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Afghan President Karzai condemns civilian deaths
By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan human rights group said Saturday that at least 88 people were killed in a battle between U.S.-led coalition forces and militants in western Afghanistan.
UN envoy calls for probe into civilian casualties in Afghanistan
Xinhua / August 23, 2008
Special envoy of UN Secretary General to Afghanistan Kai Eide Saturday condemned the reported killing of more than 70 civilians by international troops and demanded a thorough investigation.
US puts up bin Laden 'wanted' posters in Afghanistan
August 23, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - The United States is erecting billboards in Afghanistan offering hefty rewards for Osama bin Laden, Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar and US Al-Qaeda member Adam Gadahn, the embassy said Saturday.
Roadside bomb kills 10 Afghan civilians: police
Sat Aug 23, 7:50 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A bomb blew up a minibus outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday, killing 10 civilians, while a judge and his son were gunned down in the same area, police said.
FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan, Aug 23
Aug 23 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1425 GMT on Saturday:
Taxpayers to fund Afghan farmers
Farmers in Afghanistan are to be given millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money to persuade them to stop growing poppy crops for heroin.
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor The Telegraph (UK) / August 23, 2008
Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, will announce this week that the Government is to pour money into the war‑torn Helmand province to encourage farmers to switch from poppy cultivation to wheat.
Taliban borrows from Iraqi militants
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- A new essay calls the recent success of the Taliban in Afghanistan the result of a borrowed "chameleon" strategy from the war in Iraq.
Struggling to Find New Pakistan Ally Against Taliban
The New York Times - World By JANE PERLEZ August 22, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan-Now that Washington’s close friend, President Pervez Musharraf, is gone, the question is this: who among the array of characters in the political firmament here will America turn to in the messy fight against an emboldened Taliban?
Canadian military claims victory in major Afghan offensive
Scott Deveau, Canwest News Service Saturday, August 23, 2008
FORWARD OPERATING BASE WILSON, Afghanistan -- Coalition forces and the Afghan National Army say they have struck a "major blow" against insurgents operating in Afghanistan's volatile Zhari district, west of Kandahar City.
Militants ready for Pakistan's war
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Aug 23, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
KARACHI - Pakistan has two options. The country can give in to militancy or it can conduct military operations against it, influential advisor to the Interior Ministry, Rahman Malik
French leader proposes vote on Afghanistan troops
By LAURENT PIROT, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 22, 2:22 PM ET
PARIS - France's prime minister wants parliament to vote on whether to keep French forces in Afghanistan, his office said Friday, as a new poll showed most of his compatriots want the troops pulled out after 10 died in a vicious ambush.
Taliban Seeks to Destabilize Afghanistan's Capital
By Anna Mulrine .S. News & World Report - Fri Aug 22, 5:37 PM ET
U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, says that it is clear that the Taliban increasingly is trying to create instability in the capital. "I'm certainly concerned about security in Kabul," he says.
Troop numbers in Afghanistan on 'growth trajectory': Army commander
LONDON (AFP) — British troops numbers in Afghanistan are likely to rise before they fall, the commander of the country's soldiers there said in an interview published Friday.
‘THIS BRONZE MEDAL IS BIGGER THAN GOLD’
China By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com editor and reporter Friday, August 22, 2008
Beijing-As China and the United States battle to claim the most Olympic medals – with gold-medal and all-medal counts being frantically tallied and talked about – many other countries' athletes are overjoyed
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Afghan President Karzai condemns civilian deaths
By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan human rights group said Saturday that at least 88 people were killed in a battle between U.S.-led coalition forces and militants in western Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai condemned the violence and said most of the dead were civilians. The U.S. coalition said it would investigate the claims of civilian deaths.
An Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission researcher visited Azizabad — the village in Herat province where the airstrikes took place early Thursday — and found 88 people had died, 15 houses were destroyed and others were damaged.
Ahmad Nader Nadery, the group's commissioner, said the information was preliminary and that the group would publish a final report. He did not provide a breakdown of how many of the 88 were civilians or militants.
He said 20 women were among the dead, and that the rest were men and children. The Interior Ministry has said that 76 civilians were killed, including 50 children under the age of 15. Karzai's office said at least 70 civilians died.
Karzai, lamenting that his efforts to get the U.S. and NATO to prevent civilian deaths had gotten nowhere, said the Afghan government would soon announce "necessary measures" to prevent civilian casualties, but provided no details.
U.S. coalition spokeswoman Rumi Nielson-Green said Saturday that the operation was led by Afghan National Army commandos, with support from the coalition.
The operation was launched after an intelligence report that a Taliban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was inside the compound presiding over a meeting of militants, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.
Siddiq was one of those killed during the raid, Azimi said.
