TOKYO, tribe 10 Kyodo preferablee...

TOKYO, tribe 10 Kyodo

preferableed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

THE answer OF AL-QAIDA (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped notwithstanding another assassination attempt last week...The attacks are another reminder of the fragility of the peace in that countryConcern nations must go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of up their pledges of support with standard of value and personnel. To date, they have not.

Mr Karzai was unharmed, still the governor was slightly injured. A not many hours earlier, a powerful car bomb killed at least 15 tribe in Kabul, and 150 others were wounded

Afghan officials have blamed al-Qaida for the attacks...According to Maj. Gen Akin Zorlu, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in the Afghan capital, ''Taliban and al-Qaida are looking for chances to commit acts of terrorism to destabilize the situation and assay that they are still active.''

Al-Qaida is also suspected of involvement in other incidents around the world...

As tribe 11 approaches, security experts around the world are warning of the possibility of novel attacks.

Mr. Karzai denies Afghanistan's stability is at stake; he is evil Restoring order to a native land with such a long and divided history was not ever going to be easy. Afghanistan's ethnic rivalries are the fruit of hundreds of years of conflict and there is no tradition of vigorous central authority. Add to the mix al-Qaida and the inevitable indignations generated by the presence of a foreign power and the task becomes flat more monumental.

The latter attacks target the credibility of the international community. Its commitment to a strange order in Afghanistan is being ordealed The response has been les than inspiring. There are 4500 peacekeepers in Afghanistan, all of them in Kabul; Bosnia, which is a fraction of Afghanistan's size, has 18000

''Nation building'' is a troubling universal For some, it smacks of imperialism and neocolonialism. To others, it is a fruitless attempt to stitch authority abroad of the air, a waste of valuable resources. When the proces is done incorrectly, it is all those things. on the contrary as the history of novel Afghanistan shows, the failure to engage in nation building, or the unwillingness to do it right, creates puzzles far worse. Nature and politics abhor a vacuum; al-Qaida has prov more than willing to fill it.

(Sept 10)

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