 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
ANALYSIS-Afghan troop boost will differ from Iraq surge
By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - When is a surge not a surge? When it involves sending U.S. troops to Afghanistan, not Iraq.
NATO kills Taliban commander in targeted operation
Associated Press December 9, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO and Afghan forces killed a Taliban commander during a targeted operation just south of Kabul in a province militant fighters have poured into this year, the NATO-led force said Tuesday.
AP Interview: Marines will shift to Afghanistan
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer – Mon Dec 8, 6:52 pm ET
WASHINGTON – There is a growing consensus among defense leaders to send a substantial contingent of Marines to Afghanistan, probably beginning next spring, while dramatically reducing their presence
US calls attacks on Pakistan supply lines 'insignificant'
Jim Mannion – Tue Dec 9, 1:40 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States Monday downplayed the significance of back-to-back attacks on NATO military depots in Pakistan but admitted concern about the implications for a US military buildup in Afghanistan.
How the Taliban Hopes to Choke U.S. Afghanistan Mission
By Mark Thompson time.com Washington Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2008
Perhaps the Taliban are observing the old military axiom that amateurs study tactics, while professionals study logistics. In a pair of attacks over the weekend in northwest Pakistan, militants destroyed more than 150 Humvees
Former Pakistani Official Denies Links to Lashkar
Washington Post By Candace Rondeaux Tuesday, December 9, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A former high-ranking Pakistani intelligence official denied allegations Monday that he had given advice and support to a Pakistani militant group linked to the attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai late last month.
Pakistan Militants On Move To Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 8, 2008 - (CBS) Pakistan’s banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, suspected to have launched last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, has ordered its militant volunteers to leave Pakistan’s territory and take refuge in Afghanistan, senior security officials in Pakistan and the Middle East have revealed to CBS News.
EU Urged To Speed Up Afghan Police Mission Ahead Of Polls
BRUSSELS (AFP)--Senior Afghan and E.U. officials urged European Union nations Tuesday to rapidly send long-promised trainers to help bolster strife-torn Afghanistan's police force ahead of elections next year.
Kandahar base braces for wave of U.S. troops
Massive new construction program under way at sprawling facility in order to accommodate expected doubling of population
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail December 9, 2008 at 5:11 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The coming transformation of the war in Kandahar is summarized in a cartoon posted inside Canada's military headquarters. It depicts a huge wave crashing toward a tiny
NATO says no Afghan winter lull in fight with Taliban
08 Dec 2008 17:35:48 GMT By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Dec 8 (Reuters) - NATO forces said on Monday they would not let up the fight against Taliban insurgents during the Afghan winter and coordinated operations with the Pakistani army would likely hamper the militants' traditional rest from combat.
HONEST AFGHANS PAY WHILE KARZAI’S CROOKS GO FREE
By Arthur Kent, skyreporter.com
KABUL Dec. 8, 2008 - The Traffic Police impound lot near Sar Sabsi Square, on the north side of Kabul, is not on the rounds of foreign dignitaries, diplomats and generals. Little wonder.
Nato reviews Afghan supply route
By Jonathan Marcus Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Nato and US military commanders are exploring options for supplies into Afghanistan after recent attacks on logistical depots in Pakistan.
Top Taliban commander rejects negotiations with Afghan government
Monday, December 8, 2008 | 9:12 AM ET CBC News
The Taliban's second-highest ranking commander is playing down reports of proposed negotiations between members of his group and the Afghan government.
9 militants arrested in E Afghanistan
Xinhua www.chinaview.cn 2008-12-09
KABUL - Afghan National Police (ANP) and the U.S.-led Coalition forces detained nine suspected militants during a combined operation, said a Coalition statement released here on Tuesday.
Iran: Afghan workers send $500 mln home annually, says UN report
New York, 8 Dec. (AKI) - Afghans working in Iran send home some 500 million dollars each year, or around 6 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product. That is the finding of a new study commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Labour Organization.
Britain targets phony Afghan asylum seekers
AP via Yahoo! News
Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print 20 mins agoLONDON – Britain's Home Office says asylum seekers who say they are from Afghanistan will undergo tough interviews to check whether their claims are genuine.
Back to Top
ANALYSIS-Afghan troop boost will differ from Iraq surge
By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - When is a surge not a surge? When it involves sending U.S. troops to Afghanistan, not Iraq.
Just as the United States sent more forces to Iraq to quell rampant violence, many U.S. politicians led by President-elect Barack Obama want to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight a growing insurgency.
But while politicians talk of another surge -- the term that became shorthand for the extra troops and new strategy deployed in Iraq in 2007 -- military officers avoid the word because they view the two wars differently.
The Iraq surge was billed as a temporary boost to get a grip on sectarian attacks but U.S. commanders say higher troop levels in Afghanistan are needed probably for years to defeat the Taliban and other insurgents.
"It's not necessarily a surge as much as it is a reinforcement," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Michael Tucker, deputy chief of staff for operations for NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
For years, U.S. commanders have described Afghanistan as an "economy of force" effort -- meaning they do not have enough troops to do everything they want.
There are some 65,000 foreign troops -- including 31,000 from the United States -- in Afghanistan, compared to around 150,000 in Iraq. Yet Afghanistan is larger and more populous, with 32 million people against Iraq's 28 million.
Afghanistan's rugged terrain and limited infrastructure present a bigger challenge than Iraq, a far more developed country where troops can move around on modern highways and people are more concentrated in urban centers.
"Due to the... tyranny of the terrain over here, some of our troops operate up at 10,000 feet (3,048 metres), all the way to the desert expanses," Tucker recently told reporters at the Pentagon by video link from Afghanistan.
"There's not a lot of highway network to move on."
Taliban militants and other insurgents have sanctuaries across the Pakistani border and have recently attacked military supplies headed for Afghanistan inside Pakistan.
POLITICALLY DIFFICULT
Because Pakistan is a key U.S. ally with a shaky government, it is politically difficult to pursue insurgents across the border.
Another challenge is the complexity of the NATO force, under whose auspices most foreign troops in Afghanistan serve.
Although led by a U.S. general, the force involves more than 40 nations, with their own views on how the war should be fought and limits on how their troops can be used.
An increase of U.S. forces in Afghanistan will likely occur more gradually than in Iraq, where the surge of some 30,000 troops built up over about six months.
More than 20,000 extra U.S. troops, comprising combat forces, an aviation brigade and support units, are expected to arrive over the next 12 to 18 months, Pentagon officials say.