Originally the coalition said the battle killed 30 militants, but Nielson-Green said that five civilians — two women and three children connected to the militants — were among the dead.
"Obviously there's allegations and a disconnect here. The sooner we can get that cleared up and get it official, the better off we'll all be," said U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "We had people on the ground."
Ghulam Azrat, 50, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies Friday morning after the bombing.
"We put the bodies in the main mosque," he told The Associated Press by phone, sometimes pausing to collect himself in between tears. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."
Azrat said villagers on Saturday threw stones at Afghan soldiers who tried to give food and clothes to them. He said the soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child critically wounded.
"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food, we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give it to us? You cannot, so go away.'"
A spokesman for Afghan police in western Afghanistan, Rauf Ahmadi, confirmed that the demonstration took place against the soldiers, who he said fired into the air. Ahmadi said two Afghans were wounded by the gunfire.
The competing claims by the U.S. coalition and the two Afghan ministries were impossible to verify because of the remote and dangerous location of the battle site.
Complicating the matter, Afghan officials are known to exaggerate civilian death claims for political payback, to qualify for more compensation money from the U.S. or because of pressure from the Taliban.
More than 3,400 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to figures from Western and Afghan officials.
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UN envoy calls for probe into civilian casualties in Afghanistan
Xinhua / August 23, 2008
Special envoy of UN Secretary General to Afghanistan Kai Eide Saturday condemned the reported killing of more than 70 civilians by international troops and demanded a thorough investigation.
"The United Nations has always made clear that civilian casualties are unacceptable and undermine the trust and confidence of the Afghan people," Eide said in a statement of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
According to locals, the U.S.-led Coalition forces in air raids against the suspected hideout of militants in Shindand district of Afghanistan's western Herat province Thursday night left more than76 civilians dead, mostly children and women, while military sources stress 30 militants were killed in the air strikes.
"It is vital that this incident is investigated thoroughly and quickly to establish the facts of what has happened before we jump to any conclusions," the UN special envoy noted in the statement.
Earlier, Afghan President Hamid Karzai slammed the reported killing of civilians in Shindand district and ordered for thorough investigation, according to Afghan media reports.
International troops based in Afghanistan to hunt down militants had more than once committed such mistakes and harmed non-combatants. The repetition of the error has prompted Afghans, including President Karzai, to call on foreign troops to coordinate operation with Afghan authorities in order to avoid harming civilians.
More than 3,000 people, including some 800 civilians, have been killed in the Afghan violent incidents so far this year.
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US puts up bin Laden 'wanted' posters in Afghanistan
August 23, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - The United States is erecting billboards in Afghanistan offering hefty rewards for Osama bin Laden, Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar and US Al-Qaeda member Adam Gadahn, the embassy said Saturday.
Ten of the large Rewards for Justice boards were being erected countrywide, two of them in Kabul, embassy spokeswoman Corina Sanders told AFP.
They show a portrait of the turbaned Gadahn flanked by those of Al-Qaeda chief bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
The United States led an invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 that toppled the extremist Taliban regime because it did not surrender Al-Qaeda leaders after the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
It has tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan searching for the fugitives, whom Afghan officials claim are across the border in Pakistan, but they remain elusive.
The US government's Rewards for Justice website offers up to 25 million dollars for information leading to the arrest of bin Laden, 10 million for Mullah Omar and one million for Gadahn.
"We are doing this because we believe there is a lot of untapped information here in Afghanistan," Sanders said.
"We are using the Rewards for Justice programme to facilitate the finding the whereabouts of these people but also the leadership of these kind of organisations," she said.
The US government had also been running ads on radio and television with a call number active for a few months, she said. "We are receiving phone calls," she said, without being able to give information.
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Roadside bomb kills 10 Afghan civilians: police
Sat Aug 23, 7:50 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - A bomb blew up a minibus outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday, killing 10 civilians, while a judge and his son were gunned down in the same area, police said.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks, but they were similar to scores carried out by the extremist Islamic Taliban militia, which is behind a spiralling insurgency in Afghanistan.
The roadside bomb hit the minibus about 20 kilometres (12 miles) outside of Kandahar, provincial police chief Matiullah Khan said.
The dead included two children, a woman and seven men, he said. Four other civilians were wounded.
Just south of the city, meanwhile, two unidentified gunmen on motorbikes knocked on the door of the home of a provincial judge and shot him and his 14-year-old son dead when they answered, Khan said, blaming the Taliban.
Kandahar has seen much of the extremist violence that is plaguing Afghanistan despite the efforts of nearly 70,000 international troops working with the Afghan forces to contain the unrest.
Police in the neighbouring province of Helmand reported meanwhile that 17 Taliban were killed in clashes that began Friday between Afghan security forces and militants.
A soldier was also wounded in the fighting in the Nad Ali district, which continued into Saturday, Helmand police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said.
