Moby Media Updates Archives 2008 MMU: Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan, 11 September 2008
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Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan
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Relatives of air-strike victims demand justice No articles featured today No articles featured today Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan
New York Times President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials. The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat theTaliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants' increasingly secure base in Pakistan's tribal areas. American officials say that they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks like the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border, but that they will not ask for its permission. "The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable," said a senior American official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the missions. "We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued." The new orders reflect concern about safe havens for Al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan, as well as an American view that Pakistan lacks the will and ability to combat militants. They also illustrate lingering distrust of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies and a belief that some American operations had been compromised once Pakistanis were advised of the details. The Central Intelligence Agency has for several years fired missiles at militants inside Pakistan from remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But the new orders for the military's Special Operations forces relax firm restrictions on conducting raids on the soil of an important ally without its permission. Pakistan's top army officer said Wednesday that his forces would not tolerate American incursions like the one that took place last week and that the army would defend the country's sovereignty "at all costs." It is unclear precisely what legal authorities the United States has invoked to conduct even limited ground raids in a friendly country. A second senior American official said that the Pakistani government had privately assented to the general concept of limited ground assaults by Special Operations forces against significant militant targets, but that it did not approve each mission. The official did not say which members of the government gave their approval. Any new ground operations in Pakistan raise the prospect of American forces being killed or captured in the restive tribal areas - and a propaganda coup for Al Qaeda. Last week's raid also presents a major test for Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, who supports more aggressive action by his army against the militants but cannot risk being viewed as an American lap dog, as was his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf. The new orders were issued after months of debate inside the Bush administration about whether to authorize a ground campaign inside Pakistan. The debate, first reported by The New York Times in late June, at times pitted some officials at the State Department against parts of the Pentagon that advocated aggressive action against Qaeda and Taliban targets inside the tribal areas. Details about last week's commando operation have emerged that indicate the mission was more intrusive than had previously been known. According to two American officials briefed on the raid, it involved more than two dozen members of the Navy Seals who spent several hours on the ground and killed about two dozen suspected Qaeda fighters in what now appeared to have been a planned attack against militants who had been conducting attacks against an American forward operating base across the border in Afghanistan. Supported by an AC-130 gunship, the Special Operations forces were whisked away by helicopters after completing the mission. Although the senior American official who provided the most detailed description of the new presidential order would discuss it only on condition of anonymity, his account was corroborated by three other senior American officials from several government agencies, all of whom made clear that they supported the more aggressive approach. Pakistan's government has asserted that last week's raid achieved little except killing civilians and stoking anti-Americanism in the tribal areas. "Unilateral action by the American forces does not help the war against terror because it only enrages public opinion," said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, during a speech on Friday. "In this particular incident, nothing was gained by the action of the troops." As an alternative to American ground operations, some Pakistani officials have made clear that they prefer the C.I.A.'s Predator aircraft, operating from the skies, as a method of killing Qaeda operatives. The C.I.A. for the most part has coordinated with Pakistan's government before and after it has launched missiles from the drone. On Monday, a Predator strike in North Waziristan killed several Arab Qaeda operatives. A new American command structure was put in place this year to better coordinate missions by the C.I.A. and members of the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command, made up of the Army's Delta Force and the Navy Seals. The move was intended to address frustration on the ground about different agencies operating under different marching orders. Under the arrangement, a senior C.I.A. official based at Bagram air base in Afghanistan was put in charge of coordinating C.I.A. and military activities in the border region. Spokesmen for the White House, the Defense Department and the C.I.A. declined to comment on Wednesday about the new orders. Some senior Congressional officials have received briefings on the new authorities. A spokeswoman for Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who leads the Armed Services Committee, declined to comment. American commanders in Afghanistan have complained bitterly that militants use sanctuaries in Pakistan to attack American troops in Afghanistan. "I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. "I am convinced we can." Toward that goal, Admiral Mullen said he had ordered a comprehensive military strategy to address the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The commando raid last week and an increasing number of recent missile strikes are part of a more aggressive overall American campaign in the border region aimed at intensifying attacks on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the waning months of the Bush administration, with less than two months to go before November elections. State Department officials, as well as some within the National Security Council, have expressed concern about any Special Operations missions that could be carried out without the approval of the American ambassador in Islamabad. The months-long delay in approving ground missions created intense frustration inside the military's Special Operations community, which believed that the Bush administration was holding back as the Qaeda safe haven inside Pakistan became more secure for militants. The stepped-up campaign inside Pakistan comes at a time when American-Pakistani relations have been fraying, and when anger is increasing within American intelligence agencies about ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, known as the ISI, and militants in the tribal areas. Analysts at the C.I.A. and other American spy and security agencies believe not only that the bombing of India's embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in July by militants was aided by ISI operatives, but also that the highest levels of Pakistan's security apparatus - including the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani - had knowledge of the plot. "It's very difficult to imagine he was not aware," a senior American official said of General Kayani. American intelligence agencies have said that senior Pakistani national security officials favor the use of militant groups to preserve Pakistan's influence in the region, as a hedge against India and Afghanistan. In fact, some American intelligence analysts believe that ISI operatives did not mind when their role in the July bombing in Kabul became known. "They didn't cover their tracks very well," a senior Defense Department official said, "and I think the embassy bombing was the ISI drawing a line in the sand."
BUSINESS Relatives of air-strike victims demand justice
http://www.quqnoos.com/ Victims' relatives demand trial of 'murderers' behind Shindand killings THE RELATIVES of the victims killed in the Shindand air-strikes have demanded the men behind the bombing, which the UN says killed 90 civilians, face trial. Two investigations have been launched into the killings in the western province of Herat, but both reached wildly different conclusions. The United Nations said 90 civilians, including 60 children, died in the US-led operation, a claim US investigators rejected, saying only five to seven civilians died. Videos seen by media organisations on Monday showed images of at least 10 dead children, adding weight to the UN's findings. General Dan McKiernan, the head of NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, has ordered a fresh investigation into the Shindand killings, which took place on August 22 in the remote village of Azizabad. Elders in the village have said they will open up the graves of the dead to prove that civilians were killed in the strikes and not Taliban militants. Twenty days on and the anguish among the residents of the village is clear to see. One reporter saw one mother wandering around the village clutching a photograph of her family members, screaming for those behind the killings to be brought to justice. One woman said in between sobs: "I don't want anything but the trial of the killers of my relatives in a court of law." Another woman said: "We want Karzai and Bush to hand over the murderers to us so that they can face justice." The residents demanded the government, human rights groups, and the US president launch more investigations into the killings. Gul Ahmad Khan, one of the village's elders, said: "Mr Bush and representatives of UN can come and we will open the graves for them. If they find one Talib among the dead persons they can punish us." If it is confirmed that 90 civilians died in the village, then the killings in Shindand are the worst loss of civilian life since US-led troops booted out the Taliban in 2001, Human Rights Watch said in a report released yesterday. Civilian casualties between 2006 and 2007 tripled on the year before, the organisation said, blaming unplanned air-strikes for the high death-toll. Top Military Officer Urges Major Change in Afghanistan Strategy
The Washington Post - Politics The nation's top military officer issued a blunt assessment yesterday of the war in Afghanistan and called for an overhaul in U.S. strategy there, warning that thousands more U.S. troops as well as greater U.S. military involvement across the border in Pakistan's tribal areas are needed to battle an intensifying insurgency. This Story Top Military Officer Urges Major Change in Afghanistan Strategy Country Guide: Afghanistan "I am not convinced that we're winning it in Afghanistan," Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee yesterday. But, he added, "I'm convinced we can." On the day after President Bush announced he will cut troops in Iraq and bolster them in Afghanistan between now and early 2009, Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates also signaled that they would give increasing priority to the Afghan war and the expanding insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan. "The war on terror started in this region. It must end there," Gates told the committee. Violence has mounted for more than two years in Afghanistan from an increasingly sophisticated and brazen insurgency, one fueled by havens in Pakistan. As a result, the war is exacting a worsening toll on coalition forces, with the number of U.S. troops who died there so far this year -- 109 -- projected to surpass last year's high of 117. U.S. and NATO troops remain hampered by manpower shortages, a lack of helicopters and a disjointed chain of command. "Frankly, we are running out of time," Mullen said, and stressed that not sending U.S. reinforcements to Afghanistan is "too great a risk to ignore." He said the new influx of U.S. forces into Afghanistan that Bush announced Tuesday -- an Army brigade and Marine battalion with a total of about 4,500 troops -- does not meet the demands of commanders there, but is "a good start." Already, total U.S. forces in Afghanistan have grown from 21,000 troops in 2006 to nearly 31,000 today. Many NATO countries restrict their troops' combat roles; others have set an end date for their involvement in the war, with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying yesterday that all of his country's troops will withdraw in 2011, according to the Associated Press. At a time when Bush has characterized Afghanistan as an increasingly critical front in the battle against terrorism, and when Army Gen. David H. Petraeus is set to take the helm of the region in his new post as head of U.S. Central Command, Mullen announced that he is commissioning a "more comprehensive" strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He indicated that a key element of the strategy would be to secure a greater role for the U.S. military in helping Pakistan to crack down on insurgents in cross-border tribal areas, a role Mullen said he has "pressed hard" for Pakistani military leaders to allow. Afghanistan and Pakistan "are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," Mullen said. "Until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming," he said, noting how insurgents have recently launched "infantry-like attacks" on U.S. military positions. Mullen did not detail how the U.S. military could better help Pakistan battle insurgents in tribal areas, although he reiterated that the United States will remain involved in training Pakistan's Frontier Corps. The U.S. military in recent months has intensified its unilateral attacks on insurgent havens in Pakistan, using artillery, missiles from unmanned drones and other munitions, as well as, according to Pakistani officials, U.S. military air assault by helicopter into the tribal area of South Waziristan. But Pakistani officials have bristled at the U.S.