another $150 million to go into a Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, to be administered jointly by the Afghan government and foreign backers. A United States official said that as of August, only $200,000 of the American money had been spent on reintegration.

So far, Britain has put in about $2.6 million, although officials said the nation was committed to about $7.5 million. Money has yet to come from Germany, which pledged $64 million, and Japan, which pledged $50 million — although officials said both countries were expected to contribute this month.

Only Estonia has put in its full contribution: $64,000.

There is little pressure on the donors to meet their pledges more quickly, however, since the Afghans have yet to form an agency to spend the money. As one American official said, “There isn’t any there there yet.”

At a peace assembly, or jirga, in June, delegates agreed to form a High Peace Council, which would be responsible for trying to engage Taliban leaders in peace talks.

“I am telling you, dear brother Talib-jan, this is your country, come and have a peaceful life in the country,” President Hamid Karzai said, using an affectionate term for the Taliban.

Subsequently, at a Kabul conference in July, more international money was pledged for the reintegration trust fund, and delegates agreed that the High Peace Council would run the reintegration program, financed by that fund.

Since then, a “force reintegration cell” at the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, has been working with Afghan officials on how such a program would be structured, but the program has yet to start because of bickering among Afghan officials over who would head the council.

“There’s a lot of political resistance to this from a lot of people,” said an American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Gary Younger, an ISAF spokesman, said: “Because the Afghan government has the structure in place, hopefully it’ll move ahead quickly” once the council is formed. “We are seeing interest out there.”

Mr. Karzai’s office said in a statement on Sept. 4 that the council’s members had been decided upon and that their names would be announced after the Id al-Fitr holiday, which begins Sept. 9.

Nonetheless, there is some doubt about how effective the council will be once it starts its work. “There are several parties from the government who don’t want the Taliban to come in,” Mr. Akram said.

Muhammad Dawood Kalakani, an ethnic Tajik member of Parliament, expressed a view commonly held among non-Pashtun minority groups: “We don’t want peace at the cost of losing the achievements of the last nine years in terms of human and women’s rights, civil society, media and governance,” he said.

Insurgents who have changed sides in the past have been bitterly disappointed, Mr. Akram said.

Ghulam Yahya Akbari, an insurgent commander in Herat, was killed last October and 200 of his fighters surrendered to the Afghan government. To date, Mr. Akram said, none of them have received benefits other than emergency food rations, and they cannot return to their homes for fear of reprisals from the Taliban.

“Nobody finds them shelter, nobody gets them jobs, nobody opens a place for them in society,” he said.

More recently, small numbers of Taliban have turned themselves in to provincial officials in Baghlan Province and elsewhere, where local officials have run ad hoc programs to try to resettle them. In all, the American official said, estimates are that “several hundred” have turned themselves over in recent months, though he added that there was no way to verify the number.

NATO late last year estimated Taliban strength at 25,000 fighters, an increase of 25 percent over the previous year.

WASHINGTON - The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins pulling out its own combat troops in 2011, The Associated Press has learned.

The previously undisclosed estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security.

That reality could become problematic for the Obama administration as it continues to seek money for Afghanistan from Congress at a time of increasingly tight budgets.

In Brussels, a NATO official said Monday that alliance commander Gen. David Petraeus asked for 2,000 more soldiers, with nearly half to be trainers for the rapidly expanding Afghan security forces.

The NATO official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.

The training mission document, reviewed by the AP, outlines large scale infrastructure projects including a military hospital and military and police academies aimed at "establishing enduring institutions" and "creating irreversible momentum."

Spending for training is projected to taper off from $11.6 billion next year to an average of $6.2 billion over the following four years. Much of the reduction reflects reduced spending on infrastructure.

The administration recently announced that it intends to ramp up the total Afghan army and police force from nearly 250,000 today to more than 300,000 by late next year. The mission will be largely paid for by the United States, with smaller contributions from NATO allies. The projected multibillion dollar cost of maintaining those forces would be inconceivable for Afghanistan's small economy without foreign aid.