In central Ghazni province, six Taliban were killed and five wounded in a military operation overnight, provincial government spokesman Ismael Jehangir said.
The Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001 when they were removed in a US-led invasion for not handing over their allies in Al-Qaeda wanted for the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
The militia has regrouped to carry out near-daily attacks that are often aimed at security forces but kill more civilians.
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FACTBOX - Security developments in Afghanistan, Aug 23
Aug 23 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1425 GMT on Saturday:
HERAT - Hundreds of people demonstrated in Shindand district of western Herat province on Saturday, after U.S.-led coalition forces carried out an air strike in the district on Friday.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the strike his government says killed 76 civilians. The U.S. military says only armed Taliban militants were killed in Friday's attack.
Investigations into the incident have been launched by the Afghan government and the U.S. military.
KANDAHAR - A roadside bomb killed 10 civilians in Shah Wali Kot district of southern Kandahar province, provincial police chief Matiullah said.
BADGHIS - A bomb attached to a motorbike in the western province of Badghis exploded on Saturday, killing three civilians and wounding six more, the provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Naseri said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
KHOST - A roadside bomb killed three civilians in Tani district of eastern Khost province, district police chief Guldad said.
LOGAR - Taliban insurgents attacked two police vehicles in Logar province, southeast of Kabul, taking four police hostage, the provincial police chief said. (Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Mary Gabriel)
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Taxpayers to fund Afghan farmers
Farmers in Afghanistan are to be given millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money to persuade them to stop growing poppy crops for heroin.
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor The Telegraph (UK) / August 23, 2008
Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, will announce this week that the Government is to pour money into the war‑torn Helmand province to encourage farmers to switch from poppy cultivation to wheat.
Ministers are to launch a campaign to persuade 26,000 farmers each to grow a hectare (2½ acres) of wheat in place of poppies, to cut heroin trade and address food shortages.
Afghanistan is facing a food crisis this autumn as a drought combined with soaring food prices has led to shortages and hunger. But the sky-high prices have encouraged some farmers to move to legal crops.
Mr Alexander will say that the Department for International Development (DfID) is donating £2million to the governor of Helmand's short-term counter-narcotics plan, which is also backed by Britain's Civil-Military Mission to Helmand, which is providing a further £2.125 million, and the US Agency for International Development.
The new initiative comes as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime prepares to publish its opium survey for 2008, which is expected to show the poppy harvest has stabilised or slightly reduced.
In a two-pronged attack, wheat seed, fertiliser and expert advice will be given to farmers in secure areas where crops can easily be monitored. The plan covers more than 37,000 acres of farmland.
In dangerous areas where the insurgents are still active, farmers will be able to collect seeds from British military bases but not fertiliser, which could be used on poppies.
But the sting in the tail is a warning that if farmers given help still grow poppies their crops will be wiped out.
In the rest of Afghanistan farmers will be offered vouchers to buy subsidised seed, fertiliser and tools. The DfID is providing a further £2million for this project.
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Taliban borrows from Iraqi militants
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- A new essay calls the recent success of the Taliban in Afghanistan the result of a borrowed "chameleon" strategy from the war in Iraq.
The essay by author Muhami al-Dawla says the Taliban are employing "chameleon cells," which are small groups of self-governing and highly organized terrorists, Jihadica reported.
According to the Internet-based publication founded by Islamism expert William McCants, al-Dawla writes the chameleon cells' success stems from their capability of blending into local populations and also penetrating government security.
Al-Dawla says the chameleon tactic being employed by the Taliban borrows heavily from the militant Islamic State of Iraq, which developed the strategy in the war in Iraq.
"The chameleon groups in Iraq are able to carry out attacks on Awakening leaders because of their infiltration of the Awakening security forces," Jihadica reported.
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Struggling to Find New Pakistan Ally Against Taliban
The New York Times - World By JANE PERLEZ August 22, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan-Now that Washington’s close friend, President Pervez Musharraf, is gone, the question is this: who among the array of characters in the political firmament here will America turn to in the messy fight against an emboldened Taliban?
Mr. Musharraf, president and army chief for almost all of his nine-year tenure before he resigned Monday under threat of impeachment, served as a convenient one-stop shopping window.
The Bush administration relied on him for military support to suppress the Taliban in the tribal regions, and for intelligence in rounding up people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda. In the end, it did not reap much of what it wanted. But Mr. Musharraf, the seemingly amenable autocrat, offered Washington a sense of leverage.
With Mr. Musharraf out of power, recent visitors to the United States Embassy here say American officials have been at a loss — one used the word “struggling” — to figure out who America should throw its weight behind.
On Friday, the country’s biggest party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, said it was nominating its leader, Asif Ali Zardari, for president, a post he may end up winning in an electoral college vote scheduled for Sept. 6.
