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Gates Pushing Plan for Afghan Army
By THOM SHANKER The New York Times August 7, 2008
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will endorse a $20 billion plan to substantially increase the size of Afghanistan’s army and will also restructure the military command of American and NATO
Afghanistan seeks Nato funds for troops
The Financial Times By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Jon Boone in Kabul August 8 2008
Afghanistan is asking Nato countries to help pay for a US-backed plan to expand its military by 40,000 soldiers, in a move that is likely to test the alliance’s commitment to the war-torn country.
Troops kill four women, child in Afghanistan: force
August 8, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - US-led coalition troops "inadvertently" killed four women and a child in a gun battle in Afghanistan, while an international soldier died separately in a new bomb attack, the force said Friday.
Pakistani intelligence complicit in Afghan violence: US general
Fri Aug 8, 1:37 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The top US commander in Afghanistan has publicly accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate of "some complicity" over time with militant groups fomenting violence in Afghanistan.
Taliban kill three 'spies' in Pakistan tribal zone: officials
Fri Aug 8, 2:52 AM ET
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Taliban militants beheaded two menand shot dead a third in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan after accusing them of spying on the rebels, officials and witnesses said Friday.
'Surge' may not be enough in Afghanistan, commander says
Barbara Starr CNN Pentagon Correspondent
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A troop "surge" is credited with stemming violence in Iraq, but could a similar strategy work in Afghanistan? A top U.S. military commander isn't counting on it.
US worried over terror network in Pak: Condoleezza Rice
Times of India, India 8 Aug 2008
WASHINGTON-The US says it's taking a "pretty bold" stand on Pakistan, a key US ally in the war on terror, worried as it is about "some elements" there having connections with the militants in the region.
US weighs stepped-up military forays into Pakistan
By PAMELA HESS and MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Fri Aug 8, 3:50 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Top Bush administration officials are urging the president to direct U.S. troops in Afghanistan to be more aggressive in pursuing militants into Pakistan on foot as part of a proposed radical shift
Canadian troops help net drugs, weapons in operation in southern Afghanistan
The Canadian Press
Zhari District, Afghanistan — Canadian military officials say troops have seized a large quantity of weapons, bomb-making materials and drugs during an ongoing operation in Maywand District, west of Kandahar City.
NATO aircraft crashes in E. Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-07 18:18:22
KABUL, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- An aircraft belonging to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) crashed Thursday in eastern Afghan province of Paktika, an ISAF statement released here said.
Offensive against Taliban under way
GLORIA GALLOWAY - Globe and Mail Update August 8, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Bomb-making supplies, guns, narcotics and money — but no Taliban — were seized by Canadian troops during the first days of what is being called a major offensive into the northwestern
Taliban kill three 'spies' in Pakistan tribal zone: officials
Fri Aug 8, 2:52 AM ET
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Taliban militants beheaded two menand shot dead a third in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan after accusing them of spying on the rebels, officials and witnesses said Friday.
Six Canadians wounded in Afghanistan
Graham Thomson, Canwest News Service Friday, August 08, 2008
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan - Six Canadian soldiers were wounded yesterday after being ambushed by insurgents in what is arguably the most dangerous area in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, Afghanistan Need to Build More Trust, Gilani Says
By Paul Tighe
Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan and Afghanistan need to build more trust in order to improve ties and carry out an effective war on terrorism, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad.
US hopes pinned on Musharraf
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online August 8, 2008
KARACHI - Since assuming office at the beginning of the year, Pakistan's coalition civilian government has gone to extreme lengths to develop a consensus for the impeachment of President Pervez
Afghanistan a work in progress: ambassador
National Post, Canada Graham Thomson Canwest News Service Thursday, August 07, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan-Calling Afghanistan the most underdeveloped country in which he has ever worked, Canada's ambassador here says Canadians "should be realistic" about how much progress can be achieved
Child rape cases in Afghanistan shock
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Rapes of boys and girls and other forms of violence against children go mostly unpunished in war-torn Afghanistan, says a U.N. official.
Battle lines move from Kashmir to Kabul
By M K Bhadrakumar – Asia Times (08.08.08)
There is wide acclaim today among Indian strategic analysts and diplomatic editors that New Delhi has scored a major diplomatic victory in Afghanistan and that its "influence" in Kabul has "peaked".
Hu meets president of Afghanistan, vowing further partnership
Xinhua, China www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-08 09:11:57
BEIJING-Chinese President Hu Jintao said here on Friday that China is willing to work together with Afghanistan to further their partnership of all-round cooperation.
Provincial Chief Judge Killed in Eastern Afghanistan
By VOA News 07 August 2008
Suspected Taliban militants have shot and killed a chief judge in eastern Afghanistan.
US release Islamic scholar after protests
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 07 August 2008
Thousands hit streets to protest arrest of Islamic council member
(PAN) US-led forces have released a religious scholar and the Nangarhar Ulema Council chief one day after thousands of people marched through the streets in protest at the arrests, an official said.
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Gates Pushing Plan for Afghan Army
By THOM SHANKER The New York Times August 7, 2008
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will endorse a $20 billion plan to substantially increase the size of Afghanistan’s army and will also restructure the military command of American and NATO forces in response to the growing Taliban threat, senior Pentagon and military officials said Thursday.
Taken together, the two decisions are an acknowledgment of shortcomings that continue to hinder NATO- and American-led operations in Afghanistan. With the war in Iraq still an obstacle to any immediate American troop increase in Afghanistan, the plan was described by officials as an attempt to increase allied and Afghan capabilities in advance of deploying the additional American brigades that Mr. Gates and his commanders agree are necessary.
The additional American troops are unlikely to be available until next year.
Under a plan initially proposed by the Afghan government and now endorsed by Mr. Gates, the Afghan National Army will nearly double in size over the next five years, to more than 120,000 active-duty troops.
Such a large increase would not be possible without American funds, which will pay for trainers and for equipment, food and housing for Afghan forces. But Pentagon officials said that Mr. Gates would seek contributions from allies to help underwrite the $20 billion cost over five years.
In a closely related decision, Mr. Gates plans to reshape a command structure that has divided the NATO and American missions in Afghanistan, a system now viewed as unwieldy in the face of increasing insurgent violence, senior Pentagon and military officials said. Under an order expected to be signed by Mr. Gates before the end of August, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the four-star Army officer who leads the 45,000-member NATO force, would be given command of most of the 19,000 American troops who have operated separately. (The NATO force already includes about 15,000 other Americans.)
The moves come nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, a conflict that has claimed more than 500 American lives. The last two months have been among the deadliest in Afghanistan for American forces, who are trying to contend with a sharp increase in attacks by Taliban militants, some of them staged with support from insurgents based in the remote tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan.
Pentagon officials say they hope the creation of a more unified command structure under General McKiernan will help to coordinate all forces in Afghanistan — most notably American units near the Pakistani border in eastern Afghanistan, which have operated independently of the NATO-led force in charge in southern Afghanistan.