Proportionally, this increase would be much larger than the Iraq surge.
Despite the differences, analysts also see some important similarities with Iraq.
John Nagl, a retired U.S. officer who co-wrote the Army's counter-insurgency manual, said that the extra troops could help provide basic security in Afghanistan, just as they did in Iraq, so political and economic progress could be made.
"You have to protect the population first and that's something we haven't had enough boots on the ground to be able to do in Afghanistan," Nagl said.
But Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations said the Iraq surge was more about giving Sunni Muslim former insurgents, disillusioned with al Qaeda, the confidence to switch sides and fight with U.S. and Iraqi government forces.
Both U.S. and Afghan officials want to reach out to "reconcilable" elements of the Afghan insurgency but analysts see little sign that large numbers of warlords or tribal leaders are on the verge of switching sides.
Biddle said U.S. and NATO commanders may need to keep some extra troops in reserve to be deployed to put pressure on insurgent groups to change allegiances.
"The challenge for us is: How do we assemble a set of incentives that will take some pretty hard-bitten characters and persuade them to negotiate a peace?" he said.
One element of the Iraq surge that experts say needs to be duplicated is an increase in civilian efforts that accompanied the military deployment.
In Iraq, those efforts focused on encouraging political reconciliation. In Afghanistan, they are likely to concentrate on battling corruption and the opium trade and boosting economic development. (Editing by Alan Elsner)
Back to Top
Back to Top
NATO kills Taliban commander in targeted operation
Associated Press December 9, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO and Afghan forces killed a Taliban commander during a targeted operation just south of Kabul in a province militant fighters have poured into this year, the NATO-led force said Tuesday.
The commander, Mohammad Bobi, had facilitated suicide bombings and had a history of torturing and kidnapping Afghan civilians in the province of Logar, NATO said.
Bobi was given the option of surrendering, but he instead attacked the combined force and was killed during an overnight raid, NATO said. His death was confirmed Tuesday.
Logar province, which is directly south of Kabul province, has seen an influx of Taliban militants this year. Residents there say the government has little or no control in the province outside the provincial capital.
Between 3,000 and 3,500 additional U.S. troops scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan in January will be sent to Logar and Wardak provinces, two regions adjoining Kabul that have seen an influx of militant fighters over the last year.
U.S. commanders say the troops will aggressively attack militants in those regions and that they expect violence there to spike over the coming months as the number of clashes increases.
The main highways that run through Wardak and Logar are extremely dangerous. Convoys of supply trucks are regularly attacked and militants set up temporary checkpoints in search of government employees and foreigners to kidnap or kill.
Back to Top
Back to Top
AP Interview: Marines will shift to Afghanistan
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer – Mon Dec 8, 6:52 pm ET
WASHINGTON – There is a growing consensus among defense leaders to send a substantial contingent of Marines to Afghanistan, probably beginning next spring, while dramatically reducing their presence in western Iraq, the top Marine general told The Associated Press on Monday.
Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, said in an interview that Marine units tentatively scheduled to go to Iraq next spring are already incorporating some training for Afghanistan into their preparations.
He said he has had discussions with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and believes the Pentagon chief "would not object to the idea of a fairly strategic shift of focus of Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan."
"I don't want to put words in his mouth," said Conway, who has made no secret of his belief that Marines could be put to better use fighting in Afghanistan than their current peacekeeping, nation-building mission in Iraq. Gates understands, he said, "my public stance on the fact that we can be better used elsewhere. And he certainly hasn't told me to pipe down. So I like to think he understands the logic of it."
At the same time, Conway said that when the 22,000 Marines in Iraq's Anbar province leave, he believes they should all go, and not leave training teams behind.
More than a year ago, when early discussions of sending more Marines to Afghanistan became public, Gates signaled opposition to the idea, preferring to maintain the concentration on Iraq.
At that time, Conway said that Gates and others believed the timing wasn't right to shift the Marines out of Anbar province.
On Monday, however, Conway took a decidedly different tone.
"I just see that people have, over time, understood we don't want to take over Afghanistan, such as was rumored when we first started talking about a shift of forces," Conway said. Instead, he said officials now realize that the Marines are an expeditionary fighting force that is better suited to the Afghanistan battle.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell also signaled a more positive reaction from Gates.
"I think the secretary understands the Marine's desire to be in the fight. And there certainly is more of a fight these days in Afghanistan than in Anbar," said Morrell. "But, as for the suggestion of the Marines pulling up stakes from Anbar and setting up camp in Afghanistan, there has been no such formal request made."
Morrell said that when a request to move specific units comes across Gates' desk, the secretary will consult commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to determine the right course of action.
In an illustration of the growing challenge for the U.S. in Afghanistan, an international think tank estimated in a report released Monday that the Taliban has a "permanent presence" in nearly three-quarters of the country. The International Council on Security and Development said the Taliban presence has grown from 54 percent of Afghanistan a year ago to 72 percent today.
The report described the Taliban as "the de facto governing power" in some towns and villages in southern Afghanistan, and it said the militant group has managed to advance into Afghanistan's western and northwestern provinces, as well as some areas north of Kabul, the capital.
Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, has said he needs up to 20,000 additional troops, including four combat brigades and thousands of support troops.
Other military leaders have cautioned, however, that they first need to build the infrastructure to accommodate the troops — including housing and helicopter pads.
Conway countered that the Marines could move in far more quickly because they don't need to wait for such logistical improvements.
"We're prepared to live austere for a time in order to take the fight to the enemy and build our infrastructure around us on deck," said Conway. "We have done that before, we can do it again."
Marine units generally enter combat with whatever resources they need, including their own combat aviation units and helicopters that would enable them to move through the mountainous terrain.
In particular, Conway said that there are serious problems in southern Afghanistan that the Marines can address. Insurgents there, he said, have lines into Pakistan, much like the Sunni Arab insurgents in Iraq's western Anbar province had remote passages from Syria, to move fighters and finances.
Gates has not yet approved additional forces for Afghanistan, but it's expected he may do that fairly soon. After that, military leaders will decide which units will go.
Conway said several Marine units will be moving into Iraq in January and February, and it is too late to redirect them to Afghanistan. Instead, he said another large turnover of units in Anbar around April could be shifted to Afghanistan if they are notified soon.
To plan for that possibility, Marines training at Twentynine Palms, Calif., are preparing for battle in both countries.
