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Germany rejects U.S. pressure on Afghanistan troops
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany on Friday rejected a call from the United States to send combat troops to dangerous parts of southern Afghanistan and said there were no plans to change its deployment of troops in the less violent north.
Fatal Qaida missile strike a US victory
By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A U.S. missile strike that killed a top al-Qaida commander in Pakistan marked a significant victory for the U.S. in its battle against the terror network after a series of pessimistic assessments of the American-led
Pakistan air strike bodies buried, Qaeda death not confirmed: army
Fri Feb 1, 12:49 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The bodies from a missile strike that killed several militants have been buried and it was impossible to confirm or refute if a top Al-Qaeda operative was among them, the army said.
NATO patrol shoots dead an Afghan truck driver
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A NATO patrol shot and killed an Afghan truck driver Friday, after he failed to heed their calls to stop near a military airport in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement.
Senators question U.S. strategy in Afghanistan
By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent Thu Jan 31, 6:15 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration defended its achievements in Afghanistan on Thursday as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers contrasted official accounts of progress with new studies warning of looming failure.
Canadians holding 18-20 detainees on Kandahar base: Afghan official
Thursday, January 31, 2008 | 10:53 PM ET CBC News
Canadian Forces are holding about 18 or 20 Afghan detainees at their military base in Kandahar, an investigator with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission confirmed on Thursday.
Why the Afghan Taleban feel confident
By David Loyn BBC News / Friday, 1 February 2008
In Afghanistan, the Taleban now claim to have influence across most of the country and have extended their area of control from their traditional heartland in the south.
US concerned international community may abandon Afghanistan
by P. Parameswaran Thu Jan 31, 6:35 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States expressed concern Thursday that the international community could abandon Afghanistan, cautioning that success in the insurgency-wracked nation was "not assured."
NATO winning battles, losing Afghanistan
By Ali Gharib Feb 2, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
WASHINGTON - "Make no mistake", begins a new issue brief from non-partisan think-tank the Atlantic Council of the United States, "NATO is not winning in Afghanistan".
Afghanistan's tribal complexity
In the dark Jan 31st 2008 | SANGIN DISTRICT, HELMAND The Economist
Far more than two sides to the conflict
BEARDED like an Old Testament prophet, an old man tugs nervously at the sleeve of the British commander, Major Tony Chattin of the Royal Marines. “The Taliban come from the north and fire from this treeline at your base,”
Mission creep in Afghanistan
By Philip Smucker Asia Times Online / February 1, 2008
KAPISA, Afghanistan - In the past two years, foreign fighters - Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens and Central Asians - have infiltrated in the direction of Kabul from insurgent redoubts in Pakistan to take up positions in the southern
West will never beat Taliban, Rudd warned
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Matt Wade Herald Correspondent in Islamabad and agencies
January 31, 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
A FORMER head of Pakistan's military intelligence says Australia's troop deployment in Afghanistan is doomed to failure and has urged the Government to withdraw its forces as quickly as possible.
Taliban shifts tactics in Afghanistan
Suicide bombings becoming random
By Bruce Wallace Los Angeles Times / February 1, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two deadly bombings in Afghanistan yesterday underscored the difficulties in combating the tactics of the Taliban insurgency, a campaign now increasingly using suicide bombers moving through cities
Former Afghan minister worried mission not succeeding in public support
The Canadian Press
CALGARY - A former senior member of the Afghan government says Canada's military mission to Afghanistan will continue to falter if the troops don't find a way to win over the Afghan people.
U.S. Army tests new pants for Afghanistan
Feb. 1, 2008 at 9:44 AM
Print story Email to a friend Font size:WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army is testing prototype uniform pants in Hawaii with reinforced seats designed to meet the needs of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.
New bid to control Pakistan’s tribal belt
US, Pakistan step up efforts to address the militant haven tied to global terror.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Islamabad, Pakistan - After years of Pakistani indecision and US deference, the fight against Pakistan's terrorists, it appears, is now entering a new stage.
2 Pakistani soldiers killed, 10 injured in suicide attack near Afghan border
AP - Saturday, February 2
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a military checkpoint in North Waziristan, a region near the Afghan border, killing two government soldiers and injuring 10 others, officials said Thursday.
Afghan family seeks reunion with distant brothers
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle - Feb 01 2:34 AM
(February 1, 2008) — Zabi Noomani doesn't remember his father. Zabi says he was just 5 years old when the man was beaten to death for standing up to the Taliban in Afghanistan. He refused to wear a beard.
Germany rejects U.S. pressure on Afghanistan troops
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany on Friday rejected a call from the United States to send combat troops to dangerous parts of southern Afghanistan and said there were no plans to change its deployment of troops in the less violent north.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had written a strongly worded letter to Germany and other NATO members urging them to send 3,200 extra troops to Afghanistan in his latest effort to boost support for U.S. soldiers.
German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said he did not envisage any change to the parliamentary mandate which allows Germany to send 3,500 troops to northern Afghanistan as part of the 40,000-strong NATO International Security Assistance Force.
"We have agreed on a clear division of labor," Jung told reporters on Friday. "I think that we really must keep our focus on the North."
Jung added that he would write to Gates to explain the German position.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had also made clear that the mandate was "not up for discussion," government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm told a news conference.
German politicians are wary of making a greater commitment as opinion polls show public skepticism about the mission.
Ernst Uhrlau, head of Germany's BND foreign intelligence service, told German radio he expected more suicide attacks in Afghanistan and an increase in violence in the north.
"We must take into account that there will be more violent assaults once winter is over with the additional goal of killing civilians via suicide attacks," Uhrlau told SWR2 radio.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Pentagon had said it would press NATO's European members to send more soldiers to southern Afghanistan after a call from Canada for reinforcements.
Canada had threatened to pull out its 2,500 soldiers from Afghanistan early next year unless NATO sent more troops.
The United States has repeatedly criticized the reluctance of European allies to dedicate more combat troops and equipment to Afghanistan where Taliban attacks have been rising.
NATO defense ministers will discuss operations in Afghanistan at a meeting in Vilnius later this month.
(Reporting by Markus Wacket, Writing by Madeline Chambers)
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Fatal Qaida missile strike a US victory
By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A U.S. missile strike that killed a top al-Qaida commander in Pakistan marked a significant victory for the U.S. in its battle against the terror network after a series of pessimistic assessments of the American-led campaign against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
The death of Abu Laith al-Libi was reported Thursday on Islamic extremist Web sites and confirmed by an American official, who said the veteran al-Qaida leader died when a missile from a U.S. Predator drone struck a compound in Pakistan's North Waziristan region late Monday.
A Pakistan government spokesman in Islamabad said he had no information to prove al-Libi was killed in the strike, which occurred near the town of Mir Ali. But Pakistani intelligence officials in Miran Shah, a main town in North Waziristan, said there were strong indications he died.
"Our sources among militants ... are telling us that al-Libi died in the U.S. missile attack" along with about a dozen others, said a security official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media. A second intelligence official confirmed that account.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials said the missile was fired while al-Libi or some of his associates were using satellite phones and a computer at the house of Abdul Sattar, a local tribal leader known for his links to extremists.
