DEMOCRACY IN AFGHANISTAN

Rense/Washington Post: 16 Months After Taliban - Afghanistan Founders In Pain
KABUL, Afghanistan (Washington Post) -- Sixteen months after the ruling Taliban fell and Hamid Karzai took over as president, Afghanistan is still struggling to establish the basics of a working government.
As Karzai and his U.S. and international supporters have found, virtually every significant system in the country is broken.


Rense: Pro-Taliban Leaflets Call For Jihad Against US

Rense/Reuters: Afghan Commander, Bodyguards Killed In Ambush
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A military commander belonging to the Afghan faction of ethnic Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and two of his bodyguards were killed on Tuesday in an ambush in the trouble-plagued north.
Commander Shahi was driving to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif when his car was ambushed in the Char Bolak area about 18 miles to the west, one of Dostum's deputies, General Majid Roozi, told Reuters.


Rense/Afp: Taliban Regrouping In Afghanistan
KABUL (IRIN-AFP) -- Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Afghanistan's volatile eastern province of Khowst, told IRIN on Friday that the country's former hard line Islamist Taliban rulers were regrouping in an effort to step up anti-government militancy. There are fears that this could further harm security in the region and impact on aid work and reconstruction.
"We know that they are preparing, but they will not be able to achieve anything," he told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, adding that although a lot of reports were being received about Taliban activities, little movement had been seen on ground.


Ny Times: A NATION AT WAR: KABUL; Attacks Riddle Afghanistan, Including Shootings and Explosions
ABSTRACT - Opponents of Afghan government continue attacks; most violent incidents occur along border with Pakistan and in Kabul; relatives of Kandahar Gov Gul Agha Shirzai are attacked and governor's spokeman blames Pakistani authorities for harboring Taliban; map (M) Opponents of the Afghan government continued their attacks this weekend. On Saturday, a car packed with explosives blew up in eastern Afghanistan, killing the driver and three others. In the Pakistani border town of Chaman today, gunmen fired on the motorcade of the brother of the Kandahar governor, wounding him and killing another relative.