That could make Mr. Zardari America’s default ally, though the next president’s full range of powers, and his commitment and ability to fight the Taliban insurgency, as Washington would like, are far from clear.
In its first four months, the civilian government that Mr. Zardari effectively leads has been immobilized by infighting over whether and how to remove Mr. Musharraf — and now over who should replace him.
So consuming has that battle been, the coalition has paid almost no attention to governing, even as the economy has tumbled and the Taliban have shown mounting grit in their goal of taking over the nuclear-armed state.
Then there are the fights over the Musharraf legacy, the most bitter being whether to restore some 60 judges he dismissed last year.
Nawaz Sharif, chairman of the junior member of the coalition, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, on Friday gave Mr. Zardari until next week to reinstate the judges, including the Supreme Court chief justice.
A resolution would be drafted over the weekend, Mr. Sharif said at a news briefing, and introduced in Parliament on Monday. “After debate,” he said, “it should be passed on Wednesday and judges should be restored.” If not, he threatened to pull out of the government.
The political sniping has heightened jitters among American officials that no one is actually in charge as the Taliban insurgency gains steam. The death toll from the worst of the Taliban’s suicide bombings, outside a munitions factory on Thursday, rose to 78, officials said, with 103 wounded.
What is more, doubts are growing among American officials over the level of cooperation they can expect from the new army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, a former head of intelligence who took over the post from Mr. Musharraf last November.
After glowing initial reviews by the Americans, General Kayani has appeared less interested in how to deal with the Taliban than with the sagging morale of his undertrained, underequipped troops.
“In my view they won’t do aggressive counterinsurgency because they can’t,” said Christine Fair, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, of the Pakistani Army.
In the post-Musharraf era, she said, the army wants to concentrate on rehabilitating its morale and reputation, which were sullied by Mr. Musharraf’s unpopular political decisions. “This means they are less likely to cooperate, not more,” she added. “Right now, they care about what’s in their own institution’s interests.”
That does not include getting their noses bloodied in a fight with the Taliban. But more important, perhaps, over the longer term, the Taliban remain an important tool for Pakistan to influence events over the border if the Americans leave Afghanistan, as they did after the departure of the Soviets, she said.
Meanwhile, the trio of civilian leaders — Mr. Zardari; Mr. Sharif, and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani — are all less than ideal to become the go-to figure for the United States in Pakistan.
Mr. Gilani, a novice front man plucked out of obscurity by Mr. Zardari to be prime minister, made a poor public impression on his first visit to Washington last month, and was not much better behind the scenes, officials said.
At a gathering of the Council on Foreign Relations, he stumbled through basic questions about the Pakistan-United States relationship from a knowledgeable crowd of experts.
In private meetings with the Bush administration, according to an official who attended, Mr. Gilani could offer only a simple mantra for defeating the Taliban: “Let’s work together.”
Mr. Sharif enjoyed a good relationship with President Clinton when he was prime minister in the 1990s, but the former prime minister is regarded warily by Washington policy makers as being too close to conservative Islamic forces in Pakistan.
The fact that Mr. Sharif is riding a tide of popularity because of his staunch anti-Musharraf stance does not impress the Bush administration, said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
To the surprise of many here, the civilian with the trump card, then, may be Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who took up the mantle of her party after she was assassinated in December.
Mr. Zardari did not run for election, and lacks ample experience in government, but he manages the largest bloc in Parliament from behind the scenes. He is the power behind Mr. Gilani, making day-to-day decisions over government policy and appointments to senior positions that have included friends who have spent time in jail on corruption charges.
Mr. Zardari spent more than eight years in jail on corruption charges, but he was never convicted and says they amounted to a vendetta by his political enemies.
The charges were dropped, finally, as part of an amnesty accord with Mr. Musharraf when he and Ms. Bhutto returned to Pakistan.
That background makes Mr. Zardari a divisive figure in Pakistani politics, even as he moves steadily toward sewing up the presidency. But after Mr. Gilani’s weak performance in Washington, Bush administration officials may be tilting toward Mr. Zardari as their likely alternative ally.
As president, he could end up being one of the most powerful figures Pakistan has ever seen. He would no doubt continue to effectively control the prime minister.
The big question is whether as president he would hold the ultimate power that Mr. Musharraf enjoyed: the ability under a constitutional amendment to dissolve the Parliament. The coalition has pledged to abolish that provision.
But if Mr. Zardari manages to keep that power, the United States could be back to its one-stop shopping window, though with a different character behind the counter.
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Canadian military claims victory in major Afghan offensive
Scott Deveau, Canwest News Service Saturday, August 23, 2008
FORWARD OPERATING BASE WILSON, Afghanistan -- Coalition forces and the Afghan National Army say they have struck a "major blow" against insurgents operating in Afghanistan's volatile Zhari district, west of Kandahar City.