One of the arguments against dramatically increasing the size of Afghan security forces, even during George W. Bush's administration, was that the Afghan government would be unable to pay for them for the foreseeable future. The NATO document shows that the U.S. will end up footing most of the bill.

The Obama administration has boosted the training mission in preparation for next year's drawdown. The United States spent over $20 billion on training between 2003 and 2009 and expects to spend about the same this year and next alone.

The head of the NATO training mission, U.S. Lt. Gen. Bill Caldwell, says bolstering Afghanistan's security forces is cost efficient.

"It will always be more expensive to have a coalition force doing something than an Afghan counterpart," Caldwell said in a written response to questions from AP.

Caldwell said that he is sensitive to the concern that the United States is creating dependence and is looking for ways of cutting costs.

"This dependency is something that we think about all the time," he said. "We know the sooner the Afghan systems are up and running the sooner coalition forces can transition responsibilities to the sovereign government."

Todd Harrison, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says it will be difficult to wean the Afghan security forces quickly.

"We really do have a long way to go before this winds down," he said.

Caldwell has said that he aims to have Afghan security forces at sufficient numbers to begin a U.S. withdrawal by October 2011. The mission has had to deal with illiteracy, corruption and desertion among Afghan forces.

With much skepticism in Congress, the levels of financing outlined in the document are not guaranteed. While the roughly $6 billion annual cost would not be an enormous line in the defense budget, the administration is facing pressure to shrink the federal deficit.

Even Caldwell has predicted that desertion and injury rates are so high among Afghan forces that NATO will have to recruit and train 141,000 people to ensure it has the 56,000 additional personnel needed next fall.

As money for infrastructure tapers off, most of the projected spending is to retain forces by paying salaries, food and housing.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- Struggling to contain asset-stripping at Afghanistan's biggest bank, Afghan authorities have barred the sale of Kabul properties held by the troubled bank's principal owners.

The freeze, however, excludes President Hamid Karzai's brother, the third-largest Kabul Bank shareholder.

The Afghan Central Bank ordered the property-sale ban in a letter reviewed by the Washington Post. Sent to Kabul municipal authorities, it targets five people, including Kabul Bank's two biggest shareholders - who were ousted last Monday as executives of the bank - and the brother of Afghanistan's vice president, who is both a shareholder and major borrower.

No restrictions were placed on the president's brother, Mahmoud Karzai, who also has borrowed money from Kabul Bank, including $6 million that he used to buy a 7 percent stake in the now crumbling bank.

"They couldn't freeze my property because I don't have it," said Mahmoud Karzai in a telephone interview from Kabul. "I don't have a single house or parcel of land in my name in Afghanistan."

Afghans frequently register their assets in the names of relatives or trusted friends. Mahmoud Karzai spends much of his time in Dubai, where he lives in a $5.5 million purchased with Kabul Bank funds.

The move to block asset sales comes as Afghan authorities are struggling to hold Kabul Bank together against waves of depositors demanding their money. The crisis flows from a tangle of murky loans by shareholders to themselves and from risky investments in Dubai real estate.

The Afghan Central Bank, aided by advisers from the U.S. Treasury Department, is scrambling to work out a rescue strategy before Kabul Bank's money runs out.

Since the panic began last week, withdrawals over just three business days have drained more than half of the $500 million Kabul Bank said it had in liquid cash.

Washington has ruled out using any American money for a bailout.

Shareholders in disgraced Kabul Bank banned from selling property, says central bank governor

The government of Afghanistan is attempting to freeze the assets of some of the shareholders of Kabul Bank, the disgraced financial institution that has suffered days of panic withdrawals from depositors amid a major corruption scandal.

Abdul Qadir Fitrat, the governor of the central bank, said that orders had been given to prevent the sale of properties and other assets owned by shareholders who took personal loans from the bank.