Another official said in Islamabad that Sattar's home was only a mile from a base used by Pakistani security forces.
"Our sources have visited the area," the official said. "They have reported that Abdul Sattar's guest house was completely destroyed."
All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because their information was sensitive.
The Predator is an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft that has been armed by both the U.S. Air Force and CIA with Hellfire anti-tank missiles. Even though all signs point to the CIA, agency officials would not confirm that their aircraft were involved in the strike.
Terrorism experts said al-Libi's death was a significant setback for al-Qaida because of his extensive ties to the Taliban, but they said the terror network would likely regroup and replace him.
The U.S. says al-Libi — whose name means "the Libyan" in Arabic — was likely behind a February 2007 bombing at the U.S. base at Bagram in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney. The attack killed 23 people but Cheney was deep inside the sprawling base and was not hurt.
Al-Libi's death was reported at a time of growing pessimism over the U.S.-led campaign against the resurgent Taliban across the border in Afghanistan.
An independent study co-chaired by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones and former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering warned this week that Afghanistan risks becoming a failed state because of deteriorating international support and the growing Taliban insurgency.
The study concluded the United States risks losing the "forgotten war" in Afghanistan unless it re-energize anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Two Pakistani soldiers were killed and two others wounded Friday when a bomb exploded near their convoy in Wana in South Waziristan, said an intelligence officer. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release the information.
Among those who died in the missile strike were Arabs, Turkmen from central Asia and local Taliban members, according to an intelligence official in the area who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said the bodies of those killed were badly mangled by the force of the explosion and it was difficult to identify them.
In the past, coalition forces in Afghanistan are believed to have launched a number of similar missile strikes against Taliban and al-Qaida militants hiding on the Pakistani side of the border, but the U.S. military has never confirmed any of them.
"We have no official information on this. Coalition forces do not conduct operations in Pakistan," Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan, said Friday.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly said he would not permit U.S. military action against al-Qaida members believed to be regrouping in the wild borderlands near Afghanistan. Musharraf has downplayed U.S. concerns about a significant al-Qaida presence inside Pakistan.
However, a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer familiar with the area said al-Libi was probably in North Waziristan to "give tasks" to local militants. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said al-Libi was among the top five al-Qaida leaders with longtime contacts in North Waziristan.
"Al-Libi has been waging jihad for more than 10 years and it will be a blow to both al-Qaida and the Taliban, but not in a way that will lead to the downfall of those organizations," said Eric Rosenbach, terror expert and executive director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School.
A senior U.S. official said last week that the top two U.S. intelligence officials made a secret visit to Pakistan in early January to seek permission from Musharraf for greater involvement of American forces in trying to ferret out al-Qaida and other militant groups active in the tribal regions along the Afghanistan border.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity given the secret nature of the talks, declined to disclose what was said, but Musharraf was quoted two days after the Jan. 9 meeting with CIA Director Michael Hayden and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, as saying U.S. troops would be regarded as invaders if they crossed into Pakistan to hunt al-Qaida militants.
Al-Libi was among the most high-profile figures in al-Qaida after its leader, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.
In spring 2007, al-Qaida's media wing, Al-Sahab, released a video interview with a bearded man identified as al-Libi. In it, he accuses Shiite Muslims of fighting alongside American forces in Iraq, and claimed that mujahedeen would crush foreign troops in Afghanistan.
A Pakistani intelligence official said al-Libi was based near Mir Ali until late 2003, when he moved back into Afghanistan to take charge of al-Qaida operations on both sides of the border area. But he retained links with North Waziristan, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
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Pakistan air strike bodies buried, Qaeda death not confirmed: army
Fri Feb 1, 12:49 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The bodies from a missile strike that killed several militants have been buried and it was impossible to confirm or refute if a top Al-Qaeda operative was among them, the army said.
An Islamist website reported Thursday that Al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in Pakistan, and a Western official said there were "very strong indications" that he had been slain.
The report came after a suspected US missile raid in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan on Monday night which security officials said had killed seven Arab militants and six Central Asians.
"Our position is that who fired, who ordered, who removed the bodies etc is not known to us," chief Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP.
"We cannot negate nor confirm because the moment it happened, they removed the bodies and buried them. So, how would anybody confirm who got killed?" Abbas added, without elaborating on who buried the bodies.
A Pakistani interior spokesman said late Thursday that he had "no information" on the reported death of the Libyan militant, said to be a key link between Al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
An announcement on the Al-Fajr Information Centre website on Thursday said that "we announce the good news to the Islamic world: Sheikh Abu Laith al-Qassimi al-Libi has fallen a martyr on the soil of Muslim Pakistan."
Residents and intelligence officials in remote North Waziristan have said that a pilotless drone of a type operated by US forces in Afghanistan was flying over the area before the missile strike.
Details have been difficult to obtain for journalists and authorities alike, since the area is remote and there is no military presence where the missile attack happened.
Pakistani forces never officially confirm US strikes on their territory, saying foreign forces are not permitted to operate on Pakistani soil because it would infringe national sovereignty.
But there have nevertheless been several strikes attributed to the US, including one in January 2006 that missed Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri but killed 18 people.
A longtime jihadist, Libi was suspected of involvement in a suicide bombing that killed 23 people outside Bagram air base in Afghanistan during a visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney in February 2007.
Last June, Libi was the apparent target of a US rocket attack on a compound in Afghanistan's Paktia province in which seven children were killed.
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NATO patrol shoots dead an Afghan truck driver
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A NATO patrol shot and killed an Afghan truck driver Friday, after he failed to heed their calls to stop near a military airport in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement.
The incident happened near Kandahar airfield after the truck driver approached the alliance's security patrol, NATO said.
"The driver failed to heed the repeated warnings to stop, including their deployment of flares," the statement said. "A shot aimed at the ground was fired, but the truck continued towards the patrol," it said.
The second shot was fired, which hit the driver and stopped the vehicle.
The driver died of his wounds later at a military hospital, the statement said.
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Senators question U.S. strategy in Afghanistan
By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent Thu Jan 31, 6:15 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration defended its achievements in Afghanistan on Thursday as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers contrasted official accounts of progress with new studies warning of looming failure.
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee grilled the administration's top diplomat for South Asia a day after two non-governmental studies said Afghanistan risked reverting into a failed state and a terrorist haven without new international efforts to win the war and bring about economic development.
Democrats on the panel restated their longstanding view that the war in Iraq had diverted U.S. attention from a more critical fight in Afghanistan, where the radical Islamic Taliban was staging a comeback after being ousted from power by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
"The question here, in my view, is whether or not we've neglected Pakistan and Afghanistan because of our overemphasis on Iraq," said Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat.
That point was raised by the Atlantic Council in a report on Wednesday that called Afghanistan a "dangerously neglected conflict" that needed more U.S. and NATO troops.
"If we should be surging forces anywhere, it's in Afghanistan, not Iraq," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat.
The United States has 29,000 troops in Afghanistan -- a fifth of its force numbers in Iraq, which saw an increase in U.S. troops in 2007. Earlier this month the Pentagon ordered another 3,200 Marines to be deployed to Afghanistan after Washington was unable to convince other NATO members to send more troops.
NO PLAN FOR AFGHANISTAN?
Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, gave the committee statistics and accounts of progress in counterterrorism, economic growth, opium eradication, education and governmental reform.
"I see all these efforts. Nobody can tell me it's not going in a positive direction," he said, rejecting the broad theme of impending failure in Wednesday's reports by the Atlantic Council and the Afghanistan Study Group.
But Boucher, who visited Afghanistan last week, told the panel "we've had many successes but we have not yet enjoyed success" and acknowledged that more work needed to be done.
Republicans on the committee gave Boucher no respite.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said he saw an "astounding number of contradictions about how much progress we're making" in the administration's presentation.
"If we are making so much progress, then why are we putting in 3,200 more Marines? Why are we to a breaking point in NATO on this issue?" he asked.
Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the panel, did not dispute reported successes in Afghanistan, but said he saw a "disturbing" lack of a clear strategy.
"I'm not certain we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said.
"Unless there is some goal out there, some overall plan, this situation is going to be a victim at some point of the politics of this country or others," Lugar added.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
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Canadians holding 18-20 detainees on Kandahar base: Afghan official
Thursday, January 31, 2008 | 10:53 PM ET CBC News
Canadian Forces are holding about 18 or 20 Afghan detainees at their military base in Kandahar, an investigator with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission confirmed on Thursday.
Farid Hamidi, in an interview with CBC Radio's As It Happens, said that since Canada stopped handing over detainees to Afghan officials in November, they have been holding them on their own airfield.
The revelation comes as opposition MPs and human rights activists have been asking the Conservative government to disclose what the military now does with the prisoners it seizes in Afghanistan.
Media reports have suggested detainees were being held at the Kandahar base, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper has maintained it is up to the Canadian military to disclose any details about detainees.
Hamidi said Canadian officials have provided his organization with information directly.
"They sent to our office in Kandahar official letters about information about the detainees," he said, when reached by telephone in Kabul.
Continue Article
Hamidi said his commission will now ask for access to the detainees Canada is holding, and will want information about how the prisoners are treated, and the conditions of the prisons where they are being held.
The commission, which is funded by the countries involved in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, made a deal with Canada last year, agreeing to monitor the condition of all detainees seized by the Canadian military and handed over to Afghan officials.
Hamidi said the Canadian military initially didn't inform the commission that it stopped handing over prisoners. Canada quietly ended the practice on Nov. 6, a day after evidence emerged that a prisoner in Afghan custody had been beaten unconscious with an electrical cable and a hose.
News of Canada's decision to halt transfers only emerged in the media last week.
"The human rights commission did become aware of this just from the media," Hamady said. "We weren't informed."
Liberals grill Conservatives on detainee issue
Harper and his government were grilled on the issue of detainees in the House of Commons on Thursday. The Liberals demanded to know if, on joint operations, Canadian soldiers were stepping aside and letting the Afghan soldiers to take prisoners, allowing the Canadians to avoid having detainees in their own custody.
"Because this is not technically a transfer, the detainee transfer agreement does not apply, but beyond technicalities, there are the moralities," Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion asked Harper. "Is this happening, yes or no?"
Harper said there are going to be occasions where Afghan soldiers take prisoners.
"As we train the Afghan forces to take over more and more of the responsibility for their security operations, of course they will be taking on more and more responsibility for these various aspects of the security operation," Harper said.
Layton, U.S. question whether war is winnable
Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Layton criticized the Afghan mission as a whole, calling it unwinnable. Although his party has long called for a withdrawal of Canadian troops, his message was bleaker than usual.
"It's an endless mission," Layton told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday. "No one has laid out, anywhere, that it's possible to ultimately win a war in this region. No one.
"And historical experience shows that it's been impossible — whether it be Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, or the Russians in the 20th century. We're saying, 'Let's recognize these historical realities.'"
Layton, who distributed a list of quotes from military officers and analysts to support his case, said he would ask Dion on Monday to help him outvote the government in any parliamentary move to extend the Afghan mission beyond February 2009.
"I'm very concerned that Mr. Dion may be considering supporting the direction of Mr. Harper," Layton said.
While the NDP criticized the mission, across the border, U.S. senators said they fear NATO is in danger of losing in Afghanistan.
During two hours of questioning at a committee hearing in Washington, D.C., senators from both parties grilled administration officials who argued there's been a lot of progress since the war began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
"We cannot afford to fail in Afghanistan," said Republican Senator Norm Coleman. "The mission is faltering."
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Why the Afghan Taleban feel confident
By David Loyn BBC News / Friday, 1 February 2008
In Afghanistan, the Taleban now claim to have influence across most of the country and have extended their area of control from their traditional heartland in the south.
They are able to operate freely even in Wardak Province, neighbouring the capital Kabul, as a BBC camera crew who filmed them recently found.
One of their commanders in Wardak, Mullah Hakmatullah, said they do not control the roads nor the towns, but they hold the countryside and have increasing support because of the corruption of the administration.
"The administration do not solve people's problems. People who go there with problems have to give a lot of money in bribes and then they gut stuck there," Mullah Hakmatullah said.
'Much better now'
Support from villagers is essential to their ability to continue operations through the winter months.
Local people said that they were willing to help the Taleban because they supported their brand of justice.
In one of the villages under their control, people willing to come forward and talk to the BBC said that security was much better now that the Taleban were there.
One of them, Gul Wazir, said that the Taleban were prepared to try to resolve small problems.
"Even if it's a minor thing, the Taleban will sort it out. Before (when the government of President Karzai was in control) it was not like that. They did not pay attention to us and the poor people were ignored."
The Taleban group showed off weapons, including a heavy machine gun they said they had captured from government forces.
They test-fired them in broad daylight, apparently not fearing retaliation from government nor international forces.
They were armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
Nearby the burnt-out wreck of a government vehicle was left from a recent confrontation with Afghan national forces.
Orders from the south
The overall military commander of the Taleban in Wardak, Mullah Rashid Akhond, claimed to have 2,000 active fighters.
He said that he was operating an administrative system with orders coming from Kandahar in the south, just like during the days of the Taleban government that fell in 2001.
He said that the Taleban were running their own courts. "People are taking their cases away from the government courts and coming to us. Now there is no robbery in our area."
Many of the suicide bombers who go to Kabul come from this area, just an hour's drive away. Mullah Akhond justified them, saying that most of the attacks are now carried out by Afghans themselves, not foreign fighters.
Six years ago the Taleban found it hard to recruit. They put their increasing success now down to official corruption, the slow pace of reconstruction and the presence of foreign troops.
'Unstable environment'
Speaking in London, the former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said that the rise of the Taleban was caused by weakness in the central government.
"I think it is a major threat. What moves people is not ideology, but an unstable environment among the existing networks of clans, tribes, aggrieved people, drug traffickers, opportunists, and unemployed youth.
"It is the kind of problem that can be solved only with the establishment of good governance."
Mr Jalali is a potential presidential candidate in next year's election, as President Karzai faces increasing international pressure to deliver swift results.
But if anything, the battle for Afghanistan is harder now than it was after the Taleban were first forced out of power in Kabul.
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US concerned international community may abandon Afghanistan
by P. Parameswaran Thu Jan 31, 6:35 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States expressed concern Thursday that the international community could abandon Afghanistan, cautioning that success in the insurgency-wracked nation was "not assured."
