• 12/02/2005
  The Netherlands will likely make a decision next week on whether to deploy troops to the troubled south of Afghanistan, and is leaning toward doing so, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Dec. 2.
  The decision on joining the NATO deployment — something opposed both within the military and the country at large — would “probably” happen at a ministerial meeting Dec. 9, Balkenende was quoted as saying by Dutch news agency ANP.



• Brussels, Nov. 29, 2005 (Asharq Al-Awsat) --
  With NATO about to expand its peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, its Secretary General revealed that troops will be independent from existing US forces and would respected human rights.
  Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s remarks came as he sought to reassure the Dutch government and public in the wake of a national debate on whether additional troops should be deployed in the volatile south to reinforce the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).



• TEHRAN, Dec. 2 (Mehr News) –
  Iran and Afghanistan are on the way to further expand their mutual economic relations particularly, in the transportation and investment sectors, Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Danesh Jafari said in a meeting with Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Friday.



• Swedish Mujahideen Issue Final Warning To Europe
  Dec 02, 2005
  JUS News Desk
  In a video statement released on November 28, 2005, Jamaat At-Tawheed wal'Jihad Al-Swied, a Swedish Mujahideen group issued a final warning to Europe to withdraw their support for the US occupation of Muslim lands or face the consequences.
  Jamaat At-Tawheed wal'Jihad Al-Swied is an off shoot of the Army of Ansar Al-Sunnah, Sweden who issued a statement on September 26, 2005 assuring the Swedish people that they should not fear the group’s activities in the country as they were previously only operating only training facilities in the country. Recent events appear to have changed that position.
  The statement comes at a critical juncture, following America’s request for Sweden to send additional troops to Afghanistan and last Fridays bomb explosion in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province that injured four Swedish soldiers. On Tuesday, the same day this new video tape was released, Sweden’s joint parliamentary foreign affairs and defense commission backed the government’s proposal to increasing its forces in Afghanistan.



• Dec. 03, 2005
  Sweden to send more troops to Afghanistan



• Nov. 29 (Xinhuanet) --
  The Danish government plans to meet a NATO request to increase its number of troops in Afghanistan, Ritzau news bureau reported on Tuesday.
  The additional soldiers have been requested to help patrol the southern Hemland Province, an area that has been described as "unsafe and complex", and would more than double the Danish contribution to NATO's Afghanistan contingent, sources closed to the government revealed to Ritzau.



• SOFIA, Bulgaria, Dec. 1 (UPI) --
  Bulgaria increases troops in Afghanistan
  Bulgaria is set to increase its peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan even as it prepares to withdraw its forces from Iraq.
  ...
  Bliznakov said on Bulgarian Television (BTV) that compared to Iraq, Afghanistan has a more damaged infrastructure, adverse weather, myriad militant groups and drug traffickers.
  Next year Bulgarian troops will take over security at Kabul airport. The mission will include 300 people. Unlike Iraq, where the United States pays the Bulgarian contingent's logistic and transport costs, in Afghanistan Bulgaria pays its own expenses.
  ...
  Bliznakov stated that Bulgaria's remaining troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of December.



• NewKerala.com - Dec 2, 2005
  Meanwhile, the Indian government has decided to continue the work on all important projects and rejected Taliban's demand to withdraw from Afghanistan.



• ISLAMABAD, Dec 2 (KUNA) --
  Pakistani security forces Friday closed the main entry point of its border with war-strewn Afghanistan after foreign troops kidnapped a Pakistani soldier and beat him, said officials.



• MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) -
  The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a regional security group embracing six former Soviet republics, intends to set up a working group on Afghanistan, Russia's foreign minister told a meeting of the organization's foreign ministers Wednesday.
  Sergei Lavrov said the ministers had discussed developments in the CSTO's zone of responsibility.
  "We agreed that threats, including drug and terrorist menaces, have persisted largely due to the situation in Afghanistan, which has remained tense," he said.



• MOSCOW. Dec. 2 (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov.)
  Uzbekistan, the strategic kingpin of Central Asia who feels insulted by the West, has decided to order foreign troops out of its territory.
  The other day, Uzbekistan prohibited NATO allies to use its land and airspace for the operation in neighboring Afghanistan. The Uzbek authorities insist that the allied forces, above all German and Spanish, leave the country by January 1, 2006. This year, Uzbekistan also told the United States, which is involved in a separate anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan, to leave the Khanabad military base. Washington pulled out.



• December 1 2005 - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
  Afghanistan: EU promises to increase counter-narcotics- Russia To Join NATO Antiterror Ops
  EU justice and interior inisters, meeting in Brussels today, adopted a statement promising increased aid to Afghanistan and its neighbours to fight drugs production and trafficking.



• ORGUN, Afghanistan - Dec. 01, 2005 (Kansas City Star)
  In this remote, hostile province on the eastern border of Afghanistan, U.S. forces have found cobblestone roads and solar-powered streetlights to be their most powerful weapons in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
  For the soldiers here charged with fighting the insurgents, the benchmarks for success are not body counts, but how many miles of road they can pave, how many streetlights they can install and schools they can build.
  "Our No. 1 priority is still killing or capturing the bad guys," said Lt. Col. Timothy McGuire, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 508th (Airborne) Infantry, the main U.S. war-fighting force in the province. "But projects like cobblestone roads are our most powerful weapon."
  That roads and streetlights could succeed against the insurgency where bombs and guns have failed is testament to how stunningly backward and remote from the country's central government Paktika province is.



• PakTribune Nov. 28, 2005 --
  Christina Rocca, a US assistant secretary of state, said during a visit to neighboring Pakistan that despite the rising violence, which is now at its highest level since 2001, the Bush administration remained confident about Afghanistan`s future.
  Rocca also predicted Osama bin Laden would be brought to justice, sooner or later.



• NEW YORK, N.Y., December 2, 2005 -
  USA Network announced today that WWE® RAW Superstars and WWE Chairman Vince McMahon will bring Monday Night RAW to U.S. Troops stationed in Afghanistan December 7-9, 2005. The WWE Superstars will live and sleep in the barracks and eat in the mess halls along with the soldiers, while filming a series of appearances with the troops.