“General McKiernan is in the best possible position to most efficiently and effectively deploy all of the resources to the benefit of the overall mission,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “This creates one commander in country and in charge of all forces, and establishes a structure to deploy them as best suits the mission and to improve synchronization among all military assets.”
In the months ahead, NATO and the United States will nevertheless continue to pursue somewhat different missions in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said, and the new command structure will not result in a merger of the two missions.
NATO took command of the nationwide mission to stabilize Afghanistan in 2006. The allies expected to face little direct combat and to focus on reconstruction and on maintaining security in areas that were relatively calm.
In contrast, the American-led mission in Afghanistan has focused from the start of the war on combat operations to capture or kill insurgents and terrorists, as well as on training Afghan security forces, counter-insurgency and reconstruction.
Although the situation has significantly changed, some allied units operate under strict constraints placed by their home governments that prevent them from participating in certain kinds of combat missions, which American officials have said is a major obstacle to beating back the Taliban.
Pentagon policy makers said one goal of the command restructuring would be to allow the movement of American and allied troops — including the British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers who participate in a full range of combat missions — to support one another in a more seamless fashion. It remains unclear if the change will persuade the militaries operating under restrictions to take on additional battlefield responsibilities.
Because of the constraints on allied forces, Pentagon officials said, two kinds of missions will remain under a separate American command: running prisons and counterterrorism operations to capture or kill high-value Taliban and Qaeda leaders. Many of those counterterrorism missions are classified, so it is not publicly known how many troops will remain under American command.
The command reorganization implies that an American officer will be in charge of the NATO and American missions for the foreseeable future.
The restructuring would also be intended to streamline the American-led training mission, which to a large extent has been outside the NATO structure.
But Pentagon and military officials said the new approach was crafted with attention to the sensitivities of NATO allies, and Mr. Gates and other officials consulted with the NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and with the governments that have the largest number of troops in Afghanistan.
Mr. Gates has pledged that the United States will work to send up to two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan next year, a force that would number 6,000 to 10,000 troops.
Previously, the goal had been to expand the Afghan Army to 80,000 from 63,000 troops, and funds had already been allocated for that. The $20 billion will pay for the additional increase in soldiers.
Pentagon officials expect that they will need an estimated $5 billion per year for the first three years of the expansion, and then about $3 billion for each of the final two years of the expansion.
The United States will work with allies to help pay for the effort, Mr. Morrell said. Any new American money for the expanded Afghan Army, or proposals to divert money currently in the budget to that effort, would have to be approved by Congress.
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Afghanistan seeks Nato funds for troops
The Financial Times By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Jon Boone in Kabul August 8 2008
Afghanistan is asking Nato countries to help pay for a US-backed plan to expand its military by 40,000 soldiers, in a move that is likely to test the alliance’s commitment to the war-torn country.
General Abdul Wardak, the Afghan defence minister, wrote to Nato defence ministers last month seeking support for the plan to expand the Afghan National Army to 122,000 troops over five years.
The move comes as the US increases its focus on Afghanistan, where the security situation has deteriorated. More US troops were killed in Afghanistan last month than in Iraq for the first time during both conflicts. The Pentagon hopes to send several more brigades – up to 10,000 troops – to Afghanistan next year. Barack Obama and John McCain, the respective Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, both support sending more troops.
One person familiar with the debate said Nato members agreed that a larger, more capable Afghan army was crucial to increasing security across the country in the long term. The key issue, the person said, was whether Nato would match this support with financial commitments.
“There is a consensus that 122,000 is a very reasonable request and would be very consistent with what we see the security environment to be,” the person said.
“[The] expectation would be that if you sign up for this as a good ally, as a good alliance member, then at some level you have got to be willing to commit more to realise this.”
Jock Stirrup, chief of the British defence staff, said in Washington recently that “in terms of military power, the real answer is the ANA”.
Nick Allan, spokesman for the British embassy, said the UK supported increasing the size of the Afghan army but “the devil would be in the details”.
There are currently about 62,000 soldiers in the Afghan army. The US and Nato originally planned to increase that number to 80,000 by next year. The revised plan envisages adding another 10,000 troops each year over four years starting in 2010, with training costs alone expected to be about $4bn (£2bn, €2.7bn).
Washington also wants Nato allies to send more military trainers to Afghanistan. There is currently a shortfall of about 3,000 trainers for an 80,000-strong army. Boosting the army by another 50 per cent would dramatically increase that shortfall.
The US has consistently called on Nato to provide more resources for the conflict in Afghanistan. During trips to Europe, Robert Gates, defence secretary, and Mr McCain both stressed the need for European countries to step up their commitment. Mr Obama recently made a similar call in Berlin.
Ashraf Haidari, counsellor at the Afghan embassy in Washington, said Kabul had been pushing to boost the army for some time, partly because “in the long run international security forces will leave whether we want it or not”. “There has not been a lack of consensus but a lack of resources,” said Mr Haidari.
Nato members are currently considering the plan, but more formal talks are expected in September. The person familiar with the debate said the US expected to achieve a positive agreement among the allies by late autumn.
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Troops kill four women, child in Afghanistan: force
August 8, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - US-led coalition troops "inadvertently" killed four women and a child in a gun battle in Afghanistan, while an international soldier died separately in a new bomb attack, the force said Friday.
The civilians were killed Thursday when troops went to an area of central Ghazni province less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Kabul to find a Taliban militant alleged to be coordinating foreign rebels, it said.
"As coalition forces approached a compound, they were threatened by several armed militants," a statement said.
"The force responded with small-arms fire, killing the militants and inadvertently killing four women and a child located with them," it said.
Several alleged militants were killed and three detained, the coalition said.
"The coalition regrets the death of these non-combatants," spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Rumi Nielson-Green said in the statement. "We are planning to conduct a full and thorough investigation."
There has been a series of incidents in the past weeks in which civilians have been killed in international military action against Taliban and other insurgents trying to bring down the Western-backed government.
On July 27, Canadian soldiers in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) killed two children after opening fire on a car that did not slow down near a military patrol in the southern province of Kandahar.
The day before, ISAF troops killed four civilians in similar circumstances in neighbouring Helmand.
Also last month, the coalition admitted killing eight civilians in an air strike against militants in the southwestern province of Farah.
It and ISAF are meanwhile investigating official Afghan reports that 64 civilians were killed in two strikes in northeastern Afghanistan early in the same month.
The mounting civilian casualties in international military operations seven years after the United States sent troops to Afghanistan to topple the Taliban government angers Afghans and threatens to turn them against the soldiers.
The United Nations said in June that nearly 700 civilians had lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, about two-thirds in militant attacks and about 255 in military operations.
The death toll of international soldiers is also climbing.
A coalition soldier was killed in western Afghanistan Friday when a bomb struck a convoy, the force said, giving no details including the nationality of the troop.
The new death took to 153 the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them in attacks or fighting, according to an AFP tally. Seven US soldiers were killed in bomb attacks last week.
There are nearly 70,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan to help the country fight an insurgency led by the extremist Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001.