He told a press conference that Kabul local authorities had banned the sale of properties owned by shareholders.

With the bank run into its fifth day, Fitrat also appealed for calm, saying the bank still had enough cash to cover the needs of depositors who wanted their money back. And while he said no public money had yet been used to prop up the bank, it was prepared for a bailout.

"The central bank will provide any support Kabul Bank requests," Fitrat said.

But Khalilullah Frozi, the owner of 28% of the bank, said no one had told him not to sell his assets and he was free to leave the country if he wished.

Frozi was the flamboyant chief executive of the bank until last week when he was ousted by the central bank along with the bank's chairman, Sher Khan Farnood, who also holds 28% of the available shares.

It was not clear whether any steps had been taken to prevent the sale of assets outside Afghanistan, particularly in Dubai where hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on luxury property with many of the houses on the artificial Palm Jumeirah development subsequently given to members of the Afghan elite.

The United Arab Emirates has said it has not received any requests from Kabul to freeze assets owned by Afghans.

Afghanistan's top financial officials insisted Monday that ailing Kabul Bank remains solvent and does not yet require a government bailout, despite persistent crowds demanding their money back.

Abdul Qadir Fitrat, governor of Afghanistan's Central Bank, told reporters at an afternoon news conference that the country's largest private bank has been stabilized over the past several days and has been able to meet customers' withdrawals with its own cash.

"No customers are leaving without their money," Fitrat said. "The situation has normalized."

Asked if the Central Bank had set aside state money to cover Kabul Bank's commitments, Fitrat said: "No such decision has been taken today. . . . They're still using Kabul Bank money, their own money."

Fitrat's comments come as Kabul Bank is reeling from the loss of well over half of the $500 million in liquid cash it had when news broke last week that its top two executives had resigned under orders from the Central Bank after a series of risky off-the-books loans and real estate investments were discovered.

Despite the heavy demand for withdrawals, Fitrat chose to look at the positive side, saying that customers have deposited between $11 million and $17 million per day over the past several days. However, those deposits were made largely by companies that route payments through the bank and have little choice. Kabul Bank has more than 1 million customers and handles salary payments for soldiers, police and teachers.

Fitrat blamed the run on the bank on news reports in the international media, saying reporters for foreign-based publications have overplayed Kabul Bank's woes.

"The Central Bank and the Finance Ministry have talked and agreed to support Kabul Bank," Fitrat said. "And, God willing, this problem that was created by the international media can be resolved."

KABUL, Afghanistan — The chairman of the Central Bank of Afghanistan promised Monday to lend the embattled Kabul Bank “as much as it wants” to stave off a collapse, even as he continued to insist that the bank was solvent.

The chairman, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, said Kabul Bank was meeting the demands of customers “with its own resources,” though he said he did not know how much money had been withdrawn from the private bank over the past few days. The frenzied rush of customers trying to empty their savings accounts at its largest branch tapered off slightly on Monday, though security remained tight.

Economic and political analysts say the government is buying time while it decides how to handle the politically treacherous predicament that erupted with the discovery last week that Kabul Bank had suffered huge losses after lending money to allies of President Hamid Karzai and pouring millions of dollars into risky real estate investments in Dubai.

The president, who has recently been more vocal in vowing to fight corruption, will be reluctant to arrest the bank’s top shareholders, who include one of his brothers and other close allies, or to seize their overseas properties that were bought with borrowed money that belonged to “some of the poorest people in the world,” as one economist described the roughly $300 million in losses from the bank.

He would more likely use reserve funds to bail out Kabul Bank, the analysts said. On Monday, the Central Bank pledged its full support to Kabul Bank, saying “if necessary, it is ready to loan Kabul Bank as much as it wants.”

For Mr. Karzai, a bailout presents a different but equally vexing problem. While a bailout could be hailed in Afghanistan as the government’s attempt to guarantee the people’s money, it would do little to deter the kinds of abuses that led to the crisis in the first place and would probably increase tensions with its Western partners, who would be indirectly financing the intervention, economists said.