In what is being hailed as the biggest show of force this year in the Taliban stronghold, Canadian and Afghan forces pushed through the central part of Zhari, battling with insurgents and confiscating weapons caches and a "significant amount" of materials used for building improvised explosive devices.
The three-day campaign, code-named Op Timis Preem, kicked off Thursday morning with a pre-emptive early-morning air strike on a known insurgent command-and-control centre in western Pashmul.
Two insurgent commanders were suspected to have been operating there and, while no confirmation has been made yet, they are believed to have been killed in the strike.
The operation comes at a time when attacks on coalition forces by insurgents are on the rise.
Earlier this week, three Canadian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Zhari district, about 40 kilometres west of Kandahar Airfield, where the bulk of Canada's 2,500 troops in Afghanistan are stationed.
The deaths of Sgt. Shawn Eades, Cpl. Dustin Wasden, and Sapper Stephan Stock on Wednesday brings the total number of Canadian soldiers killed in the conflict in Afghanistan up to 93. The men's remains were expected to arrive back on Canadian soil at a repatriation ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont., on Saturday evening.
Those losses followed a Taliban ambush Monday that resulted in the death of 10 French soldiers in the eastern part of the country, and another roadside bomb Wednesday that killed three Polish soldiers in the Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul.
Earlier this month, the Taliban ruthlessly gunned down three female aid workers, including two Canadians, and their Afghan driver in a brazen daylight attack south of Kabul. After the ambush, the Taliban issued an open letter to Canadians demanding they pull their troops out of Afghanistan or they will target "all" Canadians, including innocents, in the country in future attacks.
Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, who rolled in with the Canadian troops and their Afghan National Army counterparts as part of Op Timis Preem Thursday, said in an interview that the offensive was not aimed at reclaiming the Zhari district. Rather, it was intended to disrupt insurgent activity in the area, to neutralize their ability to mount further attacks, and to serve as a final show of force before the end of the fighting season next month.
"We're showing them we can go wherever we want, whenever we want," Thompson said in an interview in the village of Namardzi, in western Zhari.
There were no coalition or Afghan security forces casualties during this latest offensive, and the number of insurgents killed in the operation has yet to be determined.
Just as the campaign was wrapping up Saturday afternoon, leaders of Afghanistan's most troubled provinces met with the new governor of Kandahar, Gen. Rahmatullah Raufi, at his palace in Kandahar City.
The meeting was aimed at establishing a regional approach to enhancing security, improving local governance, and facilitating development work in the area.
In attendance were Raufi's counterparts from Helmand, Urozgan, and Zabul provinces, along with several ministers from the Karzai government in Kabul.
"The main issue for me was about security," Raufi said after the meeting.
Earlier in the day, a high court judge was gunned down alongside his son in an area known as Karez Bazaar, south of Kandahar City. No one has yet been arrested in that attack.
Ten Afghan civilians were also killed and four others injured Saturday when their van struck a roadside bomb in Shawalikot, north of Kandahar. Local officials blamed the explosion on the Taliban.
Raufi, a former commander in the Afghan National Army, assumed the role of governor of Kandahar last Saturday. He has restored order in the province after it was widely held that the number of insurgent attacks rose under the watch of his predecessor, Asadullah Khalid, who was accused on several occasions of corruption.
National Post
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Militants ready for Pakistan's war
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Aug 23, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
KARACHI - Pakistan has two options. The country can give in to militancy or it can conduct military operations against it, influential advisor to the Interior Ministry, Rahman Malik, said on Thursday. And the government is not going to negotiate with militants, he added.
His remarks follow a suicide bomb attack outside the country's main defense industry complex at Wah, 30 kilometers northwest of the capital Islamabad, which killed as many as 100 people. The Pakistani Taliban immediately claimed responsibility, saying the attack was in response to the military's recent air bombardment of Bajaur Agency, which led to the displacement of 250,000 people.
Rahman's comments amount to a declaration of war on growing Islamic militancy, but it could be that the new civilian Pakistani leadership is steering the "war on terror" in the wrong direction.
Rahman's remarks cannot be dismissed as a knee-jerk reaction in the heat of the moment. Only a few hours before the suicide attack, the chief minister of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Amir Haider Khan Hoti, announced in a policy statement that even if militants shunned violence and laid down their weapons, they would not be pardoned.
Similarly, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani, who spoke to US President George W Bush by telephone on Thursday morning, rejected any possibility of dialogue with militants.
In the wake of Pervez Musharraf, who retired as president on Monday after flip-flopping on the country's approach to militancy for many years, the American-sponsored coalition of the willing in Islamabad appears ready for all-out war at any cost.