The past three months have been the deadliest for international forces in Afghanistan since 2001 with more international soldiers dying in this country than in Iraq.
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Pakistani intelligence complicit in Afghan violence: US general
Fri Aug 8, 1:37 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The top US commander in Afghanistan has publicly accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate of "some complicity" over time with militant groups fomenting violence in Afghanistan.
Lieutenant General David McKiernan's comment in an interview with CNN on Thursday was the most unambiguous statement yet on the matter by a senior US military officer, reflecting growing US frustration over the insurgent violence in Afghanistan.
"Do I believe that the Pakistani government must do more? I absolutely do. Do I believe there has been some complicity on the part of organizations such as the ISI over time in Pakistan, I believe there has been," McKiernan said.
His comments coincided with a political crisis in Islamabad where the ruling coalition said it will seek the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf, the country's former military leader and long-time US ally.
And it follows reports that the CIA's number two, Steve Kappes, recently confronted the Pakistanis with evidence of ISI involvement with an insurgent network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The New York Times reported last week that intercepted communications provided the Americans with clear evidence that the ISI was involved in a July 7 suicide bombing at the Indian embassy that killed about 60 people.
It has long been assumed by US officials that elements of the ISI has maintained ties with the Taliban and other militant groups it helped create to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Indians in Kashmir.
But the relationship has come under greater scrutiny over the past two years as the militant threat has grown in the tribal areas, and fighters have poured out of those safe havens into Afghanistan.
"I don't believe we can get to the right outcome in Afghanistan as long as these militant sanctuaries exist across the border," McKiernan said.
"We've seen the increased numbers of foreign fighters in eastern and southern Afghanistan this year, and there is an expectation that the leadership in Pakistan will do something about these militant sanctuaries in their country," he said.
McKiernan said Al-Qaeda is heavily involved in the insurgency.
"Al-Qaeda provides financing, they help recruit fighters, they help with logistics, command and control, intelligence for the Taliban," he said.
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Taliban kill three 'spies' in Pakistan tribal zone: officials
Fri Aug 8, 2:52 AM ET
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Taliban militants beheaded two menand shot dead a third in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan after accusing them of spying on the rebels, officials and witnesses said Friday.
The bodies of three men were found dumped by a road at Kayrala village in the troubled Bajaur tribal district with notes saying "these people were spying on Taliban movement fighters," a local government official told AFP.
Witnesses said that two had their heads severed and the third was killed by a gunshot.
Militants have killed several tribesmen and Afghan refugees in the mountainous, semi-autonomous tribal region after accusing them of spying.
Most ohave been accused of spying for US forces across the border in Afghanistan, but the militants did not say whom the latest victims were allegedly working for.
Officials on Thursday said that fierce battles killed 10 troops and 25 militants in Bajaur, a known haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Pakistan is under mounting international pressure to crack down on the militants.
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'Surge' may not be enough in Afghanistan, commander says
Barbara Starr CNN Pentagon Correspondent
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A troop "surge" is credited with stemming violence in Iraq, but could a similar strategy work in Afghanistan? A top U.S. military commander isn't counting on it.
In 2007, as part of the surge strategy, President Bush sent roughly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in an attempt to improve security.
That effort coincided with a drop in violence, and, now that the troops in Iraq are returning to pre-surge levels, the Army is identifying combat units that could go Afghanistan to fill the need for 10,000 additional troops, military officials said.
But a different type of surge is needed in Afghanistan, said Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander there.
"There is no magic number of soldiers that are needed on the ground to win this campaign," McKiernan said in an exclusive interview with CNN. "What we need is security of the people. We need governance. We need reconstruction and development."
More troops alone cannot solve one of the biggest problems in Afghanistan: the militant's safe haven in the tribal-controlled areas across the border in Pakistan.
U.S. troops are barred from going after militants once they enter Pakistan. Meanwhile, Taliban and al Qaeda militants cross the border freely, U.S. officials said.
"Unless you stabilize that border with Pakistan and uproot the terrorist safe haven that has developed in the Pakistan tribal areas, you're not going to be able to stabilize Afghanistan," said Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation.
Top military and intelligence officials in the Bush administration are urging the president to allow U.S. troops to pursue militants across the border, The Associated Press reported Friday.
Another challenge is Afghanistan's unchecked drug trade, which reportedly is financing the violence.
"Ninety percent of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan, and much of that money ends up in the hands of warlords and other militants," Curtis said.
McKiernan said: "There is a clear linkage between 'narco' trafficking and financing of the insurgency."
Some analysts said there is one positive difference between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Unlike the Iraq army, the Afghan army is eager to challenge its enemies.
"There is a sense of commitment from those troops, and when they go in for the fight, they go in with everything they've got," Curtis said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will endorse a $20 billion plan to increase the size of the Afghan army, The New York Times reported Friday.
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US worried over terror network in Pak: Condoleezza Rice
Times of India, India 8 Aug 2008
WASHINGTON-The US says it's taking a "pretty bold" stand on Pakistan, a key US ally in the war on terror, worried as it is about "some elements" there having connections with the militants in the region.
While "Pakistan, the government, the entity" was a US ally, "there are elements in Pakistan that worries one that there are connections to the militants in the region", US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with The Politico and Yahoo! News .
"There are also clearly efforts that we think are not working to have deals, if you will, or negotiated solutions to the militant problem," she said when asked to comment on the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) contention that Pakistan won't let the US put more troops inside to fight terrorism as it is actually aiding al-Qaida.
"But the point is that these militants are as deadly and dangerous for Pakistan as they are for Afghanistan. Just witness the fact that one of the networks there is widely believed to be responsible for the assassination of (former Pakistan premier) Benazir Bhutto," Rice said.
Asked if it isn't it time for a bolder statement about Pakistan, "a country that built up the Taliban... a country that sponsors terrorism against India", the top US diplomat said: "Well, I think we're taking a pretty bold stand.
"And by the way, the Pakistanis themselves understand that they need to take a bolder stand. Again, this is a threat not just to us or to Afghanistan, but to them."
Extremism has taken place in Pakistan, in part because of the transit of the more extreme elements, who were coming out of Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviet Union, she said. "This has been rooting in Pakistan for a long time and it's going to take a while to expel extremism."
The US, Rice said, had made it "very clear that something has to be done about terrorists who are using Pakistani territory to run cross-border raids into Afghanistan". They did so again when the Pakistani premier visited Washington late last month.
"The problem is that yes, the Taliban has regrouped, but not really regrouped in - as a military force, but rather in kind of hit-and-run terrorist incidents that, in fact, do affect the population," Rice said.
"And so a couple of things need to be done. Afghan forces need to be trained in larger numbers and faster. The problems across the Afghan-Pakistan border have to be dealt with."
Commenting on a report that she was making a series of whirlwind trips around the world grasping for diplomatic victories in the last months of the Bush administration, Rice said: "Oh, no, there's nothing there. We've been setting this up for seven years."