Asked about the expected cut in U.S. forces in Iraq, Conway acknowledged there's a running joke in the military that his Marines want to leave Iraq because there's not enough action there. Peacekeeping and nation-building — roles that troops are playing to a larger degree in Iraq now — are "not our forte," Conway said.
___
Associated Press Military Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
US calls attacks on Pakistan supply lines 'insignificant'
Jim Mannion – Tue Dec 9, 1:40 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States Monday downplayed the significance of back-to-back attacks on NATO military depots in Pakistan but admitted concern about the implications for a US military buildup in Afghanistan.
Armed militants torched nearly 100 vehicles, including jeeps and supply trucks, early Monday in the second attack in as many days on container terminals along the main overland supply route into Afghanistan.
A day earlier about 250 assailants took over two other terminals, overpowered guards and set some 200 vehicles on fire in the biggest attack of its kind.
"The overall impact on our logistical efforts to resupply US forces, NATO forces, ISAF (International Security Assistance) Forces as well as Afghan forces has been small and has had an overall insignificant impact to date," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
"That said, we constantly are reviewing and adjusting our security procedures based on our own assessments of the environment," he told reporters. "We are looking at ways to mitigate the effect of these attacks."
The attacks underscored the vulnerability of US military supply lines through Pakistan at a time when the US military is gearing up for a major buildup in Afghanistan.
Beginning early next year, the United States is expected to nearly double the size of its 32,000-strong force in Afghanistan, which will mean a surge in heavy equipment and more fuel and other supplies to sustain the enlarged force.
"Right now it hasn't caused a crisis, it hasn't caused a problem with resupply," said a military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But are we watching it? Oh, yes, we are."
As much as 80 percent of US military supplies to Afghanistan -- from fuel to heavy equipment -- go through Pakistan, much of it through a single road that threads through the Khyber Pass linking the two countries.
"That's the best opening through the Hindu Kush, roadwise, to get stuff in between Afghanistan and Pakistan," the official said.
There are other overland routes from Pakistan but the roads are worse and they also go through territory infested with armed insurgent groups, he said.
A northern route into the country through Uzbekistan has been closed since late 2005 when the US military was evicted from Karshi-Khanabad.
The former Soviet air base had served as a crucial US logistics hub during the US military buildup that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The head of the US Central Command, Admiral William Fallon, traveled to Tashkent in January to revive contacts with the regime but there has been no sign of a thaw and deep differences persist over Uzbekistan's human rights record.
"We're looking at alternatives," the military official said. "There are various countries in the region. The Azerbaijanis have said we could try to get stuff through that way."
That would involve shipping supplies across the Caspian from Baku to Turkmenistan, which has begun to open to the outside world since the death in 2006 of its authoritarian leader, Suparmurat Niyazov.
Afghanistan and Turkmenistan signed agreements in April to build a natural gas pipeline through western Afghanistan to Pakistan and to extend a rail line into Afghanistan. But those projects will not begin before 2010.
Meanwhile, the US military must rely on the Pakistani military to deal with the near-term security problems for shipments moving overland through the Khyber Pass.
The Pakistani military recently sent two additional battalions to the region to protect convoys on roads that have come under insurgent attack, Major General Michael Tucker, the deputy chief of staff for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told reporters Friday.
The latest attacks, however, targeted staging areas off the road where trucks had assembled.
Back to Top
Back to Top
How the Taliban Hopes to Choke U.S. Afghanistan Mission
By Mark Thompson time.com Washington Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2008
Perhaps the Taliban are observing the old military axiom that amateurs study tactics, while professionals study logistics. In a pair of attacks over the weekend in northwest Pakistan, militants destroyed more than 150 Humvees and other vehicles bound for U.S. troops and allies fighting in Afghanistan — the third attack on NATO supply lines inside a month. Those attacks have highlighted an ongoing vulnerability along the overland routes through mountain passes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier that are used to transport more than 75% of the supplies sent by the U.S. to its 32,000 troops in Afghanistan. So, as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to send more troops to join the fight in Afghanistan, Pentagon planners are scrambling to figure out how to keep those already there — and the anticipated reinforcements — supplied with food, fuel, bullets and everything else a modern army needs.
"Without adequate sustainment, the operational deployment cannot maintain constant pressure on the enemy," Lieutenant Christopher Manganaro, a young U.S. officer in Afghanistan has written in the professional journal Army Logistics. And the Pentagon can't do it all with airplanes. "Few airfields in Afghanistan can support aircraft larger than a C-130," Manganaro added, "limiting the number of high-value items that U.S. Army units can transport by air." (See pictures of NATO troops in Afghanistan.)
There is no sharper contrast between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than their supply routes. In Iraq, the U.S. military basically owns the skies and roads that run from Kuwait into Iraq, through which nearly all supplies flow. But that's hardly the case in Pakistan, where most goods arrive at the Indian Ocean port of Karachi and then are shipped over land, often to Peshawar. Then they're funneled through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, 40 miles away. Pakistan is plagued with hit-and-run militancy even in some of its major cities, and everything west of Peshawar is pretty much enemy territory.
Militants hijacked a convoy of more than a dozen vehicles nearly a month ago, and last week 22 trucks were destroyed by fire at a truck stop. U.S. military officials downplay the impact of recent attacks, noting that about 350 supply vehicles a day travel the route. Still, they're nervous enough to have begun looking for alternatives.
That's because the choke-point in the Khyber Pass is an attractive target for the enemy. Marine General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was asked in September how much trouble his forces in Afghanistan would be in if Islamabad shut down supply lines through Pakistan. "It would be challenging to sustain our presence," he answered. "It is very difficult then to get to this landlocked nation in a way that would provide the quantity of resources that we need, particularly as we see ourselves growing." Bearing in mind projected future deployments, the U.S. will need to deliver up to 70,000 shipping containers (15% of them refrigerated) a year to its troops in Afghanistan. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable northwest passage.)
The U.S. has recently tested alternate supply lines, and "we're working our way through to understand rail, pipelines, customs, what would it take, are they there in a sufficient scale to allow us to do this? And so we're working this one pretty hard," Cartwright added. The impact of a shutdown triggered by Taliban attacks would have the same result.
And the logistical needs that will accompany the doubling of the U.S. troop contingent over the next year or so makes securing supply lines even more urgent. "The larger the force, the greater the need" for security, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a congressional panel September 23. But the challenges of Afghanistan's rugged terrain has long been a key weapon for locals eager to keep foreigners at bay. The Afghans drove the British out through the Khyber Pass more than a century ago, killing more than 16,000. And they forced out the Soviet Union in 1989, following a 10-year occupation that cost the Red Army 15,000 men.