"The greatest threat to Afghanistan's future is abandonment by the international community," Richard Boucher, the State Department's pointman for Afghanistan, told a Senate hearing on the turmoil in Afghanistan.
He said the mission in Afghanistan needed more troops and equipment, such as helicopters, and pointed out that "too few of our allies have combat troops fighting the insurgents especially in the south."
Southern Afghanistan has seen the worst violence since the Taliban were ousted in the US-led invasion in 2001, after the September 11 terror attacks masterminded by Al-Qaeda.
"Success is possible but not assured," Boucher said as he came under intense questioning from senators. "Therefore, the international community needs to continue and expand its efforts."
"We expect more from our NATO allies," he said, amid lingering concerns over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's commitment to providing more troops to fight a resurgent Taliban militia, whose control of the sparsely populated parts of Afghanistan was increasing.
There are about 40,000 NATO and 20,000 US-led coalition force soldiers in Afghanistan at present.
NATO commanders say they need some 7,500 extra troops to carry out their mission.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has sent an "unusually stern" letter to Germany's defense minister asking the country to send more troops to southern Afghanistan, a German newspaper reported Thursday.
According to Suddeutsche Zeitung, the undated letter was sent a week and half ago directly to Franz Josef, demanding more combat troops, helicopters and parachutists.
Josef in turn wasted no time in responding with a similarly "direct and stern" letter, the paper said, without quoting the letters directly, ahead of full publication on Friday.
Gates also discussed military deployment with French counterpart Herve Morin in Washington, saying afterward that the talks included "participation of the allies and the need for a comprehensive strategy." He did not elaborate
Morin said a comprehensive solution needed to combine "political, economic" factors, including providing alternate crops to Afghans relying on opium.
France has about 1,600 troops serving in Afghanistan.
Sources close to Morin said France could dispatch more instructors for Afghan security forces or redeploy French special forces.
At the hearing Thursday, Republican Senator Richard Lugar expressed dismay at the "troubling shortfall" of political commitment among NATO members that was hampering the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.
"The time when NATO could limit its missions to the defense of continental Europe is far in the past. With the end of the Cold War, the gravest threats to Europe and North America originate from other regions in the world," he said.
For the second day running, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned, during talks with British counterpart Gordon Brown Thursday, that Ottawa would pull its 2,500 soldiers out of Afghanistan if it did not get reinforcements from other countries, Harper's office said.
A day earlier, he raised similar concerns with US President George W. Bush.
As the Taliban score victories in the battlefield and with concerns mounting over weak governance, widespread corruption, flourishing narcotics trade and unemployment in Afghanistan, experts warn it could become a failed state.
British aid agency Oxfam raised the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe there unless Western countries made a "major change of direction" in strategy.
Washington will deploy an additional 3,200 marines this spring -- 2,200 will be deployed to the NATO's southern regional command while the remaining 1,000 marines will train with Afghan forces, Boucher said.
"This is welcome news -- but does anyone truly believe it be enough to turn the tide," asked Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, who heads the Senate foreign relations panel, which held the hearing.
"If we should be surging forces anywhere, it's in Afghanistan, not Iraq," he said referring to a stepped-up US military strength in Iraq last year which appeared to be bringing the war in Iraq under control.
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NATO winning battles, losing Afghanistan
By Ali Gharib Feb 2, 2008 Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
WASHINGTON - "Make no mistake", begins a new issue brief from non-partisan think-tank the Atlantic Council of the United States, "NATO is not winning in Afghanistan".
That brief, called "Saving Afghanistan: An Appeal and Plan for Urgent Action", was released on Wednesday at an event on Capitol Hill, along with two other reports that call on the international community and the US to "re-energize their faltering effort" in Afghanistan.
The speakers at the release of the reports all showed equal concern that, despite overwhelming US and international military might, things are going badly awry in Afghanistan and that a comprehensive reworking of international strategy there was needed.
"The fatal consequence, all too familiar to those of who lived through Vietnam, is that you can win every battle, but fail to win the war," said Senator John Kerry in his introductory remarks. "Absent a new focus and a transformed strategy, many of us fear that may be happening again."
Though removed from power early in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan seven years ago, the Taliban resurged last year, leaving experts worried that a weak central government and misguided international efforts could lead to a failed state that would become a safe haven for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
"Strategy relates to priorities and resources. And it relates to upsetting the opponents' center of gravity," said David Abshire, the head of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and a former US ambassador to NATO. "The center of gravity of all this started with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. And we've gotten our eye too much off that ball in terms of our finishing the job."
The Center for the Study of the Presidency established the Afghanistan Study Group to assess new ideas in a manner similar to the Iraq Study Group, whose 2006 findings fundamentally challenged the way that the George W Bush administration was waging the war there, and called for a greater push in Afghanistan to complement the Iraq war.
But the authors of the reports released on Wednesday all emphasized a separation of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite their coexistence under the banner of the Bush administration's "war on terror".
"We ought to decouple - up here [on Capitol Hill], and in the minds of the executive branch, and I hope in the minds of the American people and our European allies - Iraq and Afghanistan," said ambassador Thomas Pickering, a co-chair of the Afghanistan Study Group.
"Afghanistan has hovered too long under the shadow of Iraq. It has its own strategic importance," he said. "If things go bad there the region is affected. Beyond the region, Europe and the United States will be affected. A new homeland for the Taliban is the last thing in the world we want to see."
The Afghanistan Study Group report said that the current separation was insufficient and that there was "an emerging view that Afghanistan and its long-term problems would be better addressed by decoupling funding and related programmes from those for Iraq".
Both the Afghanistan Study Group and the Atlantic Council's reports also called for an overhaul of the bureaucratic systems that run the military and civil society efforts in Afghanistan.
On an international level, the groups both called for the appointment of a high commissioner at the United Nations to oversee international aid, reconstruction and civil society improvements.
Much to the disappointment of those in attendance Wednesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed reservations about British statesman Paddy Ashdown's appointment to the post last week at the World Economic Form in Davos, Switzerland. Ashdown - who had previously been the UN high representative for Bosnia - withdrew his candidacy, citing a lack of Afghan support.
Similar to the international recommendation, the reports called for the consolidation of US aims with the creation of a special envoy to Afghanistan - referred to as the Afghanistan czar - who would be responsible for coordinating military and civilian operations as well as maintaining ties to the international efforts of the UN, NATO and Europe.
Another issue that loomed large in the reports was the re-emergence of the opium trade in Afghanistan. Current figures put the Afghan share of the world opium market at over 90% - accounting for an estimated 60% of the impoverished nation's gross domestic product.
"Narcotics, in my view, is the cancer that is eating Afghanistan inside and out," said retired General James L Jones, a former NATO commander who worked on both of the broader reports. "It criminalizes the society. It provides the economic incentive for weapons purchases that come back and kill our soldiers. And it defies, so far, any strategic solution that we've seen."
Several proposed solution were discussed at the meeting - including buying up and destroying opium crops - where a National Defence University paper called "Winning the Invisible War" on a proposed comprehensive agricultural plan for Afghanistan was released.