If such a move takes place, the money will most likely come from Afghanistan’s reserve funds in the United States, which are earmarked for a currency crisis and not meant to bail out private banks.

Any intervention by the United States could be seen as politically dangerous for the Obama administration, which has distanced itself from Mr. Karzai. The United States has denied that it would provide any financial support in the crisis, but economists in Kabul say that even reserve funds have roots in donor money. Almost all money belonging to Afghanistan, they say, is donor money.

“Karzai doesn’t know what to do,” said an economist, who asked not to be identified because for fear of inserting himself into the conflict. “Will he have courage to put them in jail and pay the people? And if not, shareholders will continue living in luxury villas in Dubai, and that’s suicide for him.”

Mr. Karzai’s best hope, experts say, is that the bank will be able to weather the storm itself. On Monday the Central Bank’s chairman, Mr. Fitrat said that the situation at Kabul Bank was “almost normal” and that no customers had left without money, since the bank had a healthy liquidity of 40 percent.

He said the bank had received more than $38 million in deposits since the outbreak of the crisis and that the figure was increasing daily. But analysts said those were mostly corporate deposits.

When asked about the amount withdrawn by nervous depositors since the crisis, Mr. Fitrat said that he did not know the figure, but that it was “more than usual.”

The Central Bank on Sunday froze properties in Kabul owned by major Kabul Bank shareholders, including Sherkhan Farnood, the former chairman, and Khalilullah Frozi, the former chief executive, who were dismissed last week as news of the bank’s losses broke.

Those properties are rather insignificant compared with the luxury villas in Dubai, where shareholders hold far more lucrative investments directly linked to the losses from Kabul Bank.

The list of frozen properties in Kabul did not include any owned by the president’s brother, who is a major shareholder. Mr. Fitrat said the list included only the names of those who had borrowed the money from the bank.

For the second day in a row, barbed wire and armed guards belonging to Afghanistan’s national intelligence agency were in front of the bank. Inside, a bank employee said the number of visitors was lower than it had been in previous days.

By late afternoon, about 1,200 customers had entered the bank, a daily rate of about 500 fewer than during last week. Some customers said they were unable to withdraw more than $10,000.

Bank officials said the flow of customers at the bank was part of the normal flow of government employees who were receiving their salaries before Id al-Fitr, the Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.

Mr. Fitrat is one many banking officials who is accusing Western news media of stoking public fears and distrust in the bank. On Monday he encouraged the Afghan media not to translate the “false news” of Western media outlets, but he did not specify criticisms of the foreign press.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Hundreds of Afghans railed against the United States and called for President Barack Obama's death at a rally in the capital Monday to denounce a Florida church's plans to burn the Islamic holy book on 9/11.

The crowd in Kabul, numbering as many as 500, chanted "Long live Islam" and "Death to America" as they listened to fiery speeches from members of parliament, provincial council deputies, and Islamic clerics who criticized the U.S. and demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. Some threw rocks when a U.S. military convoy passed, but speakers shouted at them to stop and told police to arrest anyone who disobeyed.

The Gainesville, Fla.-based Dove World Outreach Center announced plans to burn copies of the Quran on church grounds to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but has been denied a permit to set a bonfire. The church, which made headlines last year after distributing T-shirts that said "Islam is of the Devil," has vowed to proceed with the burning.

"We know this is not just the decision of a church. It is the decision of the president and the entire United States," said Abdul Shakoor, an 18-year-old high school student who said he joined the protest after hearing neighborhood gossip about the Quran burning.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a statement condemning Dove World Outreach Center's plans, saying Washington was "deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend members of religious or ethnic groups."

Protesters, who gathered in front of western Kabul's Milad ul-Nabi mosque, raised placards and flags emblazoned with slogans calling for the death of Obama, while police looked on. They also held up a cardboard effigy of Dove World Outreach Center's pastor Terry Jones.