Among other things, President George Bush "has put in place relationships with Africa and Latin America, with Brazil, and particularly with India", Rice said. "I think our relationships in Asia have never been in better shape.
"And so I am going to run hard till the end because we still have a lot to cement. But we've been running hard since we got here and we'll do it right to the end."
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US weighs stepped-up military forays into Pakistan
By PAMELA HESS and MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Fri Aug 8, 3:50 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Top Bush administration officials are urging the president to direct U.S. troops in Afghanistan to be more aggressive in pursuing militants into Pakistan on foot as part of a proposed radical shift in its regional counterterrorism strategy, The Associated Press has learned.
Senior intelligence and military aides want President Bush to give American soldiers greater flexibility to operate against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who cross the border from Pakistan's lawless tribal border area to conduct attacks inside Afghanistan, officials say.
The plan could include sending U.S. special forces teams, temporarily assigned to the CIA, into the tribal areas to hit high-value targets, according to an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the plan.
Such a move would be controversial, in part because of Pakistani opposition to U.S. incursions into its territory, and the proposal is not universally supported in Washington. It comes amid growing political instability in Pakistan and concerns that elements of Pakistan's security forces are collaborating with extremists.
Senior members of Bush's national security team met last week at the White House to discuss the recommendations and are now weighing how to proceed, the officials said.
The top agenda item at the meeting of the so-called deputies committee — usually the No. 2 officials at the departments of Defense, and State, plus the intelligence agencies and the National Security Council — was to "review and potentially revise cross-border strategy," a person familiar with the session told the AP.
"What the deputies committee has raised is, given the possibility that political fragmentation in Pakistan is going to continue, do we need to change our strategy?" the official said. He and other current and former officials spoke on condition of anonymity because sensitive foreign policy matters are in play.
The deputies committee is two levels down from the president, so its recommendations would not immediately affect policy.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto declined to comment.
The current strategy — relying on Pakistan to keep a lid on the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan — was meant to support Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a strong ally of the U.S. who took control of Pakistan in 1999 in a bloodless coup. Musharraf was sidelined this spring when a coalition government trounced Musharraf's allies in parliamentary elections. He remains president but with vastly diminished influence.
Pakistan's governing coalition announced Thursday it will seek to impeach Musharraf, cranking up pressure on the U.S.-backed former general to resign.
In Washington, the State Department and some Pentagon officials are leery of the new proposal, warning of repercussions from the Pakistani government, which they fear could be further destabilized, while some officials in the CIA are pushing the plan.
Officials closer to the front lines in Afghanistan also are pushing for a newly aggressive stance. The rules currently limiting U.S. incursions into Pakistan when in hot pursuit of enemy fighters or targets would not be stretched under the plan. But U.S. forces would be encouraged to use that authority liberally.
The Associated Press reported last year that U.S. rules of engagement allowed ground forces to go a little over 6 miles into Pakistan when in hot pursuit, and when forces were targeted or fired on by the enemy. U.S. rules allow aircraft to go 10 miles into Pakistan air space.
Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S. supports the plan.
"The argument that we may destabilize Pakistan has taken us to where we are right now," Ambassador Said T. Jawad told the AP. "Pursuing the policy of public praise and private pressure on Pakistan doesn't work."
But defense officials say they are cautioning against stepping up military operations in Pakistan without specific approval from Islamabad. They say violating Pakistani sovereignty would anger the Pakistani people and could affect U.S. use of the country as a base from which to resupply U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Jawad said U.S. and Afghan forces know the location of training camps, places Taliban extremists live and where there have been large gatherings of al-Qaida members, but the current rules of engagement have hampered attacking those targets.
"We need to enhance the capacity of hitting these targets," he said.
The recommendations also call for developing direct relationships with Pashtun tribes on the Pakistani side of the border. That engagement has largely been left to Pakistan's security service, which U.S. officials increasingly fear is riddled with extremists and militant sympathizers.
Pakistan and the United States have somewhat contrary short-term interests in the Federally Administered Tribal Area, a Maryland-sized swath of ungoverned territory bordering Afghanistan.
It is home to about 2 million Pakistanis, representing between 20 and 30 fiercely independent tribes, several with well-armed, militant branches. The region also is increasingly home to al-Qaida terrorists and a growing network of foreign fighters, according to Defense Department officials.
Bowing to U.S. pressure, Musharraf three years ago directed a military crack down on the tribal area to root out al-Qaida fighters. The tribes resisted the intrusion into their affairs. Prior to 2007 there were around a dozen tribal attacks a year in Pakistan. Last year there were nearly 100, according to U.S. defense officials.
Many tribes have decades-long associations with al-Qaida leaders, dating back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that they fought against. Al-Qaida leaders have intermarried with the tribes and are a source of arms and weapons.
Now, the defense officials said, Pakistani officials are primarily concerned with negotiating an end to the attacks outside the tribal areas. But the U.S. concern is primarily al-Qaida in the tribal areas, and the negotiations are unlikely to affect al-Qaida's increasingly free rein throughout the region.
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Canadian troops help net drugs, weapons in operation in southern Afghanistan
The Canadian Press
Zhari District, Afghanistan — Canadian military officials say troops have seized a large quantity of weapons, bomb-making materials and drugs during an ongoing operation in Maywand District, west of Kandahar City.
The joint operation, which involved Afghan forces as well as U.S. and British troops, is aimed at disrupting insurgent activity. Capt. Chris Quinlan says it was also an opportunity to bridge ties with local elders in an underserviced area of the province.
Maj. Fraser Auld adds the insurgents were taken by surprise by the sweep.
Officials say no insurgents were captured during the operation.
Most of Canada's 2,500 troops are based in Kandahar city as well as the volatile Zhari and Panjwaii districts of Kandahar province.
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NATO aircraft crashes in E. Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-07 18:18:22
KABUL, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- An aircraft belonging to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) crashed Thursday in eastern Afghan province of Paktika, an ISAF statement released here said.
"The aircraft, a Shadow reconnaissance vehicle, was unarmed and the wreckage has been located," the statement said.
"It landed on open ground without making contact with people or property," it said, "The cause of the crash is under investigation."
Neither Taliban nor independent sources were available to make comment.
The eastern frontier Afghan provinces adjoining Pakistan have witnessed the surge of Taliban attacks on international and Afghan troops during past weeks when the anti-government militants continue to demonstrate their strength through suicide and roadside bombings.
Editor: Pliny Han
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Offensive against Taliban under way
GLORIA GALLOWAY - Globe and Mail Update August 8, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Bomb-making supplies, guns, narcotics and money — but no Taliban — were seized by Canadian troops during the first days of what is being called a major offensive into the northwestern part Afghanistan's dangerous Kandahar province.
The Canadian soldiers, their NATO allies based in Kandahar, Afghan National Security Forces, and British troops from Helmand province moved into Band-E-Timour and the Maywand district northwest of Kandahar city on Sunday.
The offensive is taking large number of coalition forces in Kandahar further from their base than they normally venture and marks one of the rare times they have conducted a joint operation with the British next door.