"It was absolutely clear for somebody who had been in war and in war zones that while NATO and coalition was never going to lose on the military side, military force could not win," said Harlan Ullman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the lead author of the NDU paper. "It was really the civil sector that needed great repair."
The plan hopes that, using practices from the US agricultural markets such as efficient means of exporting goods, Afghan farmers will be able to turn away from the steady income stream of opium production and towards legitimate agriculture.
Always a hot topic in the region, Afghanistan's relations with its neighbors was also discussed.
The most contentious issue, at the moment, is the problem with Pakistan. The border region between the two countries is difficult to police and is known as a staging ground from which the Taliban has launched its insurgency. But a slower-burning issue exists in Afghan relations with Iran.
Iran - which Bush once labeled as part of the "axis of evil" - enjoys what Karzai last week called "a particularly good relationship" with Afghanistan. The distinction as a US enemy doesn't seem to bother Karzai, and critics of the Bush strategy in the Middle East point to this as another example of a time when the US should be positively engaging Iran.
"The present US stance of not speaking with Tehran about Afghanistan risks increasing the likelihood that Iran will step up its covert interference as a way of hurting the United States," said the Afghanistan Study Group Report, adding that if the US couldn't talk directly, it should do so through NATO or other international means.
Iran, under a religiously conservative government, is a natural ally in the battle against the opium trade.
"One of the reasons the administration was put off [by the Iraq Study Group] was because it said open up communication. That doesn't mean negotiation," said ambassador Abshire. "I'm for communication because of the different elements that you want to reach out to," he said, noting that the Iranian population and even politicians have a wide variety of views about the US.
(Inter Press Service)
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Afghanistan's tribal complexity
In the dark Jan 31st 2008 | SANGIN DISTRICT, HELMAND The Economist
Far more than two sides to the conflict
BEARDED like an Old Testament prophet, an old man tugs nervously at the sleeve of the British commander, Major Tony Chattin of the Royal Marines. “The Taliban come from the north and fire from this treeline at your base,” he murmurs. The tip-off in the fields south of the town of Sangin is spot on. An hour later soldiers are exchanging fire with Taliban fighters. British troops glean a lot of information from local people in Helmand, but it is hard to know what to believe. Major Chattin commands a new base nearby. He frankly compares himself to a man trying to work out his surroundings by feeling his way by touch in a darkened room.
It might be a metaphor for the whole campaign, which is leading to so much soul-searching in the West. Two years into their deployment in Helmand, British forces are still learning. The war in Afghanistan is not against a monolithic Taliban movement. In much of the country it is entwined with older struggles rooted in tribalism.
In Helmand a 20-year-old battle involves at least three main factions competing for control of the province's huge opium trade. The dominant grouping since 2001 has been that of the Akhundzada family, who are members of the Alizai tribe, and their various allies. Sher Mohammed Akhundzada was Helmand's governor till he was ousted in December 2005 under British pressure over his links to the drugs business. President Hamid Karzai has now called his ouster a mistake, citing the Taliban's successes in the area since then. It is true that Mr Akhundzada had kept the scale of the fighting in check. But the thuggery of his regime had also provoked widespread anger, and sowed the seeds for the Taliban's return.
In Sangin, power after 2001 was in the hands a warlord from the Alikozai tribe named Dad Mohammad Khan and his family, allies of the Akhundzadas. Predatory rulers, they favoured their own tribal faction and that of the Akhundzadas, while marginalising other groups, notably the Itzhakzai tribe, which had enjoyed considerable local clout under the Taliban.
In June 2006 40 members of Dad Mohammad's family were killed in a single day as the Taliban seized back control of the district. Few locals mourned their overthrow. The attackers were all Itzhakzais, according to other tribal leaders. It is not clear which affiliation mattered more: to the tribe, or to the Taliban.
Sensitivity to Afghanistan's tribal complexity has become all the rage. The American army has deployed anthropologists to help its troops understand the shifting mosaic of tribal interest groups. In Parliament in December, Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, lapsed into Pushto when he talked about beefing up “traditional Afghan arbakai” (ie, tribal policing arrangements); he said Britain needed to “understand the tribal dynamics”.
Easier said than done. A crude ethnic breakdown—about 40% of Afghans are Pushtun, 30% Tajiks, and the rest Hazaras, Turkmen, Uzbeks and others—masks baffling complexity. One veteran says that to fight in Afghanistan “you must approach every village as its own campaign.”
And that means understanding Pushtun tribal culture. There are some 60 Pushtun tribes and 400 sub-tribes, many at odds with each other. Since the 18th century, supremacy has been held almost continuously by the Durrani tribal federation. The NATO invasion of 2001, toppling the Taliban, enabled the three main Durrani tribes, the Popolzai (the tribe of President Karzai), the Barakzai and the Alikozai (Dad Mohammad's group), to reclaim their dominance. That angered both non-Durranis and some smaller Durrani tribes.
For their part, the Taliban have always held themselves above tribal politics. Indeed, they regard tribal custom as a deviation from sharia law. But where individual tribes feel badly treated, the Taliban are willing allies. Intriguingly, provinces where tribal structures are strongest, such as Paktia, Paktika and Khost, have proved most resistant to Taliban encroachment.
NATO commanders are now studying these areas hard. In Loya Paktia, as the region is known, the Taliban have struggled to gain ground against the ancient code of tribal behaviour known as Pushtunwali (literally, “do Pushtun”). It governs hospitality, honour and revenge. It has self-regulating systems of arbakai, tribal elders and arbitration. Loya Paktia remains startlingly egalitarian and determinedly suspicious of outsiders. Yet, tempting as it is to see such structures as the answer to the Taliban, Pushtunwali is also hostile to the central government and to Western ideals, particularly of education and sex equality. Feuds in Loya Paktia are still often settled by the exchange of women.
Away from Loya Paktia, in the south, and notably in the Taliban heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar, the old tribal structures have eroded. Yet the drug-financed warlords who hold the balance of power are still rooted in the tribal system. This makes them hard to dislodge. But they in turn find it difficult to extend their power across tribal lines. The upshot is perpetually indecisive factionalism.
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Mission creep in Afghanistan
By Philip Smucker Asia Times Online / February 1, 2008
KAPISA, Afghanistan - In the past two years, foreign fighters - Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens and Central Asians - have infiltrated in the direction of Kabul from insurgent redoubts in Pakistan to take up positions in the southern mountains of the country. They trek for days through harsh terrain, dodging road blocks and air strikes.
Their goal: to rally the province's Pashtun minority to fight against the predominantly Tajik north and their Western allies. Even as the Afghan winter reaches its frigid zenith, elite French mountain commandos have been deployed alongside Afghan forces with US back up in an effort to quell the mounting insurgency.
"Southern Kapisa is important for the Taliban and their allies for its proximity to Kabul," said the region's task force commander, US Army Colonel Jonathan Ives. "They have fought pretty hard to keep us from getting back up in there. We see that when a major insurgent financier arrives in an area, the level of insurgent activity spikes," he adds.
Taking the fight to the enemy, however, is less about firing off bombs and bullets, says Ives, than about winning over the provinces leaders and its growing young generation.
To undercut the insurgents - whose forces are an unusual mix of al-Qaeda operatives and fighters loyal to American nemesis Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - Kapisa is fast becoming a litmus test for the US military's new and improved counter-insurgency campaign.