-led actions, and Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, chief of the Pakistani army, said yesterday that his country will oppose further incursion of U.S. troops. In a statement issued hours after Mullen's testimony, Kayani referred to a recent cross-border raid led by U.S. commandos in South Waziristan, saying coalition forces are barred from operating inside Pakistan. "There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the Coalition Forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," he said. Yet even if the Pentagon could achieve a better coordinated regional strategy, Mullen stressed that military forces can do only so much to pacify the area. "No amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek," he said, adding later: "We can't kill our way to victory." Greater efforts by U.S. civilian agencies and the international community are essential, he said. For example, he criticized the shortage of civilian personnel in Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, saying that without more experts in agriculture, education, commerce and jurisprudence, the PRTs "will remain but empty shells." Gates also underscored that civilian efforts "must be on the same page" as those of the military. "I am still not satisfied with the level of coordination and collaboration" between military and civilian partners on reconstruction and strengthening the Afghan government, he said. Despite their focus on Afghanistan, both Gates and Mullen said that the situation in Iraq remains uncertain and could require more forces in the future. "I worry that the great progress" by U.S. and Iraqi forces could override caution and lead to an excessively rapid drawdown, said Gates, noting that U.S. commanders in Iraq remain concerned about "many challenges and potential for reversals." In sum, he said, "we should expect to be involved in Iraq for years to come, although in changing and increasingly limited ways." Still, both leaders made it clear that they intend to change the Pentagon's formulation -- first voiced by Mullen in testimony last December -- that "in Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must." Yesterday, in contrast, Gates said he thinks it will be possible in comings months "to do militarily what we must in both countries." "They are both a priority right now," Mullen concurred. Correspondent Candace Rondeaux in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report. Afghanistan: Recipe for trouble
Seattle Post Intelligencer President Bush is gingerly ordering a few more troops out of Iraq, but planning to put part of the force reduction into boosting combat forces in Afghanistan. Whether that's a recipe for trouble in Afghanistan or not, it adds to the questions about management, vision and strategy, or their absence, there. Ever since the well-justified removal of the Taliban for their complicity in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks, the Bush administration has been averse to the kind of broad-ranging commitments to improved conditions needed by Afghans. Without better management, an increase in foreign military forces now could be counterproductive. It's increasingly clear that an Aug. 22 U.S. air strike on an Afghan village is just what local residents said: a massive tragedy with the loss of more than 90 civilians, about 75 of them women and children. At best, the air attack and a Special Forces ground operation resulted from mistaken intelligence and slipshod follow-up by U.S. forces. It's shameful that an initial military investigation produced now-discredited findings that the Taliban had been properly targeted and that civilian casualties were minimal. Now, the top U.S. officer in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, has requested a new examination. We hope McKiernan or higher-ups also are examining the reliance on air power. Air power can reduce risks for allied troops in any given encounter with the Taliban, but the increase in civilian casualties could doom the larger security effort in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. The greater question is whether we are giving Afghanistan the advice, training and financial support that will allow the Taliban to be turned back. By most accounts, the Karzai regime is as corrupt as it is incompetent. Economic woes are fueling discontent. We are training the military but letting hopes for popular participation in government wither. Taliban forces rebuilt while the Bush administration focused on Iraq. But the recent gains in Iraq suggest that even a dire situation can be reversed. More troops may or may not help in Afghanistan; the surge seems to have been a positive factor in Iraq under focused leadership from Gen. David Petraeus. But a serious re-examination is in order to stop a slide back to turmoil and terror in Afghanistan. Vendrell says West has no coherent Afghan plan
Written by http://www.quqnoos.com/ Former EU envoy says West made 'many mistakes' since 2001 THE West has no coherent strategy to ensure success in Afghanistan, according to the former EU envoy Francesc Vendrell. Mr Vendrell told the BBC in an interview that the West's plan for Afghanistan needed an overhaul - but he said this would not be possible until President Bush and his team left office. Mr Vendrell, who left Afghanistan in August, said "many mistakes" had been made in Afghanistan and called for an immediate end to endemic corruption in the country. The US is set to announce a modest boost to its Afghan troop contingent. US President George W Bush is expected to reveal plans for a "quiet surge" in troop levels in Afghanistan, coinciding with the withdrawal of some 8,000 US troops from Iraq. When asked by the BBC if the West had a coherent strategy for Afghanistan, Mr Vendrell replied: "No. Because for as long as the Bush administration is in office it is impossible to change the Bush administration's approach to Afghanistan. "They don't want to see any changes because they still hope to present Afghanistan as a success story. "We will need to wait, not for very long, for a new administration to be established and at that point we need to reveal our strategy, not only a US strategy but the overall strategy, because clearly what we are doing so far is not going to lead to success." Mr Vendrell, a veteran Spanish diplomat, told the BBC: "I don't leave with a sense of failure. "But I do leave with a sense of regret that we made so many mistakes. I don't believe the situation will lead to failure but we have got to do a hell of a lot to get things right." Mr Vendrell added his voice to the criticism of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from aerial bombings. "It is doing us an enormous amount of harm with the public," he warned. "In 2002, we were being welcomed almost as liberators by the Afghans. Now we are being seen as a necessary evil, perhaps something that they need to put up with because our departure would probably mean a civil war, but these kinds of actions completely undermine the efforts to win hearts and minds." Mr Vendrell's successor as EU envoy to Afghanistan is the Italian diplomat, Ettore Francesco Sequi. Pentagon Gives Bleak Afghan View
Adm. Mullen Says
The Wall Street Journal Top Pentagon officials gave Congress pessimistic assessments of the war in Afghanistan, with the nation's highest-ranking military officer warning that the U.S. is "running out of time" to stabilize the country. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified one day after President George W. Bush announced a plan to gradually withdraw some 8,000 U.S. troops from Iraq while sending an additional 4,500 troops to Afghanistan. The Pentagon believes the Iraq war has begun winding down while the Afghanistan conflict is intensifying. Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Mr. Gates said the U.S. had entered the "endgame" in Iraq. "We are reducing our commitments in Iraq and we are increasing our commitments in Afghanistan," he told the lawmakers. The administration's handling of the two wars has re-emerged as a key issue in the presidential campaign. Democratic candidate Barack Obama, who has long called for deploying at least 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan, criticized Mr. Bush's redeployment plan as inadequate. Republican rival John McCain said Sen. Obama's call for large-scale troop withdrawals from Iraq would endanger recent gains there. Wednesday, Mr. Gates called for a cautious withdrawal from Iraq, noting that commanders didn't yet believe the country's security improvements were "necessarily enduring." He also said some U.S. forces likely would remain in Iraq for "many years to come." The testimony came during a bloody period in Afghanistan. Seven years into the war, the resurgent Taliban have launched a wave of attacks on U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces. Suicide bombings, once a rarity in Afghanistan, are now a common occurrence, and more U.S. troops are being killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq. "I'm not convinced we're winning in Afghanistan," Adm. Mullen said, adding that he was "convinced we can." Mr. Gates and Adm. Mullen detailed an array of worrisome dynamics in Afghanistan, from persistent shortages of Western military personnel to what they described as the corruption and ineffectiveness of the fragile Afghan government. The two leaders also blamed much of Afghanistan's instability on neighboring Pakistan, with Adm. Mullen asserting that insurgents were crossing into Afghanistan from "safe havens" in Pakistan's lawless border regions. Adm. Mullen told lawmakers that he was planning to develop a new strategy for the war that would focus on the situation in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. "These two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," he said. The two men faced skeptical questioning from Democratic lawmakers, who accused the Bush administration of shortchanging Afghanistan by lavishing American military and financial resources on Iraq. There are 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 34,000 in Afghanistan. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D., Mo.) said top U.S. commanders in Iraq were given "every resource needed" while senior American officials in Afghanistan had "to plead publicly" for additional troops. "No one has been able to explain to me why Iraq is our first priority based on national-security interests," Rep. Skelton said. "How can it be when those most likely to attack us are in Afghanistan?" Gen. David McKiernan, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has repeatedly called for three additional combat brigades, or about 10,500 to 12,000 more troops. Adm. Mullen acknowledged that the 4,500 troops slated to deploy to Afghanistan in coming months wouldn't "adequately meet" Gen. McKiernan's request but described them as a "good start." Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it U.S. to bolster its military forces in Afghanistan by 4,500 troops Bush shifting military focus away from Iraq
The Gazette (Montreal), Canada Days before his final 9/11 anniversary in office, U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday the United States will bolster its military forces in Afghanistan with about 4,500 troops by early next year. In a major speech that shifted the focus of U.S. military involvement from Iraq to Afghanistan, Bush said 8,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq, reminding Americans that Afghanistan was where the war on terror began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. In a speech at National Defense University in Washington, Bush singled out Britain, France, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Australia, among others, for bolstering their Afghanistan troop contributions in the last year. Bush called those additional forces a "quiet surge," a reference to the high-profile increase of 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq last year that is credited with making security gains there. Critics have assailed the Bush administration for neglecting Afghanistan with its decision to invade Iraq in 2003. That charge was renewed in force yesterday by the Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, who heaped criticism on Bush for ignoring Afghanistan in favour of Iraq. Obama linked his Republican opponent Senator John McCain to Bush's foreign policy. On the Canadian election trail, Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended the Afghan mission as "essential" to the country's national security, while Liberal leader Stéphane Dion reiterated that Canada must withdraw its 2,500 troops as scheduled by 2011. Canada had threatened to withdraw its military contingent as early as next year unless NATO found a country to supply 1,000 additional troops to partner with Canada in war-ravaged southern Afghanistan. That role was essentially filled in the spring with the deployment of 1,000 U.S. marines, due to come home in November. Bush said another marine battalion of about 1,000 troops that was intended for Iraq would now replace them. An army brigade of about 3,500 more is to follow in January, he said. The U.S. already has 33,000 troops in Afghanistan and will have drawn down its Iraqi numbers to about 138,000. Bush's announcement sparked a heated exchange between the two men vying to succeed him as president. "It is not enough troops, not enough resources, with not enough urgency," Obama said yesterday while campaigning in the battleground state of Ohio. McCain said that Obama "is utterly confused by the progress in Iraq" and criticized him again for his opposition to the surge there. Campaigning in Winnipeg, Harper defended the cost of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, estimated to be $8 billion: "It is obviously a mission that is expensive, very costly and it is also essential to our life for world security and also there is security of our nation as well." Dion said the Liberals "will do their best to help the people of Afghanistan" until the end of Canada's current commitment in 2011. "And after that, the mission in Kandahar will be terminated for the government of Canada and for our troops. We'll have other missions to do in the world." Germany pledges a further $43 million in aid