Ironically, this uncharacteristically clear Pakistani policy emerges as the political quagmire in the capital deepens. Former premier Nawaz Sharif has threatened to pull his Pakistan Muslim League out of the ruling coalition if judges sacked by Musharraf last year are not reinstated. He set a deadline for next Wednesday. The other main coalition partners, the Pakistan People's Party, the Awami National Party and the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam, said they would put the matter to parliament for debate, a proposal Sharif is not keen on.
Who do they intend to fight?
The government's approach will be different from that adopted by Musharraf when he signed onto the "war on terror" in 2001, officials in Pakistan's top strategic circles tell Asia Times Online.
Then, Musharraf, who was also chief of army staff, acted as he saw fit, often not to the liking of Washington, which often accused Islamabad of dragging its feet in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda militancy.
The new elected government is expected to be an active partner in the South Asian war theater and its military will help the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The coordination will be similar to that between Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government and NATO.
NATO command will identify problem areas and Pakistan will hit those targets. A plan, drawn up between the Americans and Pakistan in 2007, will be implemented under which Peshawar, capital of NWFP, will serve as a base camp from where, under American guidance, the Taliban's bases will be targeted. The Taliban use these bases to launch operations into Afghanistan.
Channels have also been established for the US Embassy in Islamabad to coordinate with the Pakistani government. As a sign of the renewed goodwill, the US Embassy has announced US$50,000 as immediate aid relief for the people displaced from Bajaur. Other financial packages are expected to follow.
Up until 2007, under Musharraf, Pakistan made a clear distinction between the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Takfiris (those who believe non-practicing Muslims are infidels) among al-Qaeda and criminal gangs who became a part of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The Taliban were viewed as a phenomenon spanning the southwestern Pashtun lands from Pakistan's Balochistan province to Afghanistan's provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Urzgan and Zabul. This is the heartland of the Taliban in which leader Mullah Omar and majority of his shura (council) live.
They have never troubled Pakistan and have not tried to impose sharia law or interfere in Shi'ite-Sunni feuds or meddle with the thousands of Hindus living in the border town of Chaman. These are the "real" Taliban and the core of the resistance fighting against the foreign occupation of Afghanistan.
Pakistan has never conducted any military operations against the Taliban in Balochistan - one NATO's main complaints.
In NWFP, the problem was more complex. There are Taliban such as Jalaluddin Haqqani steering the insurgency in Afghanistan, and Pakistan has never tried to target his outfit, despite repeated NATO requests.
Top al-Qaeda leaders also live here and in the tribal regions on the border with Afghanistan. They are not specifically anti-Pakistan and there was until 2007 a tacit agreement with the Pakistani security forces that they would be left alone. American intelligence was given a free hand to arrest them - al-Qaeda members had to look after themselves, with Pakistan acting more like a referee.
However, the Takfiris, who include aging Egyptian Sheikh Essa's group, are a different story. Pakistan has made a clear distinction with them, including Uzbeks under the command of Qari Tahir Farooq (Tahir Yaldeshiv) and has gone after them with its proxies in the tribal areas. The same went for Pakistani criminal groups such as the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, who joined the Takfiri camp, or camps under Pakistani Taliban Baitullah Mehsud, who is very close to the Takfiris.
Pakistan's relations with the Pakistani Taliban have depended on which leader they followed. If they were part of Mullah Omar's or Jalaluddin Haqqani's groups, they were left alone; if they were part of the Takfiri groups, the treatment was different.
In essence, this was Pakistan's war, and it fought it on its own terms, which was only partially beneficial to NATO. Under the new leadership, Pakistan's participation in the "war on terror" will be more for the benefit of NATO.
This could come at a very high cost. Those militants who were previously left alone will now be targets. In turn, they will conduct operations against Pakistan.
Osama bin Laden does not have the resources he had in 1989, when he tried to finance Nawaz Sharif to dethrone Benazir Bhutto's government (See The pawns who pay as powers play Asia Times Online, June 2, 2005). But his people certainly have ties within the security forces to allow them to launch operations like the failed one in the mid-1990s against Bhutto's government.
Last year, Bin Laden appointed an Amir of Khuruj (Revolt) for Pakistan, but he died of illness early this year. He has been replaced by Khalid Habib, a Moroccan, and he is now on standby for orders.
Thursday's attack at Wah is a portend of what lies in store for the country. That attack, although claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, was carried out by Pakistani criminal gangs with religious orientations and allied with the Takfiris.
Al-Qaeda has executed high-profile attacks, such as the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last December and the one on Bagram base in Kabul during US Vice President Dick Cheney's 2007 visit.