That means added urgency and stress on the work of a 75-man US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led Provincial Reconstruction Team - or "PRT". But while senior US officers see these teams - 12 of them run by the US military - as the "new wave" in non-combat counter-insurgency, in practice their soldiers look a lot like old-school peacekeepers and "nation-builders", the kind you find across the developing world under the oft-slandered banner of the United Nations.
Ten years ago, the fast-track US colonels and majors who now lead the Afghan mission would have referred to what goes on here in the name of counter-insurgency as "mission creep"; work well beyond the scope of serious American soldiering.
Now, the US soldiers who do the best peacekeeping aren't afraid to boast about their deeds over the grumbles of colleagues who sport T-shirts that read: "The Taliban Hunt Club."
"We have not been attacked while traveling alone, only when we are out with other teams or combat units," says air force Captain Eric Saks, whose job description includes diplomacy, aid work and peacemaking. "Even the bad guys know we are not really looking for a fight."
That is because Saks and his comrades are the folks to talk to for millions of US dollars in economic development funds.
Kapisa residents, leaders and youth groups approach Saks for investments in projects that address the standard list of developing world problems: women's rights, youth employment, free speech and health care. The captain, a 30-something Long Islander, draws on a dollar budget of millions to lend support to the best and most "sustainable" project ideas.
For several years after the US invaded the country in 2001, economic development played second fiddle to the hunt for al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Villagers looked on as US soldiers shot and literally "bagged" their foe, then turned a cold shoulder to the populace.
That zero-sum strategy was making more enemies than friends, US officers admit now.
"Instead of killing them and seeing the insurgency just replace its own, we need development as a means of isolating the enemy," says Ives, an engineer from Washington State, who heads up the larger Task Force Cincinnatus under which Saks serves.
Romancing the young generation
Queried about their sports club, a clique of proud young Afghan men peel out their color photographs and slide them across the table towards the US military officers.
"Tell me this isn't a perfect picture of what people back home would want to help Afghanistan out with," comments one US military captain to another.
Indeed, with wealthy al-Qaeda and Taliban financiers waiting in the wings to lure these same young men to battle with pay and promises of martyrdom, the ability of the US military and NATO to engage Afghanistan's youth in activities and employment is seen by many in the US military as key to quelling the insurgency in Afghanistan.
Western intelligence officials and American military officers believe that small terror cells operate in the broader population to rally unwitting young Afghans to their cause. "Few of the kids we are fighting even understand the insurgency's political or ideological goals," said Ives. They do it for money and perceived honor.
The new US tactics are crucial in Afghanistan, where 50% of the entire population is still under 15 years of age.
Osama bin Laden remains the stuff of folklore and fame in these parts. Bin Laden and his deputies are ensconced in Pakistan's tribal areas over 200 kilometers to the east and south as the crow flies. Their recruiting and propaganda machine functions at full throttle across Afghanistan.
Newsweek reported this week that bin Laden has in recent months scribbled a series of notes on white paper to loyal Taliban allies on both sides of the Pakistan and Afghan border with a mind to bolster morale and encourage recruiting. The Saudi kingpin's letter-writing campaign would suggest that he is comfortable in his own skin and isn't under any intensifying military threats from the Pakistani or US militaries.
While bin Laden rallies his forces, however, there are signs that some astute commanders in the US military do finally "get it": that their often strangely-prosecuted "war on terror" is really less about hunting bad guys with a vengeance and much more about winning "hearts and minds" across the Islamic world.
"All over the world, you are seeing the kind of insurgency we face here because of demographics and a sense that some people don't feel they have access to what they should have," said Ives. "Some of these insurgencies will be ideologically driven, others not."
The window of opportunity for peace in Afghanistan is still open, but could soon close.
In Afghanistan, few in the young generation recall the assistance that the US provided in the struggle against the Soviet Union. Most young Afghans, nevertheless, pine for a chance to bury ethnic and religious rivalry.
"We don't want the young people to go back to fighting as their fathers did," says Hashmat Ashaq Zada, chief of the Youth Generation Association, which began working last week with the US military and possible outside donors to build soccer leagues across the troubled Kapisa province.
Along with several other youth leaders, Zada is petitioning the US military and NATO for more sports and employment projects for young Afghans. He needs, among other things, uniforms and grass seed.
A day earlier, Saks and Toni Tones, a female US Air Force captain, whose last deployment was in Africa working with AIDS orphans, perused a blue print for a new women's education center.
"It is crucial that we try to move ahead with this project now, because if we don't build it, the government will take back the land from us and use it for something else," pleaded Zaheda Kohistany, a lawyer for a women's group.
Other women in the same room proposed that the US military save a flooded girls' school. "I have been here for 10 months and I am just now learning that there is a girls' school here," Saks said.
With vast swathes of the Afghan countryside slipping under the sway of the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the past two years, there is a new urgency to the US military's own concerns that their PRTs work more efficiently.
Ives believes that his own teams are in dire need of larger staffs in order to tackle corruption, assist with good governance and promote egalitarian development. If he had his druthers, Ives would add 25 civilian experts - including a large number of internationals - to each 75 person PRT.
"We need persons with degrees in government and law," he said in a wide-ranging discussion of the morphing US mission in Afghanistan. "I don't care if they are from the US or not; Finnish or Swedish experts would be fine."
One of the problems faced by US forces as they try to step up their humanitarian assistance programs is "continuity"; being on the ground long enough to pinpoint development needs without duplicating or investing in the wrong kind of projects. A new US-built post office in Kapisa's capital stands unused.
Ives, who can recite from memory the UN's millennium goals for economic development and disease alleviation, insists that his soldiers have to assess human needs as well as human nature.
Identifying honest leaders is at least as important as killing "high-value targets", he adds. "First we try to get a sense of what drives government officials: what is their background, what is the size of their clan and how corrupt are they?"
For now, Afghanistan's economy is growing at an unexpected pace, nearly 10% per year. The figure is deceptive, however, since the country started from less than zero in 2001. To conquer a growing insurgency, growth must be sustainable and balanced across the nation.
For soldiers that often prefer shooting guns, blowing things up or chasing down the "bad guys", the task of assisting that process presents itself as their own "millennium" challenge.
Philip Smucker is a commentator and journalist based in South Asia and the Middle East. He is the author of Al-Qaeda's Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's Trail (2004).
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West will never beat Taliban, Rudd warned
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Matt Wade Herald Correspondent in Islamabad and agencies
January 31, 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
A FORMER head of Pakistan's military intelligence says Australia's troop deployment in Afghanistan is doomed to failure and has urged the Government to withdraw its forces as quickly as possible.
Hamid Gul, the retired general who was the director-general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate when it supported Afghan militias against the Soviet occupation of their country, believes Western troops will be forced to leave Afghanistan by the end of next year.
"There comes a time in every war when the scales start tilting," Mr Gul said. "I think the foreign presence in Afghanistan is at a tipping point now. Even if they are able to stretch it out, next year will be the last campaign year of the occupying forces. Then they will go - they will have to go."
Mr Gul said it was not "wise" for Australia to maintain its troop commitment. "Of course it's very difficult to say no to America, but [Australia should] find a way out like Japan … and many others."