http://www.quqnoos.com/ Afghan foreign Minister bemoans civilian casualties on trip to Germany GERMANY has promised to donate a further $43 million to the government of Afghanistan over the coming year. Germany made the promise during a meeting between the two country's foreign ministers on Monday. The foreign minister of Afghanistan, Rangin Spanta, thanked the German government for their aid to Afghanistan but said he was concerned about the increase in the number of civilian deaths during operations led by foreign troops. He urged the government of Germany to boost co-ordination between foreign troops and Afghan forces, whcih some blame for the sharp rise in civilian deaths during combat operations last year. Foreign Minister Spanta said: "The increase of American forces in Afghanistan is just for restoring peace and freedom in the country, but we must also think of the civilians during our fight with the terrorists, because their life is very important to us." The total amount of German aid to Afghanistan this year reaches $245 million with the country's latest pledge. The German foreign minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier, said: "I am delighted to announce today that the government of Germany has continued its aid for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, and we have promised another $43 million for this country." Germany has donated $709 million to Afghanistan since 2002, a figure that Germany says will rise to $1.44 billion by 2010. The death of a German soldier two weeks ago in the northern province of Kunduz has fuelled debate in Germany about whether the government should pull-out the 3,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force. The German defence minister said in Kabul last week that calls in Germany for troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan because of recent attacks would only heighten risks for the soldiers. Top US advisor 'not convinced we're winning' in Afghanistan
Yahoo! US - World Top Stories US Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen has warned time was running out to defeat an intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan and said he was "not convinced we're winning" in the country. Mullen, the top military advisor to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said he has commissioned "a new, more comprehensive military strategy for the region that covers both sides of that border" between Afghanistan and Pakistan, an area the United States says is being used as an insurgent safe haven. He called the recent decision by US President George W. Bush to send 4,500 troops from Iraq to Afghanistan "a good and important start" even though it fell short of commanders' requests for three more brigades or about 10,000 troops. "Frankly, I judge the risk of not sending them too great a risk to ignore," he said at a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee. "I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can," he said. Without a broader international and intra-governmental approach, he said, "no amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan." "And frankly, we're running out of time," Mullen said. At the same briefing, Defense Secretary Gates said Bush's decision to draw down only 8,000 of the 146,000 troops from Iraq by February, and shift about half that number to Afghanistan "represents not only the right direction but the right course of action." "I believe we have now entered that end game (in Iraq) and our decisions today and in the months ahead will be critical to regional stability and our national security interests for the years to come," he told lawmakers. Gates acknowledged the rising insurgent challenge in Afghanistan, but he warned that risks of reversals remain in Iraq despite progress on the security front. He worried that the gains made have "the potential of overriding a measure of caution borne of uncertainty." "The planned reductions are an acceptable risk today that also provide for unforeseen circumstances in the future," Gates said. "The reductions also preserve a broad range of options for the next commander-in-chief who will make his own assessment after taking office in January," he said. "As we proceed deeper into the end game, I would urge our leaders to implement strategies that while steadily reducing our presence in Iraq also take into account the advice of our commanders," he said. Gates added, however, that the United States should expect to stay involved in Iraq for "years to come, although in changing and increasingly limited ways." Gates and Mullen said insecurity and violence will persist in Afghanistan until the insurgency is deprived of safe havens in Pakistan. "We can hunt down and kill extremists as they cross over the border from Pakistan," Mullen said. "But until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming." Gates, however, suggested that the United States wanted to avoid confrontation with Islamabad. "During this time of political turmoil in Pakistan, it is especially critical that we maintain a strong and positive relationship with the government, since any deterioration would be a setback for both Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said. In Afghanistan, Gates said, "persistent and increasing violence resulting from an organized insurgency is, of course, our greatest concern." Bush decided to send a Marine battalion and an army combat brigade to Afghanistan "in response to resurgent extremism and violence reflecting greater ambition, sophistication and coordination," he said. Mullen said US military leaders initially disagreed on the best course of action, but ultimately compromised and arrived at a consensus in favor of modest troop cuts in Iraq and a smaller boost in forces in Afghanistan. "That said, General McKiernan has asked for three more brigades, and it's going to be a while before we get them there," Mullen said, referring to General David McKiernan, the top US commander in Afghanistan. Seven years on, Afghanistan again 'war on terror' frontline
AFP Seven years after the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Afghanistan is again the frontline of the US-led "war on terror" with extremist unrest intensifying and a new focus on Pakistan's tribal areas. Less than two months after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States and its allies had ousted the Taliban regime which had refused to hand over Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. But today bin Laden is still on the run, the Taliban have regrouped -- notably in the south and in border tribal areas of Pakistan -- while the government in Kabul struggles to assert its authority. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is among those who say the United States was distracted by its venture into Iraq and did not finish up in Afghanistan. "One of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here," Obama said recently. "We cannot win a war against the terrorists if we are on the wrong battlefield," he said, calling, as does his Republican rival John McCain, for more US reinforcements for international forces in Afghanistan. The rise of violence in Afghanistan and relative calming of Iraq have opened the way for such reinforcements, and the Pentagon has already spoken of a first deployment of 4,500 soldiers by the end of the year. A US commander in Afghanistan, General Jeffrey Schloesser, last week called for extra soldiers, warning of a possible winter offensive by the Taliban and said the militants were preparing "spectacular attacks". Admiral Michael Mullen, the most senior US military officer, also warned last month of the growth of the Taliban and attacks that would get "more and more sophisticated", as seen with recent ambushes on foreign soldiers. "We saw that just this month (August) near Kabul, where French troops were attacked, and we saw it last month in the Wanat Valley, where nine of our own troops were killed," he told reporters. "The safe havens in the border regions provide launching pads for these sorts of attacks, and they need to be shut down," he said, referring to militant sanctuaries along the border in neighbouring Pakistan. US forces have increasingly turned their focus on the lawless frontier belt, stepping up missile strikes and this month helicopters even dropped ground troops into a village, angering Pakistan. In Afghanistan, which has a long history of resistance to outsiders, international forces are making steady progress but "victory is slow," Schloesser acknowledged. US allies are meanwhile concerned about their own growing casualties, and the difficulty of winning "hearts and minds" as Afghans grow weary of reports of civilians killed in error by military air strikes. An Afghan investigation found that one such strike late August in the west of the country killed more than 90 civilians. The US military has said only five to seven civilians were killed along with 30-35 Taliban, but agreed Sunday to reopen an inquiry. Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday that the number of Afghan civilians killed by air strikes had tripled between 2006 and 2007, from 116 to 321. And nearly 200 were killed by foreign troops, including during air strikes, in the first seven months of this year, it said. The killings are alienating locals and helping the Taliban to recruit, said the watchdog's Asian director Brad Adams. They are also fodder for Taliban propaganda aimed at eroding support for the government and its allies. "The enemy routinely exaggerates the number of civilian casualties as propaganda, just pure and simple," said Schloesser. "They use lies and deceit They seek to wear away our partnership with the international community, with NATO and with the Afghan people." But the security situation is not the only problem facing Afghanistan seven years after the ouster of the Taliban. Presidential elections in 2004 and a parliament set up in 2005 have not succeeded in uniting the country, which is smaller than Texas but divided among several ethnic groups and tribes. Corruption fed by drug trafficking -- Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium -- is rampant, and aid promised by the international community has not always been been delivered. According to a report by the British charity Oxfam, for every 100 dollars the international community spends on maintaining the military in Afghanistan, it spends only seven on aid. Fighting erupts close to Kabul
Written by http://www.quqnoos.com/ Both sides claim to have killed opposition in skirmishes close to capital THE TALIBAN and Afghan army claim to have inflicted casualties on one another's fighters during clashes in the province of Maidan Wardak. The provincial governor's spokesman said the fighting erupted in the Saydabad district, 45km from the capital Kabul, on Tuesday afternoon and said that no government forces were injured during the skirmish. He said he was unsure about the number of casualties suffered by the Taliban. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said Taliban fighters destroyed five trucks belonging to the government's security forces and killed all 15 men on board. In the southern province of Kandahar, a mine exploded, killing one Afghan soldier and injuring four others close to Kandahar city's airport on Tuesday, the army said. The head of the 205th Atal unit said the explosives were placed on a bicycle and left by road. The improvised mine was detonated as a convoy of Afghan National Army troops passed. Along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, insurgents are gaining in strength. Maj. Gen Jeffrey J. Schloesser, who commands U.S. forces based in Bagram, Afghanistan, says there may be 10,000 insurgents on the eastern
MSNBC - NewsWeek Along the porous and rugged eastern border with Pakistan, Afghan insurgent forces this year have gained in strength. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, who commands the 19,000 U.S. combat troops that are trying to secure the area and bring development to it, puts the number of insurgents at 7,000 to 10,000, which includes foreign fighters from safe havens inside Pakistan. In his headquarters at the sprawling U.S. base at Bagram, just north of Kabul, Schloesser chatted with NEWSWEEK's Ron Moreau about his strategy to combat the resurgent Taliban. Excerpts: NEWSWEEK: Has the recent Pakistani military offensive along the Afghan border reduced cross-border attacks and infiltration? Jeffrey J. Schloesser: I'm really encouraged to see that the Pakistani military is involved in military operations in the Bajaur region. We've had discussions of that nature with them in the preceding months, and to see it occurring is a good news story. At this time, it's too early to say if there is a definite decrease in the amount of cross-border activities by the insurgents. This is what I'm hoping for. Last June you said that combat incidents along the Pakistan border were up 40 percent. What's the situation now? Incidents each month this year have still been fairly high compared to the same period in preceding years. Every year from 2002 to 2008, generally speaking, incidents have increased. There have been more insurgents in 2008 coming across the border. This year's numbers are going to be significantly higher, some 20 percent to 30 percent higher than those in 2007. So the 40 percent [increase] we saw in June meant that there was a pretty big spike in April, May and June. We've seen a leveling out, not a decrease. How serious is the challenge? As we introduced more ground troops in 2005 to 2007, we started going into places where we had not been before. There's no doubt about it--when you poke a stick inside a hornets' nest, you are going to get some hornets coming out. We still see that today: activity is rising. We are going in and are able to find, locate, capture, kill or cause to flee insurgents of a variety of different groups in this Taliban syndicate. Can security and development ever come to Afghanistan as long as these insurgent safe havens in Pakistan exist? Security and development are already here. Still, it's frustrating for me. I need more troops to be able to do the holding part of our good strategy, which is: clear, hold and build. It doesn't have to be linear; it can happen simultaneously. We have doubled the amount of money and the number of projects we are doing this year in what I call the commander emergency-response program. That funding is up to around $450 [million] to $480 million for the ideas of the provincial governors and councils. We don't dream it up, and we don't know what to do--they come up with the list of things that are needed to provide quick quality-of-life improvements. I would call it a development surge. We've got seven provinces in [eastern Afghanistan] that have been declared poppy- and opium-free. There's an award for this to each province. Nangarhar just received $10 million, which is being used to build three earthen dams. These are real projects to help people. But what about security? I plan on having a winter campaign that will take advantage of the mobility that I have to seek out any insurgent safe havens in Afghanistan, any facilitation areas, any places they go to for rest and recreation. We're going to give them those options: either get killed or captured, flee or reconcile. At the same time we are going to increase this development surge. By putting both of those together, you'll see that our ability to hold areas will increase over the next year to two years. It's a slow process. What about civilian casualties? Afghan and United Nations officials say a recent coalition airstrike in Herat province killed up to 90 civilians, while the U.S. says 30 insurgents were killed and only seven civilians died? I believe that this potentially is a case where there was pure propaganda. The Taliban were the first at getting that message out, so that almost becomes the popular perception, and it's very difficult to roll back in spite of on-the-ground reality and investigation. I started an investigation of it. I expect to have the results soon. The commander of NATO, Gen. David McKiernan, desires to broaden the investigation based on our results to include both the Afghan government, as well as the U.N. That's a good way forward. It will enable us to share the real proof that we believe we have from the incident's location. But how can you combat the popular perception that 90 or more civilians were killed? One year ago the Taliban would have tried to relate their propaganda to some fact on the ground. An aircraft has a mechanical failure, goes down, is repaired and flies away. They would have said it was shot down. Now what I see increasingly is that there is no link to reality before they make these wild claims. They will try to continue this line of propaganda about civilian casualties. We are deeply regretful of any civilian casualties during our operation. We work harder than any military I am aware of to prevent civilian casualties. But it's very difficult when the enemy chooses to wear women's clothing and hide behind women and children. Three months ago they threw a child out in front of a convoy to initiate an IED. It stopped the convoy, and then the attacker in a suicide vest hit the convoy. It killed the child. When we believe we have created a civilian casualty, my goal is to be able to acknowledge it as fast as possible, to be able to consult with the provincial and district governors and, whenever appropriate, apologize and repair whatever we can with payments [to the victims and relatives]. President Bush and both U.S. presidential candidates say they want two to three more combat brigades here. Is that enough? We need more troops here in the east. I think General McKiernan has said the same, speaking more broadly of Afghanistan. I don't want to characterize it as a troop surge. But to clear, hold and build we will need more forces, and that includes more Afghan forces, which are critical. Are two to three more brigades the answer? It depends on our success as we increase the number of troops. And then, what's the impact on the enemy? Some things are not knowable in the coming months. Finally, what will be the impact of the Afghan presidential election next year? It's quite possible that the Taliban or other insurgent groups will throw in the towel and say this is not worth it. US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 517
FOXNews As of Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008, at least 517 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Wednesday at 10 a.m. EDT. Of those, the military reports 368 were killed by hostile action. Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 65 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, two were the result of hostile action. The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen. There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death. ___ The latest deaths reported by the military: _ No deaths reported. ___ The latest identifications reported by the military: _ Marine 1st Lt. Nicholas A. Madrazo, 25, Bothell, Wash.; killed Tuesday during combat operations in Parwan province, Afghanistan; assigned to Combat Logistics Battalion 37, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan. _ Marine Capt. Jesse Melton III, 29, Randallstown, Md.; killed Tuesday during combat operations in Parwan province, Afghanistan; assigned to Headquarters Battery, 12th Marines, 3rd Marine Division, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. ___ On the Net: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/ Afghan foot juggler may break Asian record
http://www.quqnoos.com/ Football player juggles ball on his feet for three hours and 11 minutes AN Afghan football player may have set a new Asia record for the number of "keep ups" completed with a football. Ahmad Saier Quraishee, a member of Maihan FC, juggled a football on his feet 20,800 times in front of journalists and the Football Federation of Afghanistan. The incredible feat took three hours and 11 minutes to complete, breaking the previous record held by an Iranian who managed 13,500 keep ups. The Football Federation will send a video of the record attempt to the Asian Football Federation for confirmation. "I love football and was interested in kicking footballs from childhood and was always practicing. I want to thank God for helping me to break the Asian record," Quraishee said. Harper pledges Afghan pullout by 2011
The Globe and Mail Conservative Leader Stephen Harper pledged Wednesday to withdraw Canadian troops in 2011 from not just Kandahar, but all of Afghanistan, leaving no room for transfer to a safer region of the country. His statement went further than a parliamentary deal he cut earlier this year with the Liberals to pull Canadian forces out of Kandahar in 2011. At a NATO summit in April, Mr. Harper left the door open to keeping Canadian soldiers in the country, perhaps in the less violent north. But yesterday, in the first week of the campaign for the Oct. 14 election, Mr. Harper sought to ensure that no such questions would hamper his efforts to woo the political centre and skeptical Quebeckers. He pledged that if the Conservatives win, all Canadian troops except a few advisers would clear out of Afghanistan entirely in 2011. He said 10 years of war is enough. "I think that we have to say to the government of Afghanistan: ‘We have an expectation that you are going to be responsible for your own security. We're not there to permanently manage your security,'" Mr. Harper told reporters yesterday. He added: "I don't really think there will be much appetite among Canadians. I don't think even among the armed forces themselves - although they probably wouldn't say so - much appetite to see rotations continuing the way they've been after six years." Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton insisted the commitment was motivated only by Mr. Harper's desire to win the election, and argued that he could not be trusted to stick to it. "A week ago he was ambiguous about when we were supposed to leave, but I think he knows now what Canadians want, to leave in 2011. But he has been ambiguous with our allies," Mr. Dion said. He argued that Mr. Harper left it too late to inform allies that Canada would leave Kandahar in 2009 and a replacement was not lined up, so the Liberals decided it would be irresponsible to oppose extending the mission. The only way to ensure the mission ends in 2011, he argued, is to elect the Liberals. However, Mr. Harper's sharper line on Afghanistan could help inoculate him against a potential obstacle in Quebec: a poll by the Strategic Counsel taken Aug. 25 to 31 found that 76 per cent of Quebeckers opposed the Afghan mission. The announcement was part of a first-week campaign that has showed that the Tory Leader is resolved to deal quickly with potential wounds. On Tuesday, he quickly apologized for a Tory website that showed a puffin defecating on Mr. Dion. Mr. Harper's clearer pledge on Afghanistan might remove some of the threat to the Conservatives from the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, both of which opposed extending the mission past 2009. The NDP, which supports an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, appears to have surged in 10 key B.C. ridings where there were close races in the last election, taking votes from Tories and Liberals, according to a new poll by the Strategic Counsel. And in Quebec, Mr. Harper's promise to withdraw the troops might help him capitalize on the struggles of the sovereigntist Bloc. Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe spent yesterday responding to a sharp attack from former Parti Québécois provincial minister Jacques Brassard, who accused the party of being an NDP clone - too far left, and soft-pedalling sovereignty. "I simply feel that a Prime Minister who at one time said we should go into Iraq, who has continuously expanded our military mission in Afghanistan, who has been very critical of anyone who has even raised a question about it, simply can't be trusted to ensure that what he is saying now is in fact what is going to happen," Mr. Layton said. The security situation in Afghanistan is widely seen as being as bad as, or worse than, it was a year ago, when Mr. Harper argued for an extension. And few experts believe that the Afghan government will be able to carry the full burden of combat against the Taliban in 2011. "I don't think there's any chance of that - or a very small chance," said Janice Stein of the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies and co-author of The Unexpected War, a book about the Afghan mission. As Mr. Harper delivered yet another attack on Mr. Dion's Green Shift to cut income taxes and raise carbon-fuel taxes, Mr. Layton offered his own proposals on balancing environmentalism and the economy. He promised a four-year, $8.2-billion plan to create "green-collar jobs," including extending tax breaks for the purchase of manufacturing equipment, spending to encourage car makers to produce low-emission vehicles, and trade rules requiring the federal government to buy Canadian. The hardest hit of the day came Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams. As someone dressed in a puffin suit carried a sign that read "ABC" - for Mr. Williams's anybody-but-Conservative campaign - the Premier called Mr. Harper a fraud, told him to keep the provincial bird out of his "nasty, disgusting, personal attack ads," and warned of his right-wing agenda. "A majority government for Stephen Harper would be one of the most negative political events in Canadian history," he said. With reports from Daniel Leblanc in Sherbrooke and Gloria Galloway in Toronto Secrets of the Taliban's success
Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Kandahar has traditionally been the city of Afghan royalty, warlords and the center of resistance movements against the British and Russia. It was also the spiritual heartland of the student militia, the Taliban, that emerged in the 1990s to combat the vicious civil war that was tearing the country apart. The Taliban took over Kabul in 1996 and opened the country to al-Qaeda's training camps, while Osama bin Laden settled in Kandahar. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan a few months later, the Taliban agreed to lose their government but, in the tradition of the Afghan code of honor of Pashtunwali, they refused to hand over their most wanted guests to the Americans. Seven years after 9/11, the resurgent Taliban movement is exclusively led by Kandahari clans, which still boast of their sacrifices for the Islamic brotherhood in the name of Pashtunwali, but they maintain that the Taliban have never harbored - and never will - an aggressive agenda towards the world community. In a interview with Asia Times Online, Mullah Abdul Jalil, a pioneer of the Taliban movement in Kandahar, elaborated. "There is a lot of rhetoric out of anger and frustration against the West because of the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] oppression of the Afghan people, but the Taliban leadership still strictly abides by its code of conduct for the resistance against foreign occupation forces in our country," said Jalil, who served as deputy foreign minister and foreign minister during the Taliban regime (1996-2001) . "Our code of conduct is documented in the Asasi Qanoon [Basic Law of Afghanistan]. Under article 103, it is mentioned that we don't want any disruptions in any country of the world. The Taliban are only a national resistance movement against foreign occupation forces in Afghanistan," said Jalil. Jalil, 49, hails from Kandahar and attended an Islamic seminary in Quetta, Pakistan, but did not finish his studies because of the emergence of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Jalil is a thin, down-to-earth man, his hair and beard already snow white, which he ascribes to the years of turmoil he has witnessed in his country. He has never been a military commander, but has always been a part of Taliban leader Mullah Omar's closest inner circle and he is still proud to be one of his close confidants. Along with the Taliban's foreign minister in 2001, Mullah Abdul Wakeel Muttawakil, Jalil was not comfortable with al-Qaeda being in the country, but when questioned on the matter he initially evaded answering with a smile, saying only that "it is unnecessary to open up controversies". However, he did then elaborate, "Arabs are different from the Taliban. If today they boost attacks on Western targets, they do so independently. We have nothing to do with their claims. We have always limited our battle to that against NATO and although we could work in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, China or Iran, we never had any role in these areas. "Afghanistan has always been a poor country and has never had the capacity to be aggressive against anybody, nor will it do so in the future. This is exactly what Mullah Omar told the Chinese ambassador during the last days of our government in Afghanistan. Even if we provided a place for the people of Eastern Turkistan [Xinjiang province in China] because they migrated to Afghanistan, we did not fuel their [separatist Uyghur] movement from Afghanistan," Jalil insisted. Jalil's comments did not ring true. Several Taliban commanders, including the slain Mullah Dadullah and Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, besides scores of al-Qaeda members, have maintained that the only way to win the Afghan war against NATO is to attack Western targets in Europe and America. I cited some of their statements to Jalil and asked, "Are they lying, or are you?" "Nobody is lying. There are issues here to understand. First, there were people like Mullah Dadullah [a senior military commander killed by NATO in 2007] . He was emotional and often engaged in rhetoric - many times - different from Taliban policies, so much so that on several occasions he was warned by the Taliban leadership about his statements to the media. "Second, it is necessary to understand that there is a sea of difference between the people who call themselves the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban [led by Mehsud] and the Taliban. We have nothing to do with them. In fact, we oppose the policies they adhere to against the Pakistani security forces. "We individually speak to all groups, whether they are Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Arabs, Uzbeks or whosoever, telling them not to create violence in Pakistan, especially in the name of the Taliban. But although we don't have any control over them, we don't allow such groups to come into our areas. None of these is involved with us in fighting against NATO troops in Afghanistan," Jalil said. Warming to the subject, Jalil continued, "Nobody has the right to explain any war strategy on our behalf. Our strategy is decided by Mullah Bradar alone. He is the deputy of Mullah Omar and the present chief of military operations. Last year we laid down a policy of a guerrilla war. We cannot afford any mass uprising or face-to-face war, it would only cause a lot of unnecessary casualties." "But don't you think that in this long process of a guerrilla war, especially as the Taliban don't have the latest weaponry, it would make the Afghan population sick and tired of the Taliban-led resistance?" I asked. Jalil responded quickly, "Not at all. The Taliban emerged from Kandahar, which has a special dynamic in Afghanistan, and they have never accepted foreign occupation. The Taliban still draws its military leaders from Kandahar, and look at the history of Kandahar ... when I say Kandahar I don't mean the present divisions, it means the entire regions of Helmand, Urzgan and Zabul ... it has always produced the best military leaders. "The Taliban are not a stand-alone entity. Ninety percent of the present resistance in Kandahar survives because of the masses. They provide shelter to us in their homes, feed us and provide money for us to go back and fight against the foreign forces, and they never mind if in the course of this they suffer casualties because of aerial bombardments," Jalil said. (At least 540 civilians have been killed in the conflict so far this year, a sharp increase over last year's total of 321.) "Look, the conviction of the masses is the essential thing. The reason why there is not as strong a resistance in the north is that the people are not behind it. Certainly, people across Afghanistan are against the foreign occupation, but for a resistance [to succeed] it needs a special temperament, zeal and strength to face all sorts of hardships. Kandaharis have always shown this and that's why they are ahead of everybody in fighting against foreign troops," Jalil said. NATO has projected divisions within the Taliban and pointed to the emergence of several former mujahideen leaders to rival the authority of Mullah Omar. Prominent among these is Jalaluddin Haqqani, Anwarul Haq Mujahid and commanders loyal to veteran Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, founder of the Hezb-e Islami (HIA). "Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani is a very respected personality in Afghanistan, but he cannot command the resistance because of his age [58] and illnesses. He has always been a part of the Taliban shura [council] and has never parted ways with the Taliban. Now his son Sirajuddin Haqqani is a main commander, but he always coordinates his actions with the Taliban and is completely subject to the Taliban's discipline. "Anwarul Haq Mujahid has now been officially appointed as the governor of Nangarhar province [which is under the Taliban's shadowy emirates banner] so all these [NATO] projections are wrong. As far as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is concerned, we are striving for the same cause, but we don't have any regular contact." Jalil continued, "However, let me tell you, most of the places which were previously Hezb-e Islami strongholds are completely under the Taliban's command. For instance, the HIA recently claimed the killings of [10] French soldiers in Sarobi [50 kilometers east of Kabul]. Actually, it was done by Taliban commander Qari Baryal, who commands the region of Sarobi, the Tagaab Valley and up to Bagram [near Kabul]. The same goes for Wardak and Kapisa [provinces], where the Taliban have largely replaced the HIA's network in the resistance." There is widespread speculation that the Taliban might attack Kabul any day soon as they now have strong pockets all around the capital. Jalil differs, "Practically, we are in Kabul. We are in Sarobi, which is part of the Kabul district. We are in Maidan Shehr [Wardak province and just 30 kilometers east of Kabul], we are in Nangarhar, which is not far from Kabul. But at present there is no plan to mobilize any attack on Kabul. The reason is the non-availability of resources." Given the Taliban's long and tough struggle since being ousted in 2001, I raised the issue of whether they might be tempted to compromise with former rivals, such as ethnic Tajik and former president Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, who recently claimed to have had talks with the Taliban. Or perhaps the Taliban might even engage with the Americans or British. "During the last [2005 parliamentary] elections, Rabbani and Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf [a member of parliament] did speak to the Taliban through mediators. However, they wanted the Taliban's support in the elections. We rejected that idea and since then we have never communicated. We have never had dialogue with the British or with the Americans. There are individuals who have talked to them and this may have created the misunderstanding that the Taliban communicated with them," Jalil said. I was taken aback by this response. After the US invasion, some overtures were made between the Taliban and the US Central Intelligence Agency - CIA. (See US turns to the Taliban Asia Times Online, June 14, 2003.) Similarly, in the wake of moves to revive the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline project, an initiative began in Quetta last year (See Taliban, US in new round of peace talks Asia Times Online, August 21, 2007) which led to the idea of regional jirgas (tribal councils) to start peace talks with the Taliban. The scheme was destroyed because of the strong adverse reaction to the government storming the Taliban-sympathetic Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad last year. "When Mullah Abdul Razzak held talks with the Americans he had left the Taliban. At that time he was completely independent that's why you cannot call it a dialogue between the CIA and the Taliban. It was purely a case of an individual act. Mullah Abdul Razzak only rejoined the Taliban one year ago. The same goes with Mansoor Dadullah or whosoever held the dialogue. They did it against the Taliban's policy." (Dadullah was later expelled from the Taliban.) The interview was over and I broke the evening's Ramadan fast with Jalil, and suggested a photograph. "No. This is the secret to our survival. We never allow photographs, and that is why we can move freely in Afghanistan and the tribal areas [of Pakistan] as nobody recognizes us. Especially with my white hair, nobody suspects me of being Taliban," Jalil said with a smile. Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Interview - Afghans won't tolerate more civilian deaths in raids
Reuters Afghans are seething with anger over a spate of civilian deaths in air strikes mounted by U.S.-led coalition forces, a top Afghan defence official said on Wednesday, calling for greater involvement of the Afghan army in operations. Major-General Zaher Azimi said there was no military justification for an air strike in western Herat last month in which the government says more than 90 people, most of them women and children, were killed, a figure backed by the United Nations. "It is difficult for the Afghan people to tolerate any more. Civilian casualties happen in war, but they are now so much on the rise," said Azimi, a former mujahideen commander and now an adviser and spokesman at the Afghan defence ministry. The U.S. military, which plans to reinvestigate the Aug. 22 bombing in Herat's Shindand district, says the air strike was called after coalition and Afghan army forces came under intense fire during an operation against suspected Taliban militants in the area. It said 30 to 35 militants were killed in the raid. But Azimi said the operation was flawed from the beginning because it was launched on the basis of intelligence input that was not coordinated with the Afghan National Army. "If they had coordinated with the Afghan troops it wouldn't have ended up in an air strike," he said. "I mean, what justification is there to kill 100 people because 10 rounds were fired at you?" He said coalition and Afghan troops could have surrounded the village and forced out the Taliban if they were there. "There wasn't really any immediate need for bombardment." Violence has mounted in Afghanistan in the past three years with a resurgent Taliban carrying out suicide bombings and ambushes, forcing the over-stretched Western coalition forces to rely more and more on air strikes. Twice as many tonnes of bombs were dropped in 2007 than in 2006, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report this week, citing U.S. Air Force data. More people were killed by air strikes in 2007 than by U.S. or NATO ground fire. This year as violence hit its highest level since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 with more than 2,500 people killed, there has been a surge in the use of air power. More bombs have been dropped in the months of June and July than in the whole of 2006. GIVE US PLANES Azimi said given Afghanistan's harsh and rugged terrain, the use of air power was inevitable in tackling a full-blown insurgency. But even here if the Afghans were conducting the operations, the chances of inflicting civilian casualties would be less because they were more likely to know a particular area better than foreign forces. "We know people by name in our country, and we know their homes. We have pilots who know the villages and can identify targets themselves so that we hit our enemies, not civilians." Afghanistan's fledgling air force has a fleet of five Soviet-era transport planes, and a few helicopters but no combat aircraft. Unlike the Afghan army, the rebuilding of the air force, which lost all its 500 aircraft in the Soviet invasion and the civil war later on, has been slow. "No army in the world can have successful operations unless it has an air force to give it logistics, transport and firepower support," he said. "But especially in the kind of environment we are in Afghanistan, we need a strong Afghan air force. (Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by David Fogarty) Afghans say life no better after invasion