Muslims consider the Quran to be the word of God and demand that it, along with any printed material containing its verses or the name of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad, be treated with the utmost respect. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the Quran is considered deeply offensive.

In 2005, 15 people died and scores were wounded in riots in Afghanistan sparked by a story in Newsweek magazine alleging that interrogators at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay placed copies of the Quran in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk. Newsweek later retracted the story.

Also Monday, NATO said an American service member was killed in fighting in the country's turbulent east on Sunday.

No other details were given in accordance with standard procedure. The death was the fifth among U.S. troops in Afghanistan in September, following the deaths of more than 220 American troops over the past three months.

This year is already the bloodiest for American forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, with at least 321 killed so far.

Violence is increasing with the infusion of 30,000 additional U.S. troops that brings the total number of foreign forces in Afghanistan to more than 140,000. Stepped-up operations ahead of next week's parliamentary elections and an ongoing campaign to drive the Taliban from its southern strongholds are also boosting the numbers of dead and wounded.

Taliban insurgents on Sunday vowed to attack polling places during the Sept. 18 vote and warned Afghans not to participate in what it called a sham election. The insurgency aims to topple the government in Kabul and drive foreign troops from the country, and has boycotted or tried to sabotage all aspects of the political process.

Taliban threats and intimidation drove down voter turnout in last year's fraud-marred presidential election, especially in rural areas where security is harder to ensure, and many Afghans this time say they won't vote for fear of attacks.

Not since the Taliban have women running for seats faced such intense political intimidation, female candidates say. Many are deeply frustrated by their inability to get out and connect with voters.

Five years ago, when Afghanistan was last preparing to hold parliamentary elections, Rahela Alamshahi would sometimes hop into her car and drive herself to campaign events in her home province.

This time around, the 41-year-old parliamentary candidate has made only a few clandestine trips to meet with supporters. Out on the campaign trail, such as it is, she wears an all-enveloping burka and sits in the back seat of the car.

"These are brutal times," said Alamshahi, a mother of two with warm brown eyes and an easy, open demeanor. "The government has surrendered to the Taliban."

For female candidates, this campaign presents a paradox. More than 430 women — a record number, up nearly one-quarter from the last election — are seeking seats in the 249-member lower house of parliament, in voting to be held Sept. 18.

But not since the five-year reign of the Taliban, which ended in 2001, have female candidates faced such intense political intimidation, the women say. Less than two weeks before the balloting, many are deeply frustrated by their inability to get out and connect with voters, particularly in rural areas.

Even in Kabul, the capital, where campaign posters showing women's faces are tolerated, the electoral placards are sometimes defaced with marks and slashes. But in villages where the Taliban is active, campaign workers are often too frightened to put them up.

Female candidates and their supporters receive a stream of threatening phone calls. Large campaign rallies are almost unheard of, because voters and office-seekers alike fear suicide bombings. Terrified family members sometimes plead with would-be lawmakers to drop out of the race, and some have heeded the call.

Dangers are real for the male candidates as well. At least four have been killed, one of them abducted and later found beheaded. He was from Ghazni, Alamshahi's province. Another lost his legs when a suicide bomber struck a mosque in eastern Afghanistan where the candidate was speaking.

But women feel particularly targeted, and at a time when they believe it is crucial for them to be politically engaged. Fears are growing that the hard-fought gains they won in recent years will be reversed if the government and the Islamist insurgents strike a deal.

About one-quarter of the seats in the lower house of parliament are reserved for women, so a degree of female representation is ensured. But almost universally, the candidates say they have no desire to be viewed as tokens.

"More than ever now, we must be part of the political process," said Shahla Rahimy, a 27-year-old candidate from a village on the edge of Kabul. "When people say, 'Parliament is not a place for women,' I want to stand up and show them they are wrong."

In the current climate of fear, many female candidates are settling for what they call proxy campaigning: sending surrogates to meet with their backers, making endless rounds of telephone calls to voters, working out of homes in relatively safe areas, such as Kabul.