More than six years after the US-led invasion, the issue of security came to a head this week when the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, threatened to pull out Canada's 2500 troops early next year unless NATO sent in more soldiers.
The US said it would press its European NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan's violent south, but the Pentagon has said it will not commit any more of its own forces there.
The Taliban were toppled by the invasion in late 2001 but have recently made an explosive comeback, despite the presence of 50,000 foreign troops under the command of NATO and the US military, backed by 120,000 Afghan security forces.
Australia has about 1000 troops stationed mainly in the south, making it the largest non-NATO contributor. The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has pledged to keep Australian troops in Afghanistan.
But Mr Gul says Western forces face a determined opposition that will not give up."As a soldier I can tell you there is no army, no matter how strong, that can prevail against a nation that decides to fight. You will never, never prevail," he said.
Since retirement Mr Gul has been involved with Jamaat-i-Islami, a relatively moderate Islamic political party in Pakistan, and was among a group of retired army officers who last week called on the President, Pervez Musharraf, to stand down.
Mr Gul concedes that a withdrawal from Afghanistan by the US and its allies would probably hand control of much of the country to the Taliban. But he said the security situation in his own country would improve significantly if US forces were to depart Pakistan.
The Afghan Defence Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, has said Kabul expects its allies to help expand Afghanistan's security forces. "The only sustainable way to secure this country in an enduring way is to enable the Afghans themselves to be able to defend this country," he said.
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Taliban shifts tactics in Afghanistan
Suicide bombings becoming random
By Bruce Wallace Los Angeles Times / February 1, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two deadly bombings in Afghanistan yesterday underscored the difficulties in combating the tactics of the Taliban insurgency, a campaign now increasingly using suicide bombers moving through cities in search of vulnerable targets.
Yesterday's bombings claimed seven victims, including the deputy governor of turbulent Helmand province, who was blown up while praying in a mosque.
The attacks underscored the declining sense of security in many parts of the country, where American and other NATO troops are trying to suppress a revived insurgency. Although NATO argues it has rolled back the Taliban's territorial gains in Afghanistan's violent south and eastern regions, the insurgents increasingly have turned to terror attacks with the aim of weakening support for the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
The first attack yesterday was an early morning car bombing that apparently targeted a passing Afghanistan National Army bus on a road in Kabul, the capital. The blast killed a civilian and injured four others, according to the interior ministry.
Kabul immediately was gripped by rumors that other would-be bombers were roaming the streets in search of targets.
Another strike came hours later, although not in the capital. A suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a mosque during afternoon prayers in Helmand's provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, killing Pir Mohammed, the province's deputy governor. Six others were killed, including the bomber, local police said.
Helmand is the heart of Afghanistan's lucrative heroin trade, and the provincial government had begun a new eradication program just two days ago. But Western officials in Helmand said it was unlikely the deputy governor's murder was narcotics-related, noting that suicide bombings are a hallmark of religious extremists, not warlords and criminal gangs enmeshed in the drug trade.
Mohammad's killing was seen as a blow to efforts by British troops to restore confidence in security among the population in Helmand. The deputy governor had been working closely with the British to establish government institutions that would allow foreign troops to adopt a lower profile, a key component of NATO's evolving counterinsurgency strategy.
The British have been making territorial gains against the Taliban in recent months, evicting them from strongholds and asserting that improved security has led Afghan citizens to begin informing on would-be intended Taliban suicide bombers.
The developing problem, Western officials say, is the Taliban tactic of random suicide bombings, in which would-be attackers drive or walk through the city waiting until they spot security flaws and high-profile targets.
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Former Afghan minister worried mission not succeeding in public support
The Canadian Press
CALGARY - A former senior member of the Afghan government says Canada's military mission to Afghanistan will continue to falter if the troops don't find a way to win over the Afghan people.
The death toll has continued to rise in Afghanistan both for the military and for civilians who are often innocent bystanders in attacks on NATO troops by suicide bombers or roadside bombs.
Sima Samar, who served as served as deputy president and then as minister for women's affairs in the transitional government, says there were high expectations when the international community entered her country after the fall of the Taliban.
But she says so far the life of an average Afghan has not improved.
A major criticism of the mission has been lack of progress in reconstruction, especially in Kandahar province, where Canadian soldiers are playing a dual role of building schools, clinics and digging wells while at the same time attempting to keep the Taliban at bay.
Samar, who is in Calgary on a speaking tour, says there has also been a failure in controlling the opium trade that provides money for the Taliban.
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U.S. Army tests new pants for Afghanistan
Feb. 1, 2008 at 9:44 AM
Print story Email to a friend Font size:WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army is testing prototype uniform pants in Hawaii with reinforced seats designed to meet the needs of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.
The Army is testing multiple prototypes designed to solve the problem of uniform pants coming apart at the crotch from sliding on Afghanistan's rough terrain, USA Today reported Friday.
"These guys are actually sliding down the mountainsides on their butts," Fred Coppola, an Army official involved in the testing, told the newpaper. "In a lot of cases, it was too mountainous, too rugged, too steep to try to walk down."
Researchers initially attempted to reinforce the pants by spraying them with a rubbery material similar to that found in the beds of pickup trucks but Coppola said a major problem immediately arose.
"It went up like a torch," he said.
The researchers designed a flame-retardant substitute, which is among the designs slated for testing in Hawaii. Also being tested is a design that includes a tough fabric sewn onto the seat and inseam of the uniform pants.
Coppola told USA Today soldiers involved in the testing will "scooch around on their butts" to assess the effectiveness of the designs.
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New bid to control Pakistan’s tribal belt
US, Pakistan step up efforts to address the militant haven tied to global terror.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Islamabad, Pakistan - After years of Pakistani indecision and US deference, the fight against Pakistan's terrorists, it appears, is now entering a new stage.
Since 9/11, Pakistan has been slow to react to the increasing influence of militants in its remote tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and the US has been loath to interfere, at least openly.
But this dynamic is shifting since terrorists killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and are striking at more corners of the country. For the first time, the US is putting public pressure on Pakistan by asking its leaders to let the US help fight terrorists within the country. Though Pakistan has rebuffed these advances, it has shown signs of taking the terrorist threat more seriously, responding quickly and forcefully to militants' increasingly bold attacks.
It is too early to call this a turning point – it is far from clear what effect these efforts will have. But they suggest a new resolve to address what has become the primary launching pad for terrorist attacks against Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the world.
"There is a realization within the military establishment that the government has lost its authority in the tribal areas," says Ismail Khan, a reporter for the English-language daily, Dawn, who covers the tribal belt.
In recent weeks, the US has offered military assistance to root out extremists in the largely ungoverned northwestern regions known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – with combat troops, CIA operations, or training.
President Pervez Musharraf has rejected the "invasion" of US troops. But the US is becoming increasingly concerned that activity within FATA is now the foremost threat to the stability in the region and even the world.
US officials have long worried that the Afghan Taliban were finding shelter in FATA. But the assassination of former Ms. Bhutto Dec. 27 – attributed to militants from FATA – was evidence that they could strike at the heart of Pakistan itself. Meanwhile, a string of terrorist plots, including the foiled plan to blow up passenger planes over the Atlantic, were traced to training camps and terrorist leaders in FATA.