Reuters Africa - Home Seven years after the attacks on New York and Washington, the event that sparked off the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, many Afghans say life is no better and some say its worse. Following the overthrow of the hardline Islamist Taliban in late 2001 by U.S.-led and Afghan forces, Afghans hoped their country, ravaged by decades of war, would finally see peace. But with al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden still on the loose, a worsening security situation and the slow pace of development, Afghans have become disillusioned and frustrated. A recent spate of civilian deaths caused by U.S.-led air strikes has added salt to their wounds. "After the 9/11 attacks, when the U.S. and her allies overthrew the Taliban government, the U.S. promised the Afghan nation stability, safety and jobs," Haji Allah Dad, a 60-year-old trader in the southern town of Spin Boldak, said. "But they have done nothing for us. They drop bombs on the civilian population and have killed thousands of Afghans in the last seven years, while the Taliban get stronger day by day." Spin Boldak is a bustling town in the southern province of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban and where the militant group still draws much of its support. In February, a suicide bomber in Spin Boldak killed 37 civilians and wounded 30 more. The attack came just one day after another bomber killed more than 100 people in Kandahar city. "We feel no change in our lives," said Mohammad Usman, a 40-year-old shopkeeper from Spin Boldak. "They (foreign forces) are not the enemy of the Taliban, they are the enemy of the Afghan people. The U.S. army calls us al Qaeda and kills us but we don't know what al-Qaeda is." CIVILIAN CASUALTIES Violence has surged in Afghanistan over the last three years with more than 2,500 people killed, including 1,000 civilians, in the first six months of this year alone, aid agencies say. While most civilians are killed in insurgent attacks, usually bystanders in suicide blasts, it is the killing of ordinary Afghans by foreign forces that evokes the greatest emotions. The issue has caused a rift between the Afghan government and its Western backers, and undermines public opinion for the continued presence of foreign forces in the country. Ali Jan, a 30-year-old bearded man from Spin Boldak, wants the Taliban back because under them life was safer, he says. "In those times there were no security problems. Now U.S. forces began killing Afghan civilians and destroying our country," said Ali Jan, adding that he had paid the Taliban money during this holy month of Ramadan. "We are forced to help the Taliban against the occupying forces because the Taliban are Muslims and Afghans. They are fighting for the freedom of Afghanistan," he said. Frustration at the country's deteriorating security is not confined to the volatile south. Taliban insurgents have been able to launch increasingly daring and deadly attacks inside the relative safety of Kabul. "Life did change in the first years after the invasion," said Azim, a money-changer on one of Kabul's streets. "But now security has become worse and people are escaping Afghanistan. If the insecurity continues, people will turn against the U.S. like they did against the Taliban." (Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Alex Richardson) Kayani warns US to keep its troops out
Pakistan Dawn, Pakistan Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has rejected US claims that the rules of engagement gave the coalition forces in Afghanistan the right to enter Pakistan and declared that the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity will be defended at all costs. In a statement issued here on Wednesday, the COAS said: "The rules of engagement with the coalition forces are well defined and within that the right to conduct operations against the militants inside own territory is solely the responsibility of the respective armed forces. "There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," he said.Gen Kayani's statement dispelled a perception that some of the air strikes carried out inside Pakistan by drones and warplanes of the US-led coalition had been authorised by Islamabad. The statement has come on the heels of President George Bush's description of the Afghan-Pakistan border area as a frontline in the war on terror and against the backdrop of a series of incursions by Nato forces in which missiles were fired from unmanned drones in the tribal areas and at least one incident ground troops attacked the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan. Observers here saw in the COAS statement a strong rebuttal of the oft-repeated assertions by the western media and political and military figures that US and Nato forces in Afghanistan had a ‘right' to take their war on terror into Pakistan. Pakistan has been asserting that any credible information about terrorists in Pakistan should be provided to it and that its forces were fully capable of acting on it. Although it was not the first attack by Nato forces inside Pakistan, the increase in the frequency of attacks days before the presidential election in Pakistan was seen by many as a major shift in the US policy towards Pakistan. The army chief referred to his meeting with US senior officers on the USS Abraham Lincoln on August 27 and said that they had been informed about the complexity of the issue that required an in-depth understanding and more patience for evolving a comprehensive solution. He said that Pakistan's viewpoint was elaborated in detail and it was stressed that in such situations, the military action alone could not solve the problem. Political reconciliatory efforts were required along with military action to win hearts and minds of the people. During the discussion, the imperative of public support at large for military operations also came under discussion. Later, United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen acknowledged a better understanding of ground realities by the COAS and remarked: "He (the COAS) is committed to doing what is best for Pakistan and he is going to stay the same." He reiterated that ultimately it was "our national interest which will always guide our policy". General Kayani also regretted the killing of innocent civilians in the Angoor Adda incident on Sept 4. He said that such ‘reckless actions' only helped the militants and further fuelled the militancy in the area. He said the Pakistan Army had conducted successful operations against the militants in the past and at present was committed to eliminating them from the affected areas of Fata and Swat. "Our security forces have given huge sacrifices in this war and it is the presence of the army which has denied the freedom of movement and operation to Al Qaeda and the affiliates." He said that the support of the people of Pakistan would play a decisive role. The COAS stressed the need for a collaborative approach for better understanding of a highly complex issue. He said that trust-deficit and misunderstandings could lead to more complications and increase the difficulties for all. The constraints of operating in these areas must never be lost sight of. "There are no quick fixes in this war. Falling for short-term gains while ignoring our long-term interest is not the right way forward. To succeed, the coalition forces will be required to display strategic patience and help the other side the way they want it rather than adopting a unilateral approach which may be counter productive." General Kayani said it was a multi-pronged approach fully supported by the people of Pakistan which would help "us defeat the threat of internal terrorism". The increased incursions by Nato forces into Pakistan were discussed recently in parliament with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi describing the raids as "regrettable and counter-productive". Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who addressed a press conference with President Asif Ali Zardari hours after the latter was sworn in as the new head of state, also voiced concern over the killing of civilians in the two countries and said that civilian killings could not be tolerated. He said that sanctuaries of the terrorists, and not the civilians, should be the target. The attacks also forced Pakistan to discontinue logistic support to the Nato forces in Afghanistan. Besides air strikes, helicopter-borne American Special Operations forces recently attacked Al Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the Afghan border -- the first publicly acknowledged case of US forces having conducted a ground raid on Pakistani soil. Previously, allied forces in Afghanistan occasionally carried out air strikes and artillery attacks in the border region of Pakistan. But the commando raid by the American forces signalled what top American officials said could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defence Secretary Robert Gates has been advocating for months within President Bush's war council, a US paper recently commented. The Bush administration has criticised Pakistan in recent months for not doing enough to curb attacks by the Taliban and Al Qaeda which keep bases inside the Pakistani tribal region and cross the border to attack American and Nato forces in Afghanistan. Afghanistan: Taliban conducting a "defensive war" says leader
AKI The Taliban was fighting a "defensive war" in Afghanistan and had no desire to conduct violent attacks in other countries, a key Taliban leader said on Wednesday. Mullah Abdul Jalil, former Afghan foreign minister under the Taliban and pioneer of the movement in the 1990s, also told Adnkronos International (AKI) that it had nothing to do with Pakistan's Tehrik-i-Taliban or its violent attacks. "The Taliban are fighting a defensive war in Afghanistan and we don't have any aggressive agenda against any nation," Mullah Jalil told AKI. "We have nothing to do with Al-Qaeda or any other group's agenda. We abide by our own code of conduct known as Asasi Qanoon (Basic Law) which clearly says that we would not disrupt the normal life in any country of the world. "Even tomorrow, if NATO forces withdrew as a result of our resistance, we would keep a peaceful co-existence with all nations of the world," Mullah Jalil elaborated. Mullah Jalil has always been part of the inner circle of Mullah Omar, the reclusive leader of the Taliban of Afghanistan and the country's de facto head of state from 1996 to 2001. He was deputy foreign minister during the Taliban regime removed in December 2001 and once served as foreign minister. Like many other Taliban, he has reservations about Al-Qaeda. But he preferred not to comment on the issue as Mullah Omar supported Pushtunwali, a tribal code of honor, which defends anyone who seeks protection. Abdul Jalil said that the Afghan Taliban had nothing to with Pakistan's Tehrik-i-Taliban, the main Taliban militant umbrella group in Pakistan and never approved of violence in Pakistan. "We never approved suicide attacks in Pakistan or Gulf countries," he said. "This strategy is only for Afghanistan because of western occupation forces. People were often confused between the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban (led by Baitullah Mehsud) and the Taliban. "We have nothing to do with them. In fact, we individually spoke to every group engaged in violence in Pakistan to stop them fighting against the Pakistani security troops and we don't allow them to come into our areas," Mullah Jalil said. Mullah Abdul Jalil said that whatever the Taliban did during its rule in Afghanistan was merely upholding Islamic law. On Tuesday, US President George W. Bush, announced 8,000 troops would be withdrawn from Iraq while an extra 4,500 would be sent to Afghanistan within the next few months to counter an increasing number of attacks by the Taliban. Bush said Afghan soldiers were "courageous" but needed help and that it was important to rebuild education and infrastructure in the country. Playing politics with Afghanistan
The Globe and Mail - Opinions Six months ago, Parliament voted to extend Canada's mission to Afghanistan until 2011, with the provision that our troops would leave the volatile province of Kandahar at that time. It was a rare instance in which the Conservatives and the Liberals were able to set aside their differences and reach a reasonable compromise. So why did Conservative Leader Stephen Harper feel compelled to reopen the issue yesterday, making the sudden and unexpected announcement that 2011 would see Canada's mission to Afghanistan end altogether? From a strategic perspective, Mr. Harper's motives are transparent. Pivotal to his party's fortunes in this fall's current election will be how it fares in battleground ridings in Quebec - the province where anti-war sentiments run highest. Evidently believing that Quebec voters still find him too hawkish, and no doubt cognizant of the possibility that Canada will suffer its hundredth Afghanistan casualty during the election campaign, he has tried to remove the issue from the equation altogether. When it comes purely to winning seats, it may prove to be a smart move. Afghanistan, however, is not some glorified public-relations matter in which positions can be shifted based on the latest opinion polls. It is not, as election issues sometimes are, a question of semantics. The fate of a war-torn country - one with the potential to pose serious threats to global security - is at stake. Our government has time and again promised long-suffering Afghans that they will not be abandoned to fend for themselves against the Taliban. Canadian lives have been sacrificed in pursuit of a peaceful (or at least stable) Afghanistan. That outcome will not be easily achieved, and the planned 2011 withdrawal from Kandahar, at least, may prove justified. But further decisions about our future role in that country must be made in a sober fashion, removed - as much as possible - from the partisan pressure cooker of a federal election campaign. When the lives of Canadians and Afghans alike are at stake, those decisions cannot be based on the need to win a few swing ridings. Pupil stabs classmate to death in playground
Written by http://www.quqnoos.com/ Teenager knifed by fellow pupil in Kabul high school A 17-year-old pupil at a high school in Kabul has stabbed a fellow classmate to death, police said. The teenager was stabbed to death in the city's Abdulhadi Dawi school on Wednesday. The high school's headteacher refused to be interviewed and police refused to comment further. Afghanistan: The air war resumes
Military Watch, MD With a vengeance, although perhaps with lighter ordnance intended to limit civilian casualties. According to the operations summaries released by U.S. Air Forces Central Command headquarters in Qatar, daily close air support missions over Afghanistan are back up to the record level of over 70 per day reached earlier this summer. (The daily summaries resumed this week after an unexplained hiatus.) CAS missions had dropped sharply in the past week during the international ruckus caused by a U.S. air strike on the village of Azizabad Aug. 22. That attack killed as many as 95 civilians, according to the Afghan government, the United Nations and independent press accounts. The U.S. command at first rejected those conclusions, but on Sunday, Gen. David McKiernan, the top allied commander in Afghanistan, ordered a re-investigation of the incident. U.S. Central Command will run the re-investigation. Meantime, the air war resumes, although it's hard to tell from the daily summaries exactly what's going on. On Tuesday, for instance, the Air Force reports that a Predator UAV "used Hellfire missiles to disarm anti-Afghan forces.'' The Hellfire carries a 20-pound anti-tank warhead, which would sure "disarm" anyone it hit. Most of this week's reported operations did not involve heavier ordnance than 500-pound bombs, although on one mission a British aircraft fired Enhanced Paveway II munitions. They come in either a 680-pound or 1,228-pound variant; the report did not say which was used. Even with the additional forces President Bush has approved for deployment to Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines engaged in operations there will continue to rely on heavy air support in the increasingly common cases where insurgents attack in large numbers. For the air guys, it's a tricky balance between responding to calls from TICs (troops in contact) and risking the civilian casualties that are devastating personally -- and damaging to the U.S. cause. US's 'good' war hits Pakistan hard