Should the Pakistani government really commit to its all-out war on militants, it will feel more of such wrath.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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French leader proposes vote on Afghanistan troops
By LAURENT PIROT, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 22, 2:22 PM ET
PARIS - France's prime minister wants parliament to vote on whether to keep French forces in Afghanistan, his office said Friday, as a new poll showed most of his compatriots want the troops pulled out after 10 died in a vicious ambush.
The legislature, dominated by President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative party, is nearly certain to approve a continuation of the French presence in Afghanistan.
Sarkozy, in a conversation with President Bush on Friday, "underlined France's determination to pursue its fight against terrorism, in close liaison with its allies," Sarkozy's office said in a statement.
Sarkozy has shown little sign of interest in a pullout since Monday's attack outside Kabul, the deadliest for international forces there in years.
But the vote would be an important gesture toward those who questioned Sarkozy's decision in April to reinforce France's force by 700 to about 2,600 troops. Critics said he caved too easily to U.S. pressure for NATO allies to bear more of the burden in increasingly violent Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon will propose to the presidents of each house of parliament that legislators vote on the continuation of the French military mission in Afghanistan during an extraordinary parliamentary session that starts Sept. 22, his office said in a statement.
No date for the proposed vote was given.
The vote would be in line with a constitutional amendment passed last month requiring that any military mission longer than four months be submitted to parliamentary approval.
The ambush prompted French media and opposition Socialists to question France's mission in Afghanistan.
France's lower house of parliament said Friday the country's defense and foreign ministers would appear Tuesday before a panel to answer lawmakers' questions about the incident. In a statement, the National Assembly also said a delegation of lawmakers from across the political spectrum would go to Afghanistan soon as part of a parliamentary investigation into the attacks.
A survey in the daily Le Parisien on Friday showed 55 percent of respondents think France should leave the NATO mission fighting the Taliban, compared with 36 percent who say they should remain.
The survey, by the CSA polling agency, was conducted nationwide with 1,008 people on Thursday. No margin of error was given.
Sarkozy, though, has remained firm in his commitment. At a funeral ceremony Thursday for the 10 victims, the French leader said, "We don't have the right to lose there," saying losing the fight against terrorists in Afghanistan would be "a defeat for France."
The last 10 of the 21 French soldiers wounded in Monday's attack returned Friday to France. Eleven soldiers with more serious injuries arrived on Wednesday.
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Taliban Seeks to Destabilize Afghanistan's Capital
By Anna Mulrine .S. News & World Report - Fri Aug 22, 5:37 PM ET
U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, says that it is clear that the Taliban increasingly is trying to create instability in the capital. "I'm certainly concerned about security in Kabul," he says.
U.S. military officials have expressed mounting concern at the stepped-up activity and growing force of the Taliban and other militant groups in provinces around the capital.
Earlier this week, NATO forces were ambushed in Laghman province, about 30 miles outside Kabul, in an extended clash that left 10 elite French paratroopers dead. (There were conflicting accounts that some were killed by friendly fire).
On Thursday, NATO forces bombed militants on the border of Kabul and Laghman, killing more than 30, according to a U.S. military spokesperson.
The Taliban "had a strategy originally of isolating and seizing Kabul--and also all of Kandahar," says McKiernan. "They realize that those ambitions are unachievable--that's not going to happen."
But this realization, he adds, has led to stepped-up "asymmetrical, spectacular attacks" in the capital, including suicide attacks and roadside bombs.
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Troop numbers in Afghanistan on 'growth trajectory': Army commander
LONDON (AFP) — British troops numbers in Afghanistan are likely to rise before they fall, the commander of the country's soldiers there said in an interview published Friday.
Speaking to The Independent from Lashkar Gah, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said: "We are probably still on a growth trajectory before we get to the stage when the UK presence can begin to thin out."
His comments come after Prime Minister Gordon Brown completed a lightning visit to Kabul in which he said Britain was "utterly resolute" in supporting Afghanistan as it fights a Taliban-led insurgency and pursues democracy.
Carleton-Smith was quoted as saying: "One of the characteristics of counter-insurgency, unlike conventional war, is the more successful you are in the short term, the more troops you require."
"The more ground and the more people you become responsible for, the more troops you need."
He said he was "cautiously optimistic" because local populations were "overwhelmingly hostile to the Taliban".
Britain has 8,500 troops in ISAF, according to the alliance force, most of them in the restive southern Helmand province -- a hotspot for Taliban violence.
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‘THIS BRONZE MEDAL IS BIGGER THAN GOLD’
China By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com editor and reporter Friday, August 22, 2008
Beijing-As China and the United States battle to claim the most Olympic medals – with gold-medal and all-medal counts being frantically tallied and talked about – many other countries' athletes are overjoyed to take home their nations' first gold, or even bronze.
Kings and presidents make personal calls to congratulate the winners, and millions cheer on their tiny delegations with pride.