"The [latest] strike is going to embolden those who see the loss of 150 vehicles as a pretty big blow," says Anthony Zinni, a former Marine general who once headed U.S. Central Command, which includes Afghanistan. "It's going to inspire more bad people."
Stephen Biddle, a military expert with the Council on Foreign Relations who recently returned from Afghanistan, believes the militants' goal is to slowly bleed U.S. troops. But a complete shutdown of the Pakistani routes by the insurgents would force the Pakistan military to act more forcefully than it has until now.
"[The Pakistan-based militants] don't want to do anything that would bring the government down on them like a ton of bricks," Biddle surmises. "But it's entirely plausible they could ramp the violence up slowly in an attempt to squeeze the U.S. in Afghanistan."
The alternative supply routes being investigated by the U.S. military run through the Caucasus and the former Soviet Stans of Central Asia. "The route studies exist for alternative supply lines through the Caucasus, but they're wildly expensive," says a retired military officer now serving on Obama's Pentagon transition team. The U.S. Transportation Command issued a notice to transport companies in September, saying "strikes, border delays, accidents and pilferage" in Pakistan and "attacks and armed hijackings" in Afghanistan make the current route dangerous.
The Pentagon wants to require that 90% of the goods shipped over alternate routes be delivered by deadlines ranging from 30 to 45 days. It's also demanding a "cargo loss rate" of less than 1% due to "pilferage, accident, spoilage, attacks and acts of God." No doubt the Taliban will love that last category.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Former Pakistani Official Denies Links to Lashkar
Washington Post By Candace Rondeaux Tuesday, December 9, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A former high-ranking Pakistani intelligence official denied allegations Monday that he had given advice and support to a Pakistani militant group linked to the attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai late last month.
Retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, former director of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, first surfaced in connection with the armed Islamist group Lashkar-i-Taiba over the weekend when a high-ranking Pakistani government official said India is seeking Gul's arrest along with several other Pakistanis. The Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said Gul was not suspected of having a direct role in the Mumbai attacks but was considered a political patron of Lashkar.
The Pakistani official acknowledged that Gul is widely viewed as the "godfather" of a Pakistani policy that used guerrilla groups such as Lashkar as proxies in the conflict with India over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. But the official said Pakistan declined to hand over Gul because he has no role in setting the operational agenda of Lashkar or other organizations within Pakistan. Reached at his home in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Monday, Gul said he was aware of the allegations but dismissed them as an effort to "malign" him.
"There seems to be an orchestrated campaign to somehow get me," he said.
Gul, 71, has acknowledged that he once was a member of a group of retired ISI officers, Pakistani scientists and others that was suspected by the United States of giving material support to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Gul said the organization, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, was formed by a group of Pakistani businessmen to aid war-ravaged industries in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Treasury Department declared Ummah Tameer-e-Nau a terrorist group after a search of the group's offices in the Afghan capital, Kabul, unearthed documents referencing plans to kidnap a U.S. diplomat and outlining basic physics related to nuclear weapons.
Gul said he had recently been informed by a senior official in Pakistan's Foreign Ministry that he had been placed on a U.S. watch list of global terrorists, along with several others. He said that he was shown a U.S. document that detailed several charges against him, including allegations that he had ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Indian and U.S. officials say Gul, who served as an army tank commander before he was named director of the ISI in 1987, has maintained strong ties to Lashkar and has played an advisory role in several recent attacks.
An Indian intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Gul, who retired after serving as head of the ISI for two years, has been placed on a U.S. terrorist watch list because of his alleged ties to Lashkar. The Indian intelligence official said Gul is a "close adviser" of the group and regularly attends Lashkar meetings. "As recent as this November, he attended their congregation at Muridke and Pattoki. He addresses their gatherings and also defends the Lashkar at every forum. He is considered a guide by Lashkar," the Indian intelligence official said.
But the official also said that no direct link has been made between Gul and the Mumbai attacks and that investigators believe ISI officers allegedly connected to the attacks are still actively working for the Pakistani intelligence agency. "A person who helped organize this attack in Mumbai is definitely a serving ISI officer, not retired," the Indian intelligence official said. Pakistan has denied that allegation.
Gul, self-confident, well educated, outspoken and always impeccably dressed, worked closely with the CIA and Saudi intelligence agencies to support and train Afghan resistance groups fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Gul eventually turned against the United States after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
Gul said he believes U.S. officials are targeting him because he has publicly expressed his political support for Taliban and Afghan rebel groups who are fighting U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan. He said his brief meetings with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s and his call for a reinvestigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks also have attracted attention.
"I simply fail to understand what all the hullabaloo is about. It's simply because I speak loudly about the fact that 9/11 was a bloody hoax," Gul said. "It was an inside job."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Pakistan Militants On Move To Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 8, 2008 - (CBS) Pakistan’s banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, suspected to have launched last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, has ordered its militant volunteers to leave Pakistan’s territory and take refuge in Afghanistan, senior security officials in Pakistan and the Middle East have revealed to CBS News.
The orders were given several days in advance of Monday’s arrest in Pakistan of Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, a senior LeT commander, suspected by Indian officials of assisting the planning of the Mumbai attacks.
The arrest, which a senior Pakistani intelligence official confirmed to CBS News, came as part of a series of raids by Pakistani forces on camps used by Lashkar-e-Taiba.
According to information shared with CBS News on the LeT’s orders, a number of the group’s militant warriors were already holed up in Pakistan’s tribal areas which lie along the country’s border with Afghanistan -- a territory where the Pakistani military is fighting Islamic militant groups.
The tribal area has become the militants’ focal point. Al Qaeda and the Taliban, through support from groups such as LeT, are waging a resistance movement against the Pakistani military on the Pakistani side of the border and against U.S. and NATO troops on the Afghan side of the border.
A senior security official from the Middle East with access to information on LeT’s workings said that most of the group’s militant fighters were in the tribal areas when the Mumbai attacks took place.
These militants had apparently moved out of the Pakistani portion of Kashmir between early October and mid-November, ahead of snowfall in the region, which makes it practically impossible for them to cross the mountainous snow-clad passes between the Pakistani side of Kashmir and the Indian portion of Kashmir.