Asia Times Online Seven years after the United States led the invasion of Afghanistan in search of al-Qaeda and to topple the Taliban government, US President George W Bush has added neighboring Pakistan to the list of countries that are "a major 'war on terror' battleground", while also announcing a "quiet surge" of troops into Afghanistan. Bush, in remarks prepared for delivery to the US National Defense University and released by the White House late on Monday, said Afghanistan, Iraq and now Pakistan "pose unique challenges for our country" in the worldwide conflict against terror and that it is in Pakistan's interests to "defeat terrorists and extremists". What Bush didn't spell out is that it is also in the US's interests that Pakistan get tough on militants, and that the US is increasingly taking matters into its own hands inside Pakistan. In the the latest incident on Monday, at least 25 people were killed in a missile attack by unmanned Predator drones on a Pakistani village near the Afghan border. The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier has moved into the Persian Gulf. Contrary to comments by US officials that it is to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, Asia Times Online has learned it is part of a new task force, separate from the Lincoln, which will allow the US to increase air sorties in the South Asian war theater. The Bush administration, critics say, is desperate to notch up a major terror success ahead of the presidential elections in November. Pakistan, under president-elect Asif Ali Zardari, is on board with the US's war strategy, but, to the surprise of Islamabad and with potentially devastating consequences for Pakistan, the US has trained its guns on the "good" Taliban based in Pakistan with deep connections to the Pakistani establishment. In Monday's drone attack, several missiles were fired at an Islamic madrassa (seminary) and the house of powerful Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani in Dandi Darpa Khail in the North Waziristan tribal area near the border with Afghanistan. Jalaluddin, the spiritual leader of the Haqqani network and legendary figure in the Afghan mujahideen in the fight against the Soviets in the 1980s, and his son, Sirajuddin, the operational head of the most powerful component of the present Afghan resistance, had left the area. Most of those killed were woman and children from the families of the Haqqanis. Earlier, three strikes, two on South Waziristan and one on North Waziristan, targeted Pakistan-friendly commander Haji Nazeer's area. Haji Nazeer operates the biggest Taliban network in the neighboring Afghan province of Paktika. Monday's was the fourth attack this month inside Pakistan either by US drones or by US special forces and clearly indicates that the US has already opened up a war theater in Pakistan. In the line of US fire That the US set its sights on the Haqqanis is perplexing, and - given the failed outcome - indicates that it struck with inadequate, if any, input from Pakistan. Although Sirajuddin Haqqani's network is the most resourceful and the strongest component of the Taliban-led Afghan national resistance, the Haqqanis - like Haji Nazeer - have long-standing links with Pakistan. The US's information on the network was clearly sketchy. The madrassa targeted on Monday had been closed for some time and the Haqqanis are known by people in the area to have left the tribal region as they were on the US's radar. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) publishes posters saying Sirajuddin Haqqani is a wanted man, but it does not have a photograph of him - merely a portrait of his father. NATO headquarters and US intelligence have tried to gain information on Sirajuddin by interviewing people from his Zadran tribe in Khost and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan. But the people accessible to NATO only interacted with Sirajuddin several years ago when he was militarily naive and irrelevant. (The reclusive Sirajuddin gave Asia Times Online a rare interview - see Through the eyes of the Taliban May 5, 2004.) The Haqqanis have always been on good terms with the Pakistani security apparatus. Jalaluddin Haqqani was persuaded by Pakistan to surrender to the Taliban after the student militia emerged from southern Afghanistan in the mid-1990s and reached Khost and Paktia, Haqqani's domain. Haqqani remained an outsider under Taliban rule, but he never betrayed them. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US and the invasion of Afghanistan a few months later, the only name Pakistan discussed with Washington in terms of regime change in Afghanistan was Jalaluddin Haqqani. He was invited to Islamabad and urged to become Taliban leader Mullah Omar's replacement in Kabul, but he declined and returned to the mountains of Paktia, Paktika and Khost to organize a guerrilla war against the Americans. After five years, Haqqani's network emerged as the leading component of the resistance and he was reckoned as Mullah Omar's rival (a charge he always denied). This once again brought hope to Islamabad that if the Americans decided to abandon Afghanistan, Haqqani, who is friendly with top Afghan leaders, especially in the north, would be a most useful connection in Kabul. It is most likely then that the US acted on its own in going after this key Taliban network. However, in militant and jihadi circles the perception is that the new government in Islamabad is fully cooperating with the US, including going after the "good" Taliban. As a result, for the first time, there is a chance of enmity between the Pakistani establishment and the Haqqani network. Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the chief of the Taliban in North Waziristan and a close ally of Haqqani, was quick to announce that they would avenge the attack. A similar backlash could occur in South Waziristan, where the US's recent attacks were aimed in Taliban commander Haji Nazeer's area, rather than at the biggest Taliban network, the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban led by anti-Pakistan Baitullah Mehsud, or his associates in other tribal areas. Mehsud has been branded in the US media as the world's most dangerous person. Haji Nazeer runs the biggest jihadi network in the Afghan province of Paktia and has always been close to the Pakistani establishment and he is a rival of Mehsud and his al-Qaeda allies. In January 2007, at Pakistan's instigation, Haji Nazeer led a massacre of Uzbek militants in South Waziristan, killing over 200 of them and forcing the remainder to flee. Jihadis in the Haji Nazeer camp are bitter that the US has targeted them and for the first time recently carried out attacks on the Pakistani security forces in retaliation. This American focus on "good" Taliban has blunted Pakistan's bid to create divisions within the Taliban as all groups are uniting under the umbrella of the Emirate of Mullah Omar - and all their guns are now trained on Pakistan. Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. On 9/11 anniversary, Pakistan has a new breed of Taliban
PakTribune.Com Seven years after the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States that shook the entire world, Pakistan, despite being a key American ally in the war on terror, continues to be plagued by the menace of Talibanisation with home grown militants persisting with their calls for Jihad. As the Bush era is coming to a fag end amidst an unending war on terror, the threat of Islamic militancy keeps spreading its tentacles across the globe; the rigid ideology of Taliban claiming new grounds and the al-Qaeda network seemingly thriving. Despite the deployment of over 80,000 Pakistani troops along the rugged Pak-Afghan border to counter al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked Islamic militancy, the situation is far from stable in the trouble-hit tribal region which is crucial to three world capitals -- Washington, Kabul and Islamabad. The growing forces of the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in the border region not only pose a grave threat to NATO troops in Afghanistan, but also to the people of Pakistan where Taliban militias, like their Afghan counterparts, are trying to impose their harsh medieval version of Islamic law. Although the Musharraf regime had decided to align with the US soon after 9/11, the harsh reality is that the infrastructure built during the last two decades by the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment was not dismantled. This happened mainly due to the fact that Pakistan, since 9/11, was being ruled by a military dictator who deemed it fit to employ a misguided policy both in Afghanistan and Jammu & Kashmir. Subsequently, with the Islamic militancy gaining new grounds, the Jihadis literally marching ahead, the Taliban nowhere near defeated either in Afghanistan or in Pakistan and the al-Qaeda still unbroken on both sides of the border, senior US government officials as well as the commanders of the Afghanistan-based NATO and ISAF troops are openly accusing the Pakistani establishment of pursuing a policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound. Resultantly, a Pakistan-based Taliban movement, inspired by the past Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, is growing in Waziristan Agency along the Pak-Afghan border, challenging the efforts of the coalition forces to stamp out insurgents in Afghanistan and hunt down Osama bin Laden, Mullah Mohammad Omar and other fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. The Waziristan Agency, making headlines in the international media since 2002 due to frequent clashes between the Pakistani security forces and the al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants, is virtually under the control of the local Taliban who have established their grip in the North and South Waziristan areas, besides gaining a significant base from which they wage their resistance against the Allied Forces in Afghanistan. New militant leaders, new militant cadres and new militant groups are coming up in the Pak-Afghan tribal belt quite often while the old Jihadi leadership of the1980 Afghan war vintage no longer enjoys the kind of hold and sway which they used to command in the past, especially before September 11, 2001. This new generation of militants is all Pakistani which emerged after the US invasion of Afghanistan and represents a rebellion against the Pakistani establishment joining hands with the United States in the ongoing war against terror. While these extremist elements might be representing a minority view, their threat seems real. The new breed of the Pakistani Taliban is led by young militants who, unlike the original Taliban, are technology and media-savvy and are influenced by various indigenous tribal nationalisms, honouring the tribal codes that govern social life in Pakistani rural areas. Though they are called Taliban because they share the same ideology with the Taliban in Afghanistan, they are totally Pakistani. Their holy war is aimed not just at infidels occupying Afghanistan, but also the infidels who they believe are ruling and running their homeland and maintaining the secular values of the Pakistani society. They aim at nothing less than cleansing Pakistan. Since the 9/11 terror, the Bush administration had been describing Pakistan`s former military ruler President General (retd) Musharraf as the most trusted American ally in the war on terror. However it was under Musharraf that FATA in 2008 is not much different to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan before 9/11. Most of the top militant commanders are now in FATA and NWFP largely because their military might mushroomed in the Musharraf years. Baitullah Mehsud, a former trainer at a small time fitness centre in Waziristan and now the fugitive Amir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Maulana Fazlullah, a former ski lift operator in Swat and now the renegade Amir of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and Mangal Bagh, a former truck conductor and now the rebel Amir of the Lashkar-e-Islami (LI) are regarded by their followers as the uncrowned kings of Waziristan Agency, Swat Valley and Khyber Agency respectively. Aged between 30 and 33, all the three Taliban-linked Jihadi commanders are young and have created ripples not only in the Pak-Afghan border areas owing to their militancy but have also caused alarm bells across the border in Afghanistan which is gradually coming under their growing influence. Despite being declared most wanted criminals by Pakistan for their involvement in several deadly incidents of terrorism, including suicide bombings directed against the security forces, neither the Musharraf regime nor the new government in Islamabad have been able to challenge their power. Both these governments had first launched military operations against the forces of Baitullah, Fazlullah and Mangal Bagh, but eventually decided to hold talks with them as a last resort to strike peace deals in Waziristan, Swat and Khyber. Hardly four years ago, no one had even heard of these commanders. It is largely believed that they were groomed by none other than the establishment to secure the border with Afghanistan which it thought had become vulnerable after the fall of the Taliban regime and the subsequent assumption of power in Kabul by the pro-India and anti-Pakistan Northern Alliance. Since it had become harder for the Pakistani establishment in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to make use of the already established and equally known Jihadi groups in Afghanistan to protect its so-called geo-strategic agenda in the region, the khaki decision makers deemed it fit to create and nurture a new breed of Jihadis along the Pak-Afghan tribal belt, which now challenges the writ of the state by presenting themselves as the Pakistani Taliban. Therefore, seven years down the road since the 9/11 attacks, the United States, that granted the status of a non-NATO ally to Pakistan due to its role as a frontline state, has intensified pressure on Islamabad to do more for dismantling the al-Qaeda network in the Pakistani tribal areas, saying if there is one country that matters most to the future of the Osama-led terror network, it is none other than Pakistan. Dutch defense minister does not rule out longer mission in Afghanistan