The assault - dubbed Roob Unyip Janubi, or Southern Beast in the native Pashto — is aimed at shutting down the sites where the Taliban make the explosive devices that are responsible for the deaths of many of the Canadian soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan.
"To date we have located a number of sizeable cashes of insurgent weapons IED-making supplies, narcotics and money, The loss of these supplies in anticipated to significantly reduce insurgent capabilities in both Kandahar and Helmand provinces," Capt. Chris Quinlan told reporters during a brief press conference Friday at the Kandahar Air Field.
The Bandi-Timour region is not the most volatile region of the province. But it was described by the military today as a being a feeder hub used by the Taliban to funnel supplies and money into other areas of Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand.
The coalition forces, who pinpointed specific targets for assault based on prior intelligence, found components for making improvised explosive devices, drugs and other weapons as well as information they can use for future operations.
No members of the Taliban were captured, said Capt. Quinlan. But, given what they left behind, it appears that the insurgents were surprised by the attack and fled quickly. The assault is expected to continue for several days.
When asked what makes this raid different to other NATO operations in Kandahar, Capt. Quinlan said: "We are reaching father with more forces than we have up till now and we are integrating more partners more effectively."
The NATO forces had not planned to make news of the assault public until next week but Brigadier-General Denis Thompson, the Commander of Task Force Kandahar, spoke to British reporters about the operation on Thursday, bringing an end to the embargo.
The assault comes after an acknowledgment by Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, General Walter Natynczyk, that the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse.
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Taliban kill three 'spies' in Pakistan tribal zone: officials
Fri Aug 8, 2:52 AM ET
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Taliban militants beheaded two menand shot dead a third in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan after accusing them of spying on the rebels, officials and witnesses said Friday.
The bodies of three men were found dumped by a road at Kayrala village in the troubled Bajaur tribal district with notes saying "these people were spying on Taliban movement fighters," a local government official told AFP.
Witnesses said that two had their heads severed and the third was killed by a gunshot.
Militants have killed several tribesmen and Afghan refugees in the mountainous, semi-autonomous tribal region after accusing them of spying.
Most ohave been accused of spying for US forces across the border in Afghanistan, but the militants did not say whom the latest victims were allegedly working for.
Officials on Thursday said that fierce battles killed 10 troops and 25 militants in Bajaur, a known haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Pakistan is under mounting international pressure to crack down on the militants.
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Six Canadians wounded in Afghanistan
Graham Thomson, Canwest News Service Friday, August 08, 2008
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan - Six Canadian soldiers were wounded yesterday after being ambushed by insurgents in what is arguably the most dangerous area in Afghanistan.
The soldiers were conducting a patrol shortly after dawn in the troubled Zhari district of Kandahar province when their armoured vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. The soldiers quickly got out of the vehicle, but found themselves under attack once again, this time from insurgents with automatic weapons.
Other soldiers rushed to their aid as artillery at a Canadian forward base opened fire with 30 rounds of high explosive shells to help drive back the insurgents.
The wounded Canadians were flown by helicopter to a multinational hospital in the main coalition base at Kandahar Airfield, where they were treated. Their injuries were not considered serious and all were released, according to military officials who do not provide the names of wounded soldiers or the nature of their injuries as a matter of course.
"We cannot comment further on this incident because it occurred during an ongoing operation," said navy Lieut. Al Blondin, a spokesman for Canada's Task Force Afghanis-tan.
"However, we can say that, in spite of incidents such as this one, we have been overcoming opposition successfully and are continuing to push forward."
The latest round of violence happened immediately before Canadian and Afghan officials met to celebrate the opening of a new joint co-operation centre in Zhari district. The centre -- adjacent to bases for the Afghan police, the Afghan army and coalition forces -- is designed to allow all three to work more closely together to improve security in the troubled area.
As if reminding everyone of the fragile state of security, the thundering boom of artillery could be heard from howitzers at the nearby Canadian firebase as dignitaries and military officials gathered for the opening ceremonies.
"Without question, we have a lot of work to do," said Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, Canada's top soldier in Kandahar province. "We are going sub-district by sub-district clearing and holding. But as you go, you can commence the process of holding the ground and then building on it."
The centre, officially called the Joint District Co-ordination Centre, actually began operations several months ago, but Afghan leaders wanted an official opening complete with guard of honour, flag raising, and media coverage to boost its profile in the region.
The centre is encouraging Afghans to phone a hot line with tips about insurgent activity.
"The JDCC has a 9-1-1 component to it, and so you have sitting in the same operations room, members of the police, members of the army and members of ISAF (the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force)," Brig.-Gen. Thompson said. "If they see something, they dial that number, report it to the JDCC at this 9-1-1 call centre and from there it's determined who's going to respond. Generally speaking, the first responders are the police, then the Afghan National Army and then ourselves, to make sure they're in the forefront."
Even though the centre is focused on fighting the Taliban, officials say it will branch out to involve Canadians helping with the civilian side of the mission, including development and governance.
Meanwhile, Canadian forces have joined with Afghan and British soldiers in a large operation in the westernmost area of Kandahar province: the Maywand district.
British media are reporting that the ongoing operation has so far resulted in the seizure of 70 kilograms of opium and some weapons.
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Pakistan, Afghanistan Need to Build More Trust, Gilani Says
By Paul Tighe
Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan and Afghanistan need to build more trust in order to improve ties and carry out an effective war on terrorism, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad.
There is an ``urgent need to improve the atmosphere'' between the neighbors, Gilani told Mohammad Anwar Anwarzai, the outgoing Afghan envoy, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan.
Gilani said he had constructive talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai when they met last week at the summit in Sri Lanka of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or Saarc. They agreed to make a new effort to forge a common strategy to improve security and stability, he added.
Pakistan and Afghanistan blame each other for failing to stop al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters crossing the 2,430-kilometer (1,510-mile) border they share. Pakistan last month rejected Afghan accusations its intelligence service was behind recent attacks in Afghanistan and said the government in Kabul was creating an ``artificial crisis'' in their relations.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi last month described as ``utter rubbish'' a report in the New York Times that members of Pakistan's spy agency assisted militant groups in planning the July 7 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.
Border Crossings
Pakistan wants to improve the monitoring of people crossing the border, Gilani told the ambassador. The prime minister said, during his visit to Washington last month, he asked the U.S. to provide devices for locating illegal radio stations on the frontier, APP reported.
Gilani said he agreed with Karzai to convene a meeting of tribal leaders from both sides of the border in the near future, according to APP.
The Afghan government last month suspended meetings covering border controls after its Council of Ministers approved a resolution accusing Pakistani intelligence of interfering in Afghan affairs and being behind a failed attempt to kill Karzai during a military parade in Kabul in April, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported at the time.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry responded by saying the Afghan government should avoid starting a ``blame game.''
Pakistan and Afghanistan held a Grand Jirga of tribal leaders in Kabul a year ago, attended by Karzai and President Pervez Musharraf. The meeting set up a 50-member committee aimed at improving border security.