It's no substitute for what they would do if not for security worries. In this fasting month of Ramadan, the large, festive iftar gatherings held each evening to break the fast would otherwise be an ideal time to mingle with village constituents, talking long into the night over endless plates of food.

Like last summer's presidential election, the parliamentary balloting is seen as a test of Afghanistan's struggling democracy. The massive fraud that marred the 2009 vote adds to the pressure to stage fairer balloting this time around, Western diplomats say.

Parliament, the envoys quietly add, could provide a counterbalance to an increasingly erratic President Hamid Karzai. In recent months, lawmakers have been far more assertive in challenging Karzai's policy decisions.

Only about one-third of the country's provinces are considered adequately secure for voting, by election observers' reckoning. Electoral officials have already announced that at least 938 of the planned 6,835 polling centers will not be used because they would be unsafe.

Lack of security opens the door to fraud, observers have warned, by making it easier for local powerbrokers to intimidate voters or buy them off.

"We all know that security challenges will be a significant obstacle," Staffan de Mistura, head of the United Nations mission in Kabul, said in August. "We must ensure that poor security in parts of the country is not used to manipulate the votes of the people."

At the village level, though, vote-buying is rampant. One female candidate, speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety, said conservative tribal elders were offering to pay the equivalent of $2.50 per vote for her opponents, a tempting sum in her impoverished province.

Even in the best of times, staging a nationwide vote is a daunting logistical task in a country like this one, with bad roads, rough terrain and pockets that are almost entirely cut off from the outside world.

Preparations are nonetheless moving ahead, according to election officials. Ballots have been flown out to 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, and the remainder were to be delivered by the end of August, election officials said.

But almost every day brings new setbacks. On Aug. 26, armed men kidnapped a group of 10 campaign workers, all friends and relatives of candidate Fawzia Galani, as they were traveling in Herat province, in the west of Afghanistan. Five were later found dead; the rest were released.

Galani, as she awaited word of their fate, was distraught, but determined to continue with her run for parliament.

"We aren't going to retreat," she said. "Even with all these terrible problems, we believe in our aims, and we must do our best to achieve them."

BRUSSELS - The U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has requested another 2,000 troops for the foreign force fighting the Taliban insurgency, despite waning support for the war in troop-contributing nations, NATO officials said.

NATO officials said the request by General David Petraeus to bolster the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was made last week and included a call for about 750 more personnel to train the Afghan security forces.

"It has been determined that around 2,000 forces will be required," a NATO official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is an ongoing discussion on this issue."

The request comes before a visit to Washington on Monday and Tuesday by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Officials at Petraeus' NATO command in Kabul declined to comment and referred questions to NATO headquarters in Brussels.

One NATO official said it was assumed the United States would offer more troops to the 150,000-strong foreign force in Afghanistan, but the alliance was looking for contributions from non-U.S. members and partner countries too.

NATO has been seeking to bolster its effort to train the Afghan armed forces, but has struggled to persuade its 28 members and allies contributing to ISAF to commit the necessary personnel as public support for the war wanes.

NATO's Afghan mission was expected to top the agenda in Rasmussen's talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, National Security Adviser James Jones and other administration officials.

Obama has sent tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan to create conditions to expand Afghan forces, but has said the extra troops could be gradually withdrawn from July 2011.

Critics say this strategy has backfired, sending a signal to the Taliban that the United States is preparing to wind down at a time when NATO forces are suffering record casualties.

The number of foreign troops killed this year has reached at least 500, compared with 521 in all of 2009, according to an independent monitoring site on Monday and a Reuters tally.

Petraeus said last week the withdrawal of U.S. troops from next July would begin with a general "thinning out" of forces rather than any large-scale drawdown.