Xinhua Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop has spoke of the possibility of keeping some Dutch troops in Afghanistan after the Dutch mission expires in 2010 as planned. The minister told a TV talk show on Tuesday night that he does not rule out leaving some troops behind after the mission ends, Dutch media reported Wednesday. The last soldiers of the 1,700 Dutch troops in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan are scheduled to pull out by the end of 2010. Although the Netherlands will no longer be a "leading nation" in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, "we will still be a member of NATO in three years time," he was quoted as saying in the show. Seventeen Dutch soldiers have been killed since Dutch troops were deployed in Uruzgan in August 2006 as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Despite the opposition against the Afghan mission among a majority of the Dutch public, the Dutch government decided at the end of last year to extend the mission by two years to 2010. Pakistani army chief criticizes U.S. attacks General says the cross-border raids could backfire
Houston Chronicle, United States Pakistan's military chief on Wednesday lashed out at the United States over cross-border raids by American troops from Afghanistan and said his country's sovereignty will be defended "at all cost." In an unusually strong public statement, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said a raid last week into Pakistan's South Waziristan region killed innocent civilians and could backfire on the anti-terror allies. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would not comment directly on Kayani's remarks. But he said the U.S. military is working closely with the Pakistanis in regard to the border region. "We have a shared common interest with respect to terrorism and terrorist activities," Whitman said. "Pakistan recognizes the challenges that they have, and the United States is committed to helping allies counter terrorism." But Kayani said such operations were covered by no agreement between Pakistan and U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and risked stoking militancy in a region which Washington regards as an intolerable haven for al-Qaida and Taliban militants. "Falling for short-term gains while ignoring our long-term interest is not the right way forward," Kayani said, according to the statement. The Pakistan government already hauled in the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad to lodge a strong protest over a highly unusual raid by helicopter-borne grounds troops into South Waziristan last week; residents said it killed about 15 people. Officials have said they included civilians, though acknowledged they had no first-hand information. U.S. officials have confirmed that U.S. troops carried out the operation. The objective and results of the mission remain unclear. ANALYSIS-Britain and NATO struggle for Afghanistan numbers
Reuters Two-and-a-half years into an operation to secure vast desert reaches of Afghanistan from the Taliban, British commanders quietly admit they are seriously undermanned. While the official line is that Prime Minister Gordon Brown must decide if more troops are needed, officers on the ground in the southern Afghan province of Helmand concede privately that they do not have enough men or helicopters to seize and hold the territory they oversee. With nearly 60,000 square kilometres (22,000 square miles) of desert, mountains, a dense river valley and lush poppy fields to patrol, Britain has a little over 8,000 troops and just eight Chinook transport helicopters at its disposal. "There's only so much we can do," a colonel in the Parachute Regiment said with exasperation last week, comparing the number of troops unfavourably to some small countries, where he said more than 8,000 police were usually available to keep the peace. When asked if additional troops are needed, Brown and his defence minister Des Browne tend to say that they listen to their commanders on the ground, and if they do not ask for more, then no more will be sent. When asked on the record, commanders, of course, defer to the government, creating a classic Catch-22. The pressure is on, with Britain's troops and equipment pulled to remote corners of Helmand, trying to keep as much of it stable as possible. Hunkered down in small forts, resupplied occasionally, the Taliban are aware of the constraints. At a small base in northern Helmand, a squad of British troops protects a dam and hydroelectric plant. They say they cannot go more than 3 km (2 miles) beyond their perimeter to take on the Taliban because otherwise they are overstretched. "The Taliban know it. If we attack them, they go just over 3 km away and we have to come back," explained a junior officer commanding around 100 troops at the remote mountain base. LONG-TERM MISSION Seven years into a conflict that shows no sign of abating and with the Taliban resurgent, the undermanning comes at a bad time. And it may get worse before it gets better for the 53,000-strong NATO-led coalition. Last month was the deadliest for foreign troops since the conflict began, according to independent website icasualties.org. Forty-three troops were killed, including 10 French soldiers hit in a single Taliban ambush. There will be a special vote in the French parliament this month to decide if the deployment should continue. While no pull-out is expected, the debate is a sign of the times. Canada and the Netherlands, which have a combined 4,000 troops in Afghanistan and have both suffered sustained casualties, are both considering ending their deployments when their mandates expire over the next two years. NATO has struggled to get major nations to contribute more to its Afghan force, and as the death toll rises the challenge only gets greater. A NATO summit in April generated some increased commitment, but that momentum has since been lost as issues such as Georgia and Russia have filled the agenda. The United States this week stepped into the breach, promising to send an extra Marine battalion and army brigade -- around 5,000 troops -- by January as it draws down in Iraq. That would raise the overall number of troops in Afghanistan to nearly 80,000, still a long way short of the numbers in Iraq, a country that is a third smaller than Afghanistan and now widely considered to be more secure. Afghanistan lacks strong security forces of its own, the government is under pressure and the Taliban resurgent. Neighbouring Pakistan is also turbulent and militants have hideouts there. A strong foreign presence is essential, the U.S. argues. Britain is expected to send more forces next year, but it is still some months off and may not be substantial. What concerns commanders more is whether the long-term commitment is there. "We must expect to invest military capability in Afghanistan certainly for the next three to five years," Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the commander of British forces in Helmand, said last week as he skirted the issue of more troops. "The most important thing is that the international community demonstrate both strategic discipline and patience to endure. Maybe the greatest threat is that the durability is occasionally questioned." (Additional reporting by Mark John in Brussels and Sanjeev Miglani in Kabul; editing by Keith Weir) 'We haven't seen Bin Laden since Tora Bora - we were distracted by Iraq,' U.S. admits
The Daily Mail - News U.S. officials have admitted that they have been forced to change tactics in their hunt for Osama Bin Laden because there has been no sighting of him for nearly seven years. The Al Qaeda leader was last seen escaping from the CIA after the Battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001. But as America today marks the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, U.S. forces admitted they were as far as ever from catching the 51-year-old Saudi-born terror leader. The CIA claimed that the U.S. has so alienated tribesmen believed to be protecting Bin Laden that they have abandoned hope of tracking him down by diplomatic means. The intelligence chiefs also said they are convinced Bin Laden is still hiding in the Pakistan mountains bordering Afghanistan. It is thought he regularly wears disguises, avoids mobile phones and emails, and relies on human couriers to pass on messages. Now focus will shift to the unmanned but lethal Predator drone spy plane, American media has reported. And officials are aware of what they claim are their mistakes in the hunt: an over reliance on military force, the distraction of the war in Iraq, and a consistent underestimation of the enemy. "Unless you have people who support you, human intelligence will never work," said Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, a retired Pakistani general who oversaw efforts to track Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders after 2001. "You have to have friendly people." The other major obstacle to the search was the war in Iraq, with officials from the CIA and the U.S. military saying they began shifting resources out of Afghanistan early in 2002 - and they still have not recovered from that mistake. "Iraq was a fundamental wrong turn," John Brennan, a former deputy executive director of the CIA and a former chief of the National Counter-terrorism Centre, told American media. "The collective effort in the government required to go after an individual like Bin Laden - the Iraq campaign consumed that." But there are doubts about the switch in tactics. American forces are unable to operate freely in Pakistan, meaning the search - led by the Predator drones - is taking place mostly from the air. The Predators have launched their Hellfire missiles against four targets in the past month alone, killing two al Qaeda leaders since January. But they are also killing civilians and straining diplomatic relations, and the approach may not be sustainable in the long-term. "Making more effort and flailing are different things," a senior Pakistani security official told American media. ‘Pledge to fight militants can build trust between Pakistan, Afghanistan'
* Analysts say differences in security strategies could undermine efforts
Daily Times, Pakistan A pledge by Pakistan and Afghanistan to work together to fight militants can build trust between the two countries, but differences in security strategies can undermine efforts, analysts said on Wednesday. In a rare show of solidarity, Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended President Asif Ali Zardari's swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday in Islamabad. Speaking at a news conference later, both leaders stressed their intention to work together against the militant threat.Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have been strained in recent years by Afghan and US allegations that militants operating out of sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan were carrying out attacks in Afghanistan. "Both governments are threatened by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Pakistani government says it wants to co-operate. Now the question is how much they co-operate and how much can they address Karzai's complaints," said analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi. Like Musharraf, Zardari is also seen as close to the United States, but as an elected civilian leader, he will have to pay heed to the people's sentiments or risk his party's rejection in the next parliamentary elections. Karzai, who is expected to seek a new term next year, wants the fight taken to the militant sanctuaries, meaning northwest Pakistan. More strikes in Pakistan, with seemingly inevitable civilian casualties, will turn up domestic heat on Zardari. "If such attacks continue, then there will be more collateral damage and there will be more frustration and alienation among people," said former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Mohmand. Jirga: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told Dawn News on Tuesday night that the two countries were planning to bring tribal elders from both sides for a jirga to discuss the current situation. He said the two countries had also agreed that their top security advisers would meet on a monthly basis. "We want greater co-operation and information and intelligence sharing so that we can put an end to the blame game," said Qureshi. Rizvi said while the Pakistan army was taking serious action against militants on the border, it remained to be seen how much Zardari would succeed in allaying Karzai's concerns about the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). "The military has become more serious, but we are not sure about the ISI," he said. Retired general turned security analyst Talat Masood said Musharraf had poor personal relations with Karzai, and while Zardari and Karzai were keen to develop ties, the relationship would be hostage to events. "Unless the security situation changes on the ground, it will be very difficult for the countries to really transform their pledges into something more productive and meaningful," he said. reuters
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