Talks With Militants
Tensions increased after Gilani's government took office in April and began talks with militant groups in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO said the strategy has led to increased attacks by Taliban and al-Qaeda supporters on Afghan territory.
Gilani formed his government after opposition parties defeated supporters of Musharraf in February's elections. Musharraf, a key ally of the U.S. in the fight against terrorism, deployed more than 100,000 soldiers in Federally Administered Tribal Areas to combat al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Terrorist incidents in eastern Afghanistan were 50 percent higher in April than the same month in 2007, according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Twenty-eight coalition soldiers were killed in June in the deadliest month for the force in Afghanistan since the conflict began there in 2001, the U.S. Defense Department said.
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US hopes pinned on Musharraf
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online August 8, 2008
KARACHI - Since assuming office at the beginning of the year, Pakistan's coalition civilian government has gone to extreme lengths to develop a consensus for the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf, the general who until February had ruled the country after staging a coup in 1999.
The coalition, led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), want Musharraf to be held accountable for last year imposing a state of emergency and sacking the judiciary.
To reassure Washington and secure its continued support, the politicians even tried to clip the wings of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, and sent Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on an unscheduled visit to the United States in an attempt to convince the George W Bush administration that the "war on terror" could be fought without Musharraf.
Washington, however, has other ideas, and Musharraf remains central to them as the point man for smooth and direct coordination between Pakistani and American forces to sort out the Taliban's and al-Qaeda's sanctuaries in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and beyond on the border areas with Afghanistan. These sanctuaries are vital in supporting the Taliban-led insurgency in that country.
Bickering between the PPP and the PML-N has to date prevented them from agreeing on Musharraf's impeachment, but intense negotiations over the past few days are expected to result in a united move to have him removed from office. In this tense situation, Musharraf canceled a trip to Beijing to attend the opening of the Summer Olympic Games on Friday, but then reports emerged that he would attend the ceremony.
Washington will be watching developments with acute interest. Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Musharraf has sided with the US in its "war on terror", and Washington believes he is still the man to deliver.
Musharraf stepped down as chief of the army last November and officially holds few executive powers - these reside in the prime minister's office.
However, Musharraf retains support in the military and in the civilian bureaucracy. Beyond loyalty to the man himself, he is a force to be reckoned with as American economic and military aid worth billions of dollars flows though the president's office.
Washington has gone as far as telling the new army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, and Premier Gilani that its contact is Musharraf, through whom the money flows. Major General Mehmood Ali Durrani, the national security advisor and immediate past Pakistani ambassador to Washington, is second overseer of the aid money and looks after operational matters related to their distribution.
It is these men the Bush administration wants in a renewed effort to once and for all deal with the militancy in NWFP and the tribal areas.
Acting US Central Command commander Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey and Central Intelligence Agency deputy director Stephen Kappes recently visited Pakistan. Contacts familiar with these developments tell Asia Times Online that several approaches to the NWFP were discussed.
One was that "extraordinary measures" might be adopted, under which the president would exercise extraordinary powers embedded in the constitution to abandon all provincial assemblies and instead of holding fresh elections impose a state of emergency in the country, citing militant-led violence in the NWFP.
Another approach would be to use the existing democratic system and somehow install the sub-Pashtun nationalist and secular Awami National Party (ANP), led by Asfandyar Wali Khan, in the government.
First, though, the ANP, which rules the NWFP, would have to be given special powers to deal with the militancy in its province. This would be done through the president's office in Islamabad. The relatively liberal ANP is anti-Taliban and supported the pro-Russian government in Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Much then depends on Musharraf retaining his position, and how the Taliban and al-Qaeda respond to any increased powers that the ANP administration might turn against them.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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Afghanistan a work in progress: ambassador
National Post, Canada Graham Thomson Canwest News Service Thursday, August 07, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan-Calling Afghanistan the most underdeveloped country in which he has ever worked, Canada's ambassador here says Canadians "should be realistic" about how much progress can be achieved before Canada's combat mission in Kandahar province ends in 2011.
"What is hard for Canadians to understand, as it is for the public in the rest of the western countries, is just how big the development task is here," said Arif Lalani, who is packing his bags to leave the country after a 15-month posting in Kabul. "This is an extremely underdeveloped country. It's the most underdeveloped country I have worked in. And it has had 30 years of war."
Lalani's comments in a telephone interview reflect a lowering of expectations by the federal government on what Canada can do to improve the situation in an impoverished country where insurgent-led violence has increased during the past year.
"We have had a tough summer both in terms of Kabul and Kandahar in terms of security incidents," said Lalani, making a reference to almost daily attacks on soldiers and civilians by Taliban fighters whose most spectacular assault involved freeing almost all the prisoners at the Sarpoza prison in Kandahar City in June. The escalating violence has meant more American troops are dying in Afghanistan than Iraq, and insurgents seem to be destroying schools as fast as coalition countries can build them.
However, Lalani -- who has worked as a Canadian diplomat in Jordan, Iraq, Georgia and Azerbaijan -- said the news isn't all bad. He defended Canada's record on development work that includes helping feed countless Afghans, immunizing thousands of children against polio and taking the lead on building a national education system.
"When we have setbacks it's too easy to think that any bad day ruins whole years of work and that's just not true," said Lalani, who credits the work of the NATO-led coalition in general and Canada's help in particular with improving life in Afghanistan since 2003 -- even if the improvements don't always look impressive at first glance.
"When we look five years later at Kabul City or Kandahar City and there are tin stores with a paved road with some basic lighting selling some basic things well into the evening, that actually is a sign of recovery and success. But it may not look like it if we're expecting a higher level of development. I think that's the hard part for people to understand, just how basic it is and how difficult the challenge is to move this community, to get around 30 years of war."
Experts, including several Canadian military officials, have said any long-lasting reconstruction work will take decades. With such a huge task still ahead, Lalani confirmed Canada's development work will carry on after Canadian troops leave under a parliamentary order in 2011.
"Our development program is going to continue, and that means our development work will continue. So, I think we need to look at how that's going to take shape in 2011."
What is not clear is how Canada will deliver that development help in Kandahar province. At this point, it's not even known whether Canadian civil servants who now administer the programs will be pulled out along with the soldiers and sent to another part of the country, or whether they would remain and do their work under the protection of whichever NATO country takes over the combat mission from Canada.
One possibility would see the development work handed over to non-governmental agencies, such as the Aga Khan Foundation, which already does anti-poverty projects with Canadian money in Bamiyan province under the protection of New Zealand troops.
"Development assistance is very dependent on security but it's not dependent just on Canadians providing security," said Lalani. "Canada has projects in the north, in the east, in the west of this country where we're implementing projects where other troops are actually providing the security. So let's not forget that we work throughout the country, not just where we have Canadian soldiers."
No country has yet volunteered to take Canada's combat role in the volatile Kandahar province, which remains the heartland of Taliban support. The United States might be the most obvious candidate, having already promised to send 1,000 troops to help Canadians sometime this year while American politicians talk about sending thousands of troops to Afghanistan next year.