As a result, there is a desire to increase coordination on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. Tactically, "Pakistan and Afghanistan are not different," says Ijaz Khan, a political scientist at Peshawar University. "They should be seen together."
With plans to send 3,200 more troops to Afghanistan in the spring, the US is adding strength to the Afghan side. America's overtures to Pakistan represent an effort to "find ways to strengthen the Pakistan Army," says Anthony Cordesman, a security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
He dismisses unilateral US action in Pakistan as implausible and counterproductive unless it is small, strictly targeted, and can be plausibly denied – the sort of operation Pakistan might secretly accept.
Already, the US is believed to launch periodic missiles into Pakistan from drone aircraft flying from Afghanistan. A Jan. 29 strike in North Waziristan was said by locals to have been one of these. The Pakistani government has also launched airstrikes in the region, but the US and Pakistan deny responsibility for such attacks, which have occurred periodically in recent years.
For its part, Pakistan has shown signs of dealing with its militants more decisively. Last week, militants in FATA hijacked four trucks filled with military materiel. In the past, militants have occupied a mosque in the capital, Islamabad, for months without a response from the military. But days after the hijacking, the Army sent tanks and troops to a nearby town where Taliban had walked the streets freely.
Earlier this month, Mr. Musharraf replaced the regional governor who oversees security in FATA. The previous governor, Ali Jan Aurakzai, engineered the withdrawal of the Pakistani Army from FATA in 2006 in exchange for a promise from local tribal leaders that they would expel any foreign militants. The plan is now widely viewed as a failure that greatly strengthened militants. The new governor, Owais Ahmad Ghazi, gained his reputation by putting down an insurgency in the neighboring province of Balochistan by force.
Many Pakistani analysts, however, doubt Pakistan's commitment rto stamping out militancy. They question whether it is merely going through these motions to ease international pressure, as they say it has before.
To some, the Army is still reluctant to turn against these extremists, whom it used before 9/11 to terrorize India and establish, through the Taliban, a pro-Pakistan government in Afghanistan. If it will not change this mind set, the current operations will fail, they say.
What is needed, they say, is for the US to use the same sophistication that it did in Iraq, where Marines in Anbar Province used their knowledge of the cultural landscape to fight a more nuanced and effective war.
In FATA, America cannot do the fighting, but it can use its influence to ensure that Pakistan fights more intelligently, says Ikram Sehgal, editor of Defence Journal. "The US needs to apply pressure, but it needs to apply the right kind of pressure."
The solution, he says, is not intensified operations, which are likely to alienate the fiercely independent tribal belt. Instead, the Army should use tribal chiefs to leverage the situation in their favor, supporting those who oppose the militants.
In an area such as FATA, intersecting allegiances of tribe and ethnicity create a patchwork of problems that can vary from one village to the next.
"You have to get into the micro-level to find what the problems are in each area and find the solutions to that," says Mr. Khan, the journalist.
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2 Pakistani soldiers killed, 10 injured in suicide attack near Afghan border
AP - Saturday, February 2
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a military checkpoint in North Waziristan, a region near the Afghan border, killing two government soldiers and injuring 10 others, officials said Thursday.
The attack occurred near the district capital of Mir Ali, 350 kilometers (210 miles) southwest of Islamabad, a military spokesman said. Three of the injured troops were reported to be in critical condition.
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Afghan family seeks reunion with distant brothers
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle - Feb 01 2:34 AM
(February 1, 2008) — Zabi Noomani doesn't remember his father. Zabi says he was just 5 years old when the man was beaten to death for standing up to the Taliban in Afghanistan. He refused to wear a beard.
What the 19-year-old Harley School senior does recall are the long days hawking goods in an open-air market in Pakistan, where the rest of his family later escaped, fearing for their lives. His older brothers sold water from a pail. Little Zabi peddled grocery bags, which he bought for one rupee and sold for two.
If his story is reminiscent of The Kite Runner, the popular book and movie about an Afghan boy's relationship with his father, Noomani says his tale is more dire.
"My story is worse than that," says Noomani of Henrietta, who still helps support his family by working after-school jobs. "At least he was living in Afghanistan when it was good. ... At least he lived, and he saw his dad."
Now Zabi and his family are in another kind of struggle. They are fighting to reunite with two brothers who stayed behind so that the others would be safe.
We're sitting in the small apartment where the Noomanis, now naturalized American citizens, have tried to move on with their lives.
Zabi's mother, Sideeqa Noomani, 47, chokes back tears as she speaks about the years since the death of her husband, who was a school administrator in their country. She says her father was also killed, beaten with a rifle butt at the hands of warlords during the Russian occupation in Afghanistan.
But what burns the hole in her soul now are her boys, the two who took on the roles of providers when the family fled to Pakistan after her husband's murder.
Sideeqa was pregnant with her youngest of seven children when they fled their homeland, she says. They all lived together in one room, with no furniture or much of anything else beyond what the children were able to make each day at the bazaar.
Their fate changed on one of those days when a local woman buying grocery bags from Zabi asked why he was not in school. Zabi, about 8 years old at the time, told the woman of his family's situation.
Zabi says the woman, a principal for a private school, then introduced the family to someone at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad who helped the Noomanis relocate to the United States.
During the process, though, Sideeqa made a decision not to mention her two oldest sons, then in their late teens. She says neighbors told her that mentioning the older boys, who would need background checks and more scrutiny than the younger children, could delay the application for citizenship as well as a chance to make a life for her other kids.
"It's a Sophie's Choice," said Bob Kane, a teacher at Harley who has taken up the family's cause. "What are you going to do?"
The mother and four of her children arrived here in the summer of 2001, leaving the older brothers. They have since been trying to work through a bureaucracy that has been complicated further by the political chaos in Pakistan.
The Noomanis have borrowed money for DNA testing that proved the older brothers were related. In fact, the brothers were once approved for a visa but something — no one's quite sure — happened during the interview portion that halted the process.
They keep trying, making calls and mailing papers. But the effort and loss have taken a physical and emotional toll on the mother.
"I see her cry," Zabi says. "She cries all the time, because they were like a father to me."
Zabi's classmates at Harley have taken up his fight. Members of the school's People for Peace and Justice Club have circulated petitions and have contacted politicians and just about anyone else who might help.
"He's our peer," says Rebekah Sherman-Myntti, a junior at Harley and a member of the club. "He's in our school. ... His family has basically struggled for a long time and we wanted to bring them justice."
Their efforts so far have attracted publicity and the attention of Rep. Thomas Reynolds's local office, which recently made an inquiry to the embassy in Islamabad about the case. It's now waiting for a response.
"We're trying to help these people as much as we can," says L.D. Platt, the congressman's spokesperson.
Zabi, who will graduate high school in June, tries to stay focused on his studies in the interim. "That's really the only reason we came to the United States," he says, "to make something of ourselves."
He's applied to local colleges, but is hoping to get into a drama school. He wants to be an actor.
"With my accent, I have a one in a billion chance," Zabi says, "but I want to take the shot."
That's the kind of American dream he never had in his native country. Whether his brothers will be allowed the same chance is what's up in the air.
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