The stepped-up NATO training effort envisages boosting the size of the Afghan army to 171,600 by October 2011 and the police force to 134,000.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has set a goal of 2014 for Afghan forces to take over full responsibility for security from foreign troops, but the deadline will rely heavily on the success of foreign troops in battling Taliban insurgents and training the Afghan army.

Rasmussen hopes at a summit in November to set a target date in 2011 for starting switching responsibility for security to Afghan forces. Until midway through this year he had said he hoped the process could start this year.

Any American politician will tell you that campaigning is vital to winning an election. But in Afghanistan, candidates say campaigning is likely to get you killed.

At least three Afghan candidates running in the upcoming parliamentary polls have been killed in recent weeks, along with more than a dozen campaign workers. Others have been wounded or kidnapped in attacks that show no signs of abating.

Not surprisingly, candidates like Daoud Sultanzoi in Taliban strongholds like Ghazni, a dangerous province south of Kabul, are especially at risk.

Sultanzoi carefully looks over the half-dozen billboards being hammered together in Ghazni that feature his photo and a slogan he's crafted, which he translates for a visitor: "From ancient Ghazni a formidable voice; a truthful representative and a tested representative, once again in the service of the people."

The billboards of this former United Airlines pilot turned lawmaker are the closest most of his constituents will get to him before the Sept. 18 elections. It's not that Sultanzoi doesn't want to press the flesh or schmooze with supporters — even as an incumbent whose name many Afghans know, he doesn't assume he's a shoe-in for one of the 11 parliamentary seats in the province.

But Sultanzoi, like so many of the more than 2,500 candidates, is finding it hard to run a meaningful campaign this time around because of the very real chance he and his volunteers will be killed.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for many such attacks, although local strongmen and even some of the rival candidates are also accused of involvement. NATO is accused of mistakenly killing 10 campaign workers last week in an airstrike the military says targeted a militant leader with links to al-Qaida.

Even provinces that are normally pretty safe are proving lethal for campaigners. Five male volunteers working for incumbent Fauzia Gilani were kidnapped by the Taliban last month in the western Afghanistan city of Herat.

In a phone interview, Gilani described how the kidnappers told her to drop out and arrange for the release of five jailed militants. She told them she didn't have the authority. So the kidnappers cuffed her volunteers' hands, lined them up and shot them dead.
Such attacks have prompted loud calls by Western and Afghan officials for Karzai's government to provide better security for the candidates.

"It is a great opportunity for the government of Afghanistan to show that they can provide security for the people of Afghanistan," says Jed Ober, chief of staff for the Kabul office of Democracy International, which is providing election monitors for the polls. "And there may be no more important group of people than those who are attempting to represent their people in a democratic system — candidates, campaign volunteers as well, and of course voters on election day."

But Ober and others concede that with so many people involved in campaigning, providing police protection for everyone is difficult. So it has been up to the candidates to find safe ways of getting their message out.
For Sultanzoi in Ghazni, that means doing a lot of campaigning by phone. He also gives interviews to local reporters and meets with a steady stream of elders in his office. Occasionally, he'll ride around in his car and jump out for a quick exchange of pleasantries with passersby.

But the incumbent is shadowed by two armed guards who were provided by a friend and rival candidate who feared for Sultanzoi's safety. Sultanzoi says he's not crazy about having gunmen following him around, but he has little choice.

"They killed one of my cousins about a month ago — execution style," Sultanzoi says. "They pulled him out of his house, took him outside at 10 o'clock at night just because he is my cousin. Their house, about three weeks ago, was surrounded by the Taliban who demanded one of his brothers to come out and surrender himself to the Taliban. It's an open war, but I'm not scared."

Still, supporters like businessmen Ershad and Muneer, both of whom use only one name, urge the candidate to get together with larger groups of people, at least in the provincial capital. They suggest the grave of a famous poet and a popular mosque as locales.

Sultanzoi says he'll consider it, but his local campaign manager, Pir Mohammad, chimes in.

"Forget it," the old man says. "Do another media interview instead."

Cartoons By Zahid Khan