“You have to know a bit about the tactics of this group before you understand what they are doing right now,” said the Middle Eastern security official, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity. “I know on good authority that Lashkar-e-Taiba during the past few days has ordered its people to leave from the tribal areas for Afghanistan."
A Pakistani security official, familiar with the investigations ahead of Monday’s arrest of Lakhvi, speaking to CBS News on condition of anonymity said, "Most of these militants had either left for Afghanistan or were in the process of leaving from the tribal areas."
The Middle Eastern security official said the implication of the LeT’s move may be that the group will now try to retaliate against Pakistan’s military forces by staging a larger number of attacks after regrouping on Afghan soil.
“The possibility of more attacks on Pakistan by LeT members cannot be discounted” he said.
Pakistan's government has ordered a tightening of security at mosques and other places of worship ahead of Tuesday's Eid-ul-Adha festival, which follows the Hajj, an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. This year, the height of the Islamic festive season comes as government forces wage a new crackdown on militants.
Senior security officials in Islamabad said eight militants were arrested overnight, including Lakhvi, from militant camps in Azad Kashmir, the part of the disputed mountainous state which is controlled half by Pakistan and half by India.
There were unconfirmed reports that scores of people had been taken into custody in the crackdown, which began on Sunday and marked the first overt reaction by Pakistani security forces since the Mumbai attacks.
The Mumbai attacks, which saw about 10 well-armed and well-trained gunmen storm a series of sights across India's financial capital, eventually killing 171 people, have seriously heightened tensions between India and Pakistan. More than five years of confidence building measures between the two nuclear-armed neighbors has been put at risk.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official told CBS News that at least seven or eight camps suspected as training grounds for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) have been raided since Sunday afternoon. These raids included the one at a camp in Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistani controlled part of Kashmir, where Lakhvi was arrested along with seven other men.
There were conflicting accounts Monday of how many suspects had been arrested in all of the raids. The intelligence official who spoke to CBS Newssaid as many as 200 people may have been detained. But, a senior government official from Azad Kashmir -- the semi autonomous Pakistani region of Kashmir -- said no more than fifty people had been taken into custody.
Speaking on condition of anonymity from Muzaffarabad, the official said all of the raids had taken place in Kashmir. "The cold weather has meant that there are very few people in these camps right now," he said.
Groups such as the LeT typically recruit volunteers during late spring and try to sneak them across the border to the Indian side of Kashmir during the summer, to target Indian troops deployed there.
The Mumbai attacks, however, demonstrated a newfound, wider ambition of the groups, which now seem willing and able to attack locations much deeper inside India, well beyond Kashmir.
Western diplomats warned, however, that the arrests have not, as yet, demonstrated that the tide of growing militancy in Pakistan was being reversed. Since Sunday, dozens of Humvee vehicles and other supplies destined for U.S. and other NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan have been destroyed either in transit through Pakistan, or waiting to be transported.
In two daring attacks believed to have been carried out by Taliban militants, trucks carrying the Humvees and other supplies were set on fire.
On Sunday, militants laid siege to two transport terminals near the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar and burned more than 160 military vehicles. It was the biggest attack to date on the crucial military supply line.
Early on Monday, militants in Peshawar attacked a terminal for supply trucks, burning military vehicles that were waiting for shipment to Afghanistan.
"This incident is a setback for the ongoing effort in Afghanistan. The danger is that there could be more copycat attacks in the coming days, weeks or months," one NATO country diplomat told CBS News.
Back to Top
Back to Top
EU Urged To Speed Up Afghan Police Mission Ahead Of Polls
BRUSSELS (AFP)--Senior Afghan and E.U. officials urged European Union nations Tuesday to rapidly send long-promised trainers to help bolster strife-torn Afghanistan's police force ahead of elections next year.
"I came here to seek support for our new program for police reform and police strengthening in Afghanistan," Afghan Interior Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar told reporters after talks with E.U. officials in Brussels.
"Some of those programs will have to be accelerated before elections next year," he said.
The E.U. agreed in May to double the size of its EUPOL police mission in Afghanistan, to some 400 personnel from around 200 police, law enforcement and justice experts initially.
At the moment, it comprises 177 international and 91 local staff.
The aim of the mission, led by Germany, is to help build the Afghan police force, as well as mentor and advise interior ministry officials but the operation has been criticized notably in NATO and the United States.
U.S. officials have said that up to 5,000 instructors would be needed to do the job correctly, amid complaints that corruption in the Afghan force remains rampant.
The E.U.'s own special representative to Afghanistan, Ettore Sequi, echoed Atmar's call.
"The doubling of the mission has been decided and we need to accelerate this deployment," he said.
The elections are scheduled for late 2009 and will be a key test of the viability of a struggling, seven-year-old U.S. and NATO-led effort to build a democratically-elected central government in Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Kandahar base braces for wave of U.S. troops
Massive new construction program under way at sprawling facility in order to accommodate expected doubling of population
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail December 9, 2008 at 5:11 AM EST
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The coming transformation of the war in Kandahar is summarized in a cartoon posted inside Canada's military headquarters. It depicts a huge wave crashing toward a tiny sandcastle on a beach, indicating the overwhelming force of many thousand U.S. troops expected to sweep into southern Afghanistan next year.
The New York Times reported this weekend that the first brigade of new troops will go north to protect Kabul, the capital city, but a massive new program of base construction shows the United States preparing to send a bigger share of its additional forces to Kandahar in the south.
Engineers say they're planning an $850-million (U.S.) expansion of Kandahar Air Field in the coming year, approximately doubling the population of the sprawling facility to make it the largest military base in Afghanistan. That means space available for a minimum of 12,000 more personnel to stand alongside Canada's troops in Kandahar.
"It's a huge expansion of the population coming," said Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Horgan, a Canadian who serves as KAF's base engineer. "It's not an if, it's not even a when. It's just coming, and we're doing everything we can to support the inflow."
The precise number of troops expected changes frequently, engineers say; one U.S. officer said his superiors are telling him to prepare for a minimum 60-per-cent expansion of KAF in the next two years, while other plans have the base nearly tripling its population in a year. Col. Horgan, who co-ordinates the expansion plans on behalf of the base commander, said it's "almost guaranteed" that KAF will double in size within 12 months.
Whatever the size and timing of the expansion, however, it shows a shifting emphasis in the war. For years, the largest military facility in the country has been Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, the main hub for U.S. forces concentrated in the mountainous eastern region where the Taliban insurgents are reportedly mixed with other extremists such as al-Qaeda fighters.