Another possibility suggested by Canadian senators who wrote a report entitled How are we doing in Afghanistan? is that Canada will decide not to pull out of Kandahar as planned because it will have fallen short of its goals.
The alternative, though, seems to be to shrink the goals, not extend the mission.
Canada has adopted new, moderate priorities for progress which replaced its once lofty ambition of undermining the Taliban as an effective fighting force and substantially cutting the opium trade.
Canada is now focused on the delivery of humanitarian assistance, enhancing border security with Pakistan and promoting law and order.
"Canadians should be realistic about what we're doing," said Lalani, "but they should be proud of what Canada is doing here."
Lalani will be leaving Afghanistan within days but his exact departure date is a secret for security reasons. His replacement has not yet been announced.
(EDMONTON JOURNAL)
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Child rape cases in Afghanistan shock
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Rapes of boys and girls and other forms of violence against children go mostly unpunished in war-torn Afghanistan, says a U.N. official.
"In many cases of violence against children, there is a sense of impunity. People continue to violate children's rights without any sense of feeling that they will be held accountable," says Radhika Coomaraswamy, U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, CNN reported.
She said she plans to release a report in October, following up on her trip to Afghanistan to set up a monitoring and reporting system on the violations committed against children.
Coomaraswamy said war and violence have destroyed Afghanistan's administrative infrastructure, making it difficult for the government to act alone.
An official with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan told CNN women and young girls, in particular, are the least protected people in Afghanistan.
"With criminals and warlords in the political scene, we cannot expect justice to be served," said the official, who goes by the name of Shaima.
She said family members of a 12-year-old girl who was gang raped vowed to commit suicide if justice is not served.
Coomaraswamy says sexual violence against young boys includes forcing boys to dress in female attire, dance and perform sexual acts, the report said.
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Battle lines move from Kashmir to Kabul
By M K Bhadrakumar – Asia Times (08.08.08)
There is wide acclaim today among Indian strategic analysts and diplomatic editors that New Delhi has scored a major diplomatic victory in Afghanistan and that its "influence" in Kabul has "peaked". This victory has come on the back of Washington's strategic pro-India tilt and, in the period since end-2001 to date, India's earmarking of a staggering US$1.2 billion as assistance for Afghan "reconstruction".
Some Indian cheerleaders expound the thesis that it is the hallmark of an aspiring great power to "first learn to become a net provider of regional security" - and Delhi must therefore step in and lend a hand in fixing the Afghan problem. Others visualize Afghanistan providing a "unique opportunity" to be of help to the United States, and that Delhi will eventually benefit from the payback by a grateful superpower that is sure to come.
Yet another Indian viewpoint is that it simply pays to rattle Islamabad by creating space for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. An invidious Indian argument is that Delhi should use Afghan soil to retaliate against Islamabad's support of Kashmiri militants.
In diplomacy, maybe, it pays to sidestep historical memory. Archives may contain only chronicles of wasted time. Very few Indian strategic analysts who at present hold forth on Afghanistan seem to be even remotely aware of how, like Karzai, the then head of state in Kabul, Dr Mohammad Najibullah, was a frequent visitor to Delhi in the late 1980s.
That, too, was a twilight zone in the 30-year-old Afghan war when the conflict, like today's, uneasily lingered in the shade. Fortunately for Delhi, though, the slow-rolling coup that worked its way through the Afghan labyrinth for months before culminating in the morning of April 16, 1992, with Najib's ouster, didn't come entirely as surprise. Indian diplomats soon began diligently seeking out the Afghan mujahideen in the dangerous Hindu Kush mountains, to explain to those new masters the cold rationale of India's exceedingly warm friendship with Najib.
They explained patiently that it was after all a strictly state-to-state, government-to-government relationship with Najib, shorn of ideology or religion or commitments. The Northern Alliance's Ahmad Shah Massoud still looked away as elements in his militia systematically ransacked the Indian Embassy, forcing its diplomats to flee Kabul.
Yet, within no time, by the mid-1990s, Massoud had become India's key Afghan ally - or, as much as he could be anyone's ally. Certainly, it remains a tantalizing proposition whether with all the Indian help Taliban rule could have been overthrown but for al-Qaeda's historic decision to attack New York and Washington in September 2001.
Historically, there has never been a dearth of justification for Indian involvement in Afghanistan. At the time of the Afghan jihad in the 1980s against the Soviets, Indian policy maintained that secular India had everything to lose with the advent of Islamism in the region - encouraged as a factor of Cold War geopolitics by the US - and that Najib provided a bulwark against the Islamist mujahideen based in Peshawar in Pakistan. But Delhi swiftly switched tack after the mujahideen takeover in 1992.
It found itself networking instead with a mujahideen group that was famously rooted in political Islam - the Jamiat-i-Islami, belonging to the Afghan-based Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen, which had strong links with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Following the appearance of the Taliban in the mid-1990s, India confidently took the side of the Northern Alliance. In political terms, this phase signified a wholesale embrace of Islamists, as the Northern Alliance comprised a variety of radical Islamist groups (including die-hard mujahideen groups like the Ittihad-i-Islami, which followed the Wahhabi ideology and enjoyed generous funding during the Afghan jihad from wealthy Saudi benefactors, including from Osama bin Laden).
The changed rationale was that the Taliban represented the dark forces of "obscurantism" and "extremism", which posed a threat to regional security and stability. However, since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, Delhi incrementally distanced itself from the Northern Alliance. Instead, Delhi began supporting the US-backed power setup in Kabul. The pro-US policy was rationalized in terms of the upcoming struggle against "terrorism" proclaimed by US President George W Bush.
No one knows how much of its surplus capital Delhi ended up spending on various Afghan groups through the three decades - and, more important, what durable dividend it brought for India. Unfortunately, the Indian political system doesn't insist on stocktaking. The 59-year-old Indian parliament is yet to evolve a system of in-camera hearings, which is a redeeming feature of most serious democracies in the world, including neighboring Iran.
All through the painful twists and turns, Indian policy towards Afghanistan was steeped in pragmatism and remained largely Pakistan-centric. But things seem to be changing. The horizons appear to have vastly expanded. According to Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid, Kabul is "replacing Kashmir as the main area of antagonism" between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani security establishment has convinced itself that Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies are engaged in undermining Pakistan's security. American analysts say Afghanistan has explicitly become a theater of Pakistan-India adversarial relations.
But there is a much larger dimension. The Pakistani establishment is also sizing up the new geopolitical reality - the unprecedented pro-India tilt in the US's regional policy. It is having a hard time coping with the trilateral consensus between Kabul, Delhi and Washington, which pillories Islamabad as the "primary and near-exclusive trouble maker" in the region. The Pakistani establishment cannot accept that while Islamabad remains a key partner for Washington in the "war on terror", it is Delhi that is on the way to becoming a stakeholder in US global strategies.