"It’s a great honor for us to win Afghanistan’s first medal for the Olympics," said Farhad Kheslat, President of Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee.
Rohullah Nikpai of Afghanistan celebrates his third-place win during the medal ceremony for the men's 58-kilogram taekwondo competition, in Beijing, on Wednesday.
"We are quite happy, I can’t express it," Kheslat said after Rohullah Nikpai won a bronze medal in the men’s under 58-kilogram taekwondo competition.
President Hamid Karzai called the athlete to congratulate him for his Olympic contribution to the war torn country that's competed in 11 Games since 1936.
Pride of Togo Benjamin Boukpeti became Togo's first Olympic medalist when he paddled across the finish line in the men's individual kayak slalom to win the bronze on Tuesday. He was so excited that he slammed his paddle across his kayak in jubilation and smashed it in two – pumping each piece of the broken paddle in victory.
"To win – for me, this bronze medal is bigger than gold," said Boukpeti in a phone interview. "It is really amazing for me and for the country."
Born to a French mother and a Togolese father, Boukpeti grew up in France and has not spent any time in Togo since he was a baby. Now, at 27 years old, he'll return to Togo in the next few days carrying the small West African country of 5 million's first Olympic medal.
"Togo has given the maximum for our delegation - so the delegation has had a very good ambience and that helped me win," said Boukpeti. The Togolese Olympic delegation includes four athletes in all – two men who competed in judo and tennis, and one woman who ran the 400 meters.
Boukpeti said he wasn't surprised at the victory because he had done well in Athens – he finished in 18th place out of the overall competition – what Olympic organizers labeled "arguably Togo's best result" in the history of their six Olympic Games since 1972.
He said he had trained incredibly hard over the last few years in France, had improved a lot, and with the huge support he had gotten from Togo, he knew he could do it.
He admitted that it was sort of funny to win his medal in a sport that many in soccer-mad Togo aren’t familiar with and have only seen on TV, but he said the nation’s support for him has been amazing.
"I can't really imagine what they will do when I return to Togo," said Boukpeti. He said he’s gotten tons of phone calls from his father's family in Togo congratulating him on the win and encouraging him to get back there quickly so they can celebrate. "It's the first time Togo is being recognized for being really good in sports. They are very happy."
‘A new era in Bahrain’s sports’ Likewise, Bahrain is embracing its first medalist, Rashid Ramzi, who won the gold for the men’s 1,500 meter by racing across the finish line in 3:32.94, besting Kenya’s Asbel Kipruto Kirpop who crossed in 3:33.11.
After competing in the Olympic Games six times since 1984 and going home medal-less every time, Ramzi’s victory was a huge step in Bahrain’s quest to make its mark in international sports.
"We are very proud of this achievement and we hope this will mark a new era in Bahrain’s sports," said Nebal Bahran, press attaché for Bahrain’s delegation of 15 athletes. The entire country is taking pride in Ramzi’s victory – Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa was one of the first people to call Ramzi to congratulate him on his feat.
Ramzi, 28, moved to Bahrain from Morocco when he was 19 years old and has trained with the national team in Bahrain and Europe ever since.
Despite being a small nation of just 700,000, the small oil-rich archipelago has big ambitions. "Our target in these Olympic Games is to be the best among the Arabic competitors," said Bahran, adding that they are close – being tied up with Tunisia in terms of medal count. Tunisia has also won one medal – a gold as well – for men’s 1500 meter swimming.
"Our goal is to build a new generation of athletics in Bahrain," said Bahran. The hope is that Ramzi’s medal is the first of many.
Lending hope for peace While Bahrain and Togo have much to be proud of, with a delegation of just four athletes who train in battle-scarred Kabul, the Afghan athletes very presence was an accomplishment, never mind winning a bronze.
"We had the hope to win, but we didn’t know for sure it would be possible. But when our hopes came true, we were very, very happy," said Kheslat, head of Afghanistan’s national Olympic committee.
In a country that has been plagued by war and internal strife for the last 30 years, there hasn’t been much of chance for sports – recreational or professional. Afghanistan’s last Olympic best was fifth place in wrestling in 1964.
Although the three other athletes who competed in Beijing did not win medals, even Robina Muqimyar's last-place finish in the 100 meter sprint was monumental. Since her 2004 debut in Athens, she's been the country's first and only female Olympian since the fall of the hard-line Taliban that banned women from sports.
As war continues to ravage their homeland, Kheslat said that the team hopes their achievements can bring some normalcy back to the south Asian nation.
"We do our best to bring peace to Afghanistan through sports," said Kheslat.
"Afghanistan is in a war, but our pupil gives hope for peace," said Mohammed Bashir Taraki, Nikpai’s coach for the last six years. Maybe by winning just one medal, he succeeded in that lofty goal.
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