Now the balance of American power appears to be shifting south, toward the deserts and river valleys where the Taliban were born and a majority of the insurgents are local tribesmen.
"It will be quite a bit bigger than Bagram," said Lieutenant-Colonel John Uptmor, a U.S. engineer who is leading the U.S. expansion at KAF. His team of planners works punishing hours in a small trailer preparing for the influx; he says the work leaves him so exhausted that he no longer dreams during his short spells of sleep.
"I can't remember the last time I got to bed before midnight," Col. Uptmor said.
The work's urgency comes from the rising violence in the south.
Insurgents launched more attacks in Kandahar this year than in any other province, according to new statistics from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, and the volume of attacks in November was almost triple the number during the same month in 2006. Aid agencies have largely evacuated their foreign staff from Kandahar city.
As the international staffers disappear from the city streets, however, the military base 17 kilometres down the highway is alive with activity. Construction sites around the base are filled with the scream of electric saws and the crackle of welders' arcs.
"It's like you're in a really active industrial area," said Col. Christopher Coates, commander of Canada's air wing, one of many new units jockeying for spots on the airfield. Crews are paving hectares of parking for aircraft, building a large heliport for incoming U.S. air cavalry units, and erecting gleaming hangars for the fledgling Afghan air force.
"It's almost unbelievable," Col. Coates said. "They've turned it very quickly into usable infrastructure from what was a dusty lot." One of the most expensive buildings under construction is a $35-million (U.S.) hospital, twice the size of KAF's current medical facility. Patients are now treated in a series of tents, containers and plywood huts, based on a Vietnam-era building kit that has been renovated 17 times as the number of casualties grows.
"Right now, we've got bits and pieces of everything, and wires hanging from the ceiling - it's quite scary," said Major Don Schell, deputy commander of the health unit.
The new hospital will be made of concrete strong enough to resist the 107-millimetre rockets that regularly slam into the base, like several other buildings under construction. Even the new Italian restaurant is equipped with thick concrete walls, giving a more permanent appearance than the Tim Hortons, Subway and Burger King outlets all camped in modified trailers.
That impression of long-term planning will grow stronger as road paving begins next year on major routes around the base, and technicians start laying down a fibre-optic network for communications. Col. Horgan said the engineers aren't preparing for a long occupation, however; he said the permanent structures are being designed for eventual handover to Afghan forces.
Still, he acknowledged that some aspects of the base would be difficult for the Afghans to maintain. Even the NATO engineers are having difficulty handling KAF's garbage disposal, he said. The base already produces about 50 tonnes of waste per day, he said, and that number is expected to double. The current method of burning heaps of trash, which sends a foul column of smoke over the base, "would certainly not meet North American requirements," he said.
A more common odour lingering over the base is the smell of raw sewage.
KAF's waste-water treatment facility, nicknamed Emerald Lake because of its unnatural colour, was originally designed for 5,000 people and now strains to cope with the effluent from at least 12,000 people at KAF on any given day.
It will eventually be replaced by a sewage plant capable of serving 30,000 people, Col. Horgan said, but the plant may not be ready for 12 to 18 months. The engineers are urgently trying to order portable bioreactors as a temporary measure, he said, but they probably won't be ready before the wave of U.S. troops arrives.
"The reality is, there's probably a gap," he said, then wrinkled his nose as he contemplated the result. "That will probably be a challenge."
*****
BY THE NUMBERS
Government officials in the United States aren't cagey about how many more troops are headed for the Kandahar area in the next year, but construction plans at Kandahar Air Field - the main military base in the region - give a clearer picture of the expansion.
5,000-6,000
Estimated Population of KAF, including military and civilian personnel, in February, 2006.
12,000-13,500
Population of KAF, including military and civilian personnel, in December, 2008.
100 per cent
Percentage by which KAF's population is expected to grow in the coming year.
5,000
Number of people for which current KAF sewage system was designed.
30,000
Number of people for which new KAF sewage system will be designed.
1
Kandahar Air Field's rank, by size, among the military bases in Afghanistan, after the expansions.
850
Estimated cost (in millions U.S.) of planned construction at KAF in the coming year.
Graeme Smith
Back to Top
Back to Top
NATO says no Afghan winter lull in fight with Taliban
08 Dec 2008 17:35:48 GMT By Jonathon Burch
KABUL, Dec 8 (Reuters) - NATO forces said on Monday they would not let up the fight against Taliban insurgents during the Afghan winter and coordinated operations with the Pakistani army would likely hamper the militants' traditional rest from combat.
Violence rose in eastern Afghanistan in the spring and summer this year as ceasefires between Pakistan and militants on its side of the border gave insurgents more freedom to attack international forces on the Afghan side.
But as those peace deals have broken down and the Pakistani army has gone on the offensive, NATO-led forces see the winter months as an opportunity to apply pressure on the militants.
U.S. troops from the 101st Airborne, which specialises in helicopter air assaults, have already stepped up operations against insurgent positions before the winter fully sets in, their deputy commander told Reuters on Monday.
"Usually here, because of the weather, people hibernate. But now because we're the 101st Airborne Division and we have the mobility, we plan on going after those sanctuaries (in Afghanistan) where the enemy may be trying to wait out the winter," U.S. Brigadier General James McConville said.
"The bottom line is, we do not want the enemy to be allowed to rest in Afghanistan during the winter," he said.
But while many Taliban fighters stay in Afghanistan, many others make their way to Pakistan to sit out the cold months.
Even though heavy snows and poor visibility hamper the use of air power, particularly helicopters, as in previous years, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) sees the winter as an opportunity to strike militarily and forge ahead with development projects to try to win hearts and minds.
"SQUEEZING A JELLYFISH"
But when ISAF has launched offensives near the border in the past, the Taliban and their allies have simply slipped over the into Pakistan and where the Pakistani army has pushed into its border tribal regions, militants have crossed into Afghanistan.
"It was like squeezing a jellyfish; it would poke out somewhere else," said U.S. Navy Captain Benjamin Brink, in charge of a joint intelligence operations centre between ISAF, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
What is new this year though is the better levels of cooperation between ISAF, the Afghan and the Pakistani military culminating in a coordinated operation in Kunar province of northeast Afghanistan and Pakistan's adjacent Bajaur district begun on Nov. 4.
"The Pakistanis are forcing them towards the border and we are blocking the border," Brink told Reuters.
"The Pakistanis tell us they see a decrease in movement across the border in their direction...and we suspect it's down the other way as well because we are performing blocking operations along the passes and we will continue to do that through the winter," Brink said.