Indeed, the National Defense Strategy document released by the Pentagon in Washington on July 31 confirms the worst Pakistani suspicions. It underscores, "We [the US] look to India to assume greater responsibility as a stakeholder in the international system, commensurate with its growing economic, military and soft power." India is the only country hailed in this fashion in the entire 29-page document.
The Pentagon seems to have overlooked how such a vehement US national defense strategy pronouncement citing India as a pivotal country would go down with the Pakistani generals. To be sure, Delhi finds the US doctrine to be immensely attractive. This is how the Indian elite always wanted the US to view India. But the Pakistani perspective sees the emerging regional equations as a dangerous slide toward Indian military superiority and regional "hegemony". How does the Pakistani military, weaned on adversarial feelings towards India, countenance such a challenge?
First, Pakistan will assert its legitimate interests in Afghanistan, no matter what it takes. Make no mistake about it. The Pakistani generals know what transpired when American and British top brass met in Britain last month to exchange notes on Afghanistan. The conclave assessed there were huge problems with the Karzai regime's performance and the war might last for another 30 years, which is a hopeless scenario, as "war fatigue" is setting in among North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies and the tide of public opinion is turning against the war. But that isn't all.
From the Pakistani perspective, whereas in the past India essentially developed its own line toward Kabul, it is today acting in concert with the US. Meanwhile, India is also working towards establishing formal ties with NATO. For the first time, the Pentagon invited India to take part in the two-week Red Flag air exercise, which is currently underway in Nevada. And in September, NATO will deploy in southern Afghanistan one of its seven ultra-sophisticated Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, capable of peering deep inside Pakistan.
On the eve of the US-India military exercises in Nevada, which also includes NATO participation, the commander-in-chief of Russia's air force, General Alexander Zelin, was quoted as saying that Russia's strategic bombers may soon start patrolling the Indian Ocean. A prominent strategic analyst at the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of World Economy and International Relations Center for International Security in Moscow, Vladimir Yevseyev, commented that Zelin's statement was intended to "warn" India, as the US has "come to regard the Indian Ocean as a zone of its priority interests".
In other words, though Indian rhetoric on Afghanistan is carefully couched in terms of countering terrorism, Pakistan doesn't see it that way. Instead, it views it in much larger terms as an Indian thrust, supported by the US, as the pre-eminent regional power in South Asia. In recent weeks, Pakistani military raised the ante along the Line of Control bordering the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The resurgence of tensions seems a calibrated move. Islamabad is sending some signals.
Nasim Zehra, a relatively moderate, sensible voice in the Pakistani strategic community, wrote recently, "It is time for Pakistan to categorically state: enough of Pakistan bashing, enough of vacuous Kantian moralizing in a Hobbesian world, enough of the do-more mantra and enough of partisan analysis, enough of selective perceptions, enough of double standards ... Pakistan will play 'as clean as the world around it'. Take it or leave it. There is no 'going it alone' for any of Pakistan's neighbors.
"No matter what anyone's GDP [gross domestic product] may be or their nuclear arsenal, we are in this mess together ... That is the message of the spreading militancy ... The region will unravel if the governments in the area and those involved outsiders like Washington do not make it a common cause to jointly work to address the causes of growing militancy. The answer lies in a regional solution."
The message is simple: If Pakistan goes down, it will take India down with it. There is no such thing as absolute security.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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Hu meets president of Afghanistan, vowing further partnership
Xinhua, China www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-08 09:11:57
BEIJING-Chinese President Hu Jintao said here on Friday that China is willing to work together with Afghanistan to further their partnership of all-round cooperation.
"China and Afghanistan enjoy a traditional friendship and sound relations," Hu said during a meeting with President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai.
He said the Chinese side is willing to work together with Afghanistan to actively implement the Good-neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation and push forward the partnership of all-round cooperation.
The Chinese side respects the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, respects its own choice of development path and supports Afghanistan's efforts to safeguard national security and stability, Hu said.
China attaches great importance to, and takes an active part, in Afghanistan's reconstruction, he said. "We're willing to support within our capability."
Karzai expressed thanks for China's assistance to its reconstruction, saying that Afghanistan would enjoy a better future thanks to the support from the international society, including China.
Karzai is here to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games on Friday night and other activities.
During the meeting, Hu expressed appreciation for Afghanistan's support for the Beijing Olympics, and the "profound friendship" that President Karzai, the Afghan government and people have offered to the Chinese people after the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan of Sichuan Province.
The quake was one "causing the most serious damages, affecting the most extensive areas and posing the greatest difficulty in disaster relief" since the founding of New China, said the Chinese president.
China's relief efforts have been shifted to post-quake reconstruction, Hu told Karzai.
"Despite the difficulties, China has the confidence to achieve an overall victory in earthquake relief and help the people in the quake-hit areas to rebuild their beautiful homes at an early date with the assistance of the international community," Hu said.
In response, Karzai said he felt honored to lead a delegation to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, adding the Olympic preparations demonstrate China's tremendous capability.
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Provincial Chief Judge Killed in Eastern Afghanistan
By VOA News 07 August 2008
Suspected Taliban militants have shot and killed a chief judge in eastern Afghanistan.
The governor of Khost province, Arsala Jamal, told VOA News Afghan Service Thursday provincial chief judge Sher Gul was killed near the provincial capital. Officials say Gul is one of a series of judges killed by militants in recent weeks.
The Afghan Interior Ministry says police clashed with Taliban militants in the Zhari district of southern Kandahar province today, killing eight militants and wounding seven others. And in western Badghis province, police say militants attacked a NATO supply convoy. Police guarding the convoy retaliated, killing six militants.
In other violence, Afghan officials said at least seven policemen were killed Wednesday when militants attacked their post near Laskar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province.
Also Thursday, Afghanistan's spy service says it has freed a businessman with German-Afghan citizenship who was kidnapped in Kabul almost two weeks ago. The service's deputy director, Abdullah Laghmani, says three suspected kidnappers were also arrested.
Separately, NATO says it has deployed a large number of French troops to southern Uruzgan province to help train Afghan forces.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said Wednesday one of its soldiers died from injuries sustained during a roadside bomb attack in western Afghanistan on Monday.
More than 500 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, when the U.S. military helped oust the Taliban-led government.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
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US release Islamic scholar after protests
Written by www.quqnoos.com Thursday, 07 August 2008
Thousands hit streets to protest arrest of Islamic council member
(PAN) US-led forces have released a religious scholar and the Nangarhar Ulema Council chief one day after thousands of people marched through the streets in protest at the arrests, an official said.
Coalition troops detained Ulema Council chief Maulvi Allah Muhammad along with two other scholars from the Ghanikhel district three days ago.
Muhammad is also local prayer leader.
On Wednesday, a large number of residents staged an angry demonstration against the arrest by coalition troops and sought the immediate release of the mosque leader.
Three of the detainees were freed two days ago.
Colonel Mandozai, a tribal elder from the district, said the arrested men accompanied by Governor Gul Agha Sherzai and other officials, reached their homes late Wednesday night.
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