The Pakistani military says it has killed more than 1,000 militants in Bajaur alone and there are other smaller operations going on in other parts of the tribal region.
As the winter progresses, the Pakistani operations are due to sweep south along the border and ISAF is preparing similar blocking moves, Brink said.
While the military plans may be in place, much depends on the fragile diplomatic thaw between Afghanistan and the new civilian government in Pakistan, and also on Pakistan's ability to fight militants in its border regions and at the same time deal with tension with rival India in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks.
In Washington, the Pentagon said attacks by Pakistani militants on supply convoys have had an insignificant effect on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
"While some of our equipment has been interrupted in these cross-border movements, we've still been able to resupply U.S. forces in Afghanistan without any impact on their operations," spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
The route from Peshawar through the Khyber Pass to the border town of Torkham is the most important supply line for U.S. and NATO forces fighting the Taliban insurgency . (Additional reporting and writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Back to Top
Back to Top
HONEST AFGHANS PAY WHILE KARZAI’S CROOKS GO FREE
By Arthur Kent, skyreporter.com
KABUL Dec. 8, 2008 - The Traffic Police impound lot near Sar Sabsi Square, on the north side of Kabul, is not on the rounds of foreign dignitaries, diplomats and generals. Little wonder.
Because one glance over the steel jungle of impounded motorbikes, carts and compact cars would stir the conscience of any responsible international sponsor of the Kabul regime, and send him knocking - angrily - on President Karzai’s palace gate.
These are the vehicles of the poor. Hundreds of them, acres of them, seized by the foreign-trained-and-armed police from cash-strapped owners, people who simply can’t afford the exorbitant license fees imposed by the regime.
So it goes in Hamid Karzia’s Kabul. Ordinary citizens are stalked by pervasive and often dishonest policing, while thieves prosper within the president’s cabinet - even after their crimes become common knowledge among the regime’s sponsor nations.
It’s hard enough for a tradesman, merchant or student to slap down enough hard cash to buy a sputtering old Suzuki or Honda. But the 7,000 Afghani ($140) cost of a number plate is beyond the means of most of the city’s poor.
The fee typifies the depressing realities of Kabul’s economy. The base price is only 2,000 Afghanis, while the balance is the “commission” - read bribe - paid to a broker or middleman.
When impoverished riders are forced to take to the road without a valid number plate, the police are waiting. If stopped, the victim has a choice: pay an even steeper bribe, or watch the bike go off to the pound under the backside of one of Karzai’s finest.
By United Nations estimates, the average Afghan family pays $100 in bribes each year. That’s a crippling burden, given that 70% of the population scrapes by on an income of only $1 a day.
But that’s only half the story. Just ask Zarar Muqbul - that is if you can find him.
Zarar is Karzai’s ex-Interior Minister, formerly one of the most powerful officials in the U.S.-backed regime. He was fired in October when the odor of corruption rising up from the policing ministry under his command became too great even for the embattled president and his foreign patrons to ignore.
In 2001, Zarar’s family owned a shop, a home and a few gardens in the countryside north of the capital. Today, government insiders estimate his wealth at $20 million. Not bad for a functionary on an official salary of around $3,000 per month.
Of course, there were fringe benefits. Like the fleet of armored vehicles Zarar is alleged to have acquired and leased back to his own department. And the multitude of properties in his name at the central registry. And his presumed cut of the police shakedown scams that plague truckers on Afghanistan’s roadways (please see “U.S. And Allies Shrink From Confronting Karzia’s Crooks” from July 31, 2007, in Recent Stories.)
And there is the greatest benefit of all, for Zarar is one of the regime’s favoured few, who are terminated from one top job, only to be offered another. The consolation in this case: Zarar’s appointment to Minister of Refugee Affairs.
Evidently, however, the new post is not to Zarar’s tastes. He has chosen not to show up for work since the Oct. 10th cabinet shuffle, and is blamed by a number of security and diplomatic sources in the capital with trying to undermine his successor as Interior Minister, Hanif Atmar.
So a culprit who should, by rights, be destined for an extended visit in Pul-i-Charki prison, instead becomes another of the regime’s mysterious shadow-figures, protected by his wealth, a private militia, and the many secrets he could disclose to unsettle his colleagues, rivals and president.
All of this is cold comfort to a luckless student whose motorbike is confiscated for lacking a paid-up number plate. But it offers no end of encouragement to those other young Afghans with an eye on Kabul’s future, namely the Taliban.
Nothing draws the insurgents on like the spectacle of the western-backed regime haemorrhaging what little authority remains to it. And nothing obliterates authority like official corruption.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Nato reviews Afghan supply route
By Jonathan Marcus Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Nato and US military commanders are exploring options for supplies into Afghanistan after recent attacks on logistical depots in Pakistan.
The attacks on crucial supplies to forces in Afghanistan have highlighted the route's growing vulnerability.
However, political and logistical difficulties mean that Pakistan is likely to remain the transit route of choice for the foreseeable future.
Some 75% of the supplies for Afghanistan pass through Pakistan.
Shortest land-route
Given the staggering scale of the logistical operation supporting Nato and US forces in Afghanistan, the supplies destroyed in the recent attacks near Peshawar were a drop in the ocean.
Supplies for Afghanistan pass through Pakistan after being off-loaded from ships at the port of Karachi.
Much of the fuel used by Western forces also comes from refineries in Pakistan and for good reason.
Pakistan represents the shortest land-route to places like Kandahar and Kabul.
But the growing insurgency inside Pakistan and the failure of the authorities there to deal with it effectively mean that alternatives are being explored.
Some fuel already comes from refineries in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
Nato has an agreement with Russia on shipping supplies through its territory and individual Nato members like Germany and Spain have concluded their own bilateral agreements on trans-shipment with Moscow.
Nato though is uneasy about becoming too dependent upon Russia.
An alternative route would see containers being shipped across the Black Sea, then going by rail through Georgia to Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea ports and then by road through Turkmenistan.
The oil would go either directly to Afghanistan or through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
But this could be a logistical and political nightmare and it is far from clear that the infrastructure could sustain the volume of traffic needed.
For now the focus is going to be on getting the authorities in Pakistan to step-up security surrounding the existing supply routes.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Top Taliban commander rejects negotiations with Afghan government
Monday, December 8, 2008 | 9:12 AM ET CBC News
The Taliban's second-highest ranking commander is playing down reports of proposed negotiations between members of his group and the Afghan government.
"The enemy wants to engage the Taliban and deviate their minds. Sometimes they offer talks, sometimes they offer other fake issues," said Mullah Hassan Rahmani, second in command to fugitive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, in a rare interview. "The Taliban never ever tried for such talks, neither do we want these talks to be held."
Rahmani, who occasionally speaks with reporters by phone, agreed to a face-to-face interview with a Pakistani journalist hired by the CBC.
The interview comes as the BBC reports a meeting has been set slated for this week at which up to 40 representatives of the Taliban will meet with members of the Afghan government.
Karzai open to negotiating
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said he has been open to the idea of negotiating with more moderate elements within the Taliban, and would try to include them in the government if they renounce violence.
Last month, he offered protection for Omar — who is wanted by the United States and is blacklisted by the United Nations — if he accepts Afghanistan's constitution and joins peace talks.
Although NATO has said that a military, not a political solution, will finally end the conflict, Omar and other senior ranking Taliban officials have rejected the call for negotiations.
They have said they will only talk once Western forces, including Canadians, have been removed.
Rahmani, who was governor of Kandahar during the Taliban's five-year reign and now co-ordinates their operations in Afghanistan said the "Jihad is going fine."
"During the night Taliban are able to carry out actions anywhere in Afghanistan, on any street," he said.
But he admitted that in spite of successful attacks inside Kandahar, where about 2,500 Canadian troops are stationed, they have not been able to take the city.
"Sometimes the Taliban capture several areas and come close to Kandahar, and believe they are in a position to seize it. They talk about occupying it. But the fact is that the Taliban has not been able to occupy Kandahar."
Rahmani, who lost a leg fighting the Russians in the 1980s, also denounced recent acid attacks on schoolgirls in Kandahar, rejecting claims that the perpetrators were Taliban.
"This is propaganda aimed at defaming the Taliban. Nobody knows who threw the acid. Throwing acid on any human being, whether a man or a woman, has never been the Taliban's policy and the Taliban deny their involvement in such acts".
He singled out Canadians in the interview, saying they should "free themselves from American pressures."
"Don’t let their children [be] killed in this war which is not theirs. They say that they are sacrificing for the interest of Afghan nation and for the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan. I suggest that they should not fool themselves for this American war."
Meanwhile, a new report from the International Council on Security and Development, formerly known as the Senlis Council, says the Taliban has a permanent presence in 72 per cent of the country compared with just 54 per cent a year ago.
It defined permanent presence as being the site of at least one insurgent attack each week and called for doubling of NATO forces, more aid programs and concentrating on cutting down on civilian deaths.
The report said that Kabul is surrounded on three of four sides by Taliban-influenced areas.
'There's a real irony here'
But CBC's David Common said the Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan has questioned the report's findings, saying there have been 60 per cent fewer attacks in Kabul this year.
"There's a real irony here," Ron Hoffmann, Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, said in response, in a telephone interview with the Canadian Press from Kabul.
"On one hand, the report points to the effectiveness of the Taliban propaganda efforts. But I have to say that whenever a Senlis report comes out, it must be a red-letter day for the Taliban propaganda machine."
"The notion that 72 per cent of the country now has a permanent Taliban presence, I think, is just fundamentally inaccurate," Hoffmann added.
Hoffmann said the findings of the report are predictable, and based on "dubious analysis and flimsy research" coming from an agenda he doesn't fully understand.
Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, commander of Task Force Kandahar, also disputed claims in the report, arguing that attacks by the Taliban do not indicate any kind of control and that, at most, only 20 per cent of the Afghan people support the insurgents.
Back to Top
Back to Top
9 militants arrested in E Afghanistan
Xinhua www.chinaview.cn 2008-12-09
KABUL - Afghan National Police (ANP) and the U.S.-led Coalition forces detained nine suspected militants during a combined operation, said a Coalition statement released here on Tuesday.
The operation, launched to disrupt the Haqqani network in eastern Afghan province of Khost on Monday, targeted a Haqqani commander known to direct and assist with the movement of weapons and foreign fighters into the region, the statement said.
Moreover, the combined force during the operation encountered an armed militant who refused to comply with their instructions and displayed hostile intent, it said. "The force engaged the militant with small-arms fire and wounded him."
Spiraling conflicts and Taliban-linked insurgency have claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people, mostly militants, so far this year despite over 70,000-strong international troops stationed in strife-torn Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Iran: Afghan workers send $500 mln home annually, says UN report
New York, 8 Dec. (AKI) - Afghans working in Iran send home some 500 million dollars each year, or around 6 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product. That is the finding of a new study commissioned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Labour Organization.
Most Afghans are working in Iran illegally. Some 360,000 Afghan migrants were deported last year, said the new report.
"The potential for Afghans to succeed financially in Iran is significantly higher than in Afghanistan," said Nassim Majidi of Altai Consulting, which was commissioned to conduct the survey.
Afghans send two-thirds of their salaries in Iran back to Afghanistan, she said. Also, monthly wages in Iran are four times higher than in Afghanistan.
An Afghan earns a monthly wage of 320 dollars on average in Iran compared to 80 dollars in their home country.
Unemployment levels are also significantly lower and most Afghan workers find work within a week of arriving and gain new skills in Iran, Majidi said.
Afghan migrants stay on average 3.5 years in Iran, the UN study found. Nearly two-thirds have been to Iran more than once for work and have been deported.
A rise in people smuggling has increased physical and psychological vulnerability for Afghan migrants making the journey to Iran with an "undeniable human cost" said Majidi.
While recognising Iran's sovereign right to deport undocumented migrants within its territory, the new study calls on both Iran and Afghanistan to "endorse a rights-based approach for all deportees during detention and upon return."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Britain targets phony Afghan asylum seekers
AP via Yahoo! News
Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print 20 mins agoLONDON – Britain's Home Office says asylum seekers who say they are from Afghanistan will undergo tough interviews to check whether their claims are genuine.
Officials estimate that 250 applicants per year fraudulently claim to be from Afghanistan. Immigration minister Phil Woolas says border controls are being tightened, and asylum seekers who say they're from Afghanistan will be tested on local dialects, customs and traditions.
Woolas said in a statement Tuesday that officials will also check fingerprints of asylum seekers claiming to be from North Korea. Some South Koreans try to enter Britain by posing as citizens of their northern neighbor. Their prints will be checked against a national South Korean database.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).