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Taliban ambush kills four Afghan policemen: officials, militia
Fri Feb 15, 3:47 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol in western Afghanistan, killing four policemen and kidnapping two others, a provincial governor and the militia said Friday.
US in new push to bolster Afghan police
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 15, 6:41 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - The United States gave Afghan police 70,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 51,000 pistols and 3,500 vehicles last year, part of $2.5 billion in spending to upgrade the force.
NATO Struggles Over Who Will Send Additional Troops to Fight in Afghanistan
By Thomas Omestad U.S. News & World Report - Thu Feb 14, 8:56 AM ET
The struggle to defeat the rising Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan is straining the NATO alliance as the Bush administration ramps up its effort to persuade Europeans to jump into the fight more deeply than ever before.
Afghan winter death toll reaches 926
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Bitter cold, snowstorms and avalanches have killed 926 people in Afghanistan — half of them in the hard hit west — as the country suffers one of the most brutal winters in decades.
Love is tough in Afghanistan
by Waheedullah Massoud Fri Feb 15, 4:01 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Five young Afghan women slipped out to lunch in an upmarket Kabul eatery on Valentine's Day, each wearing a red scarf in a wink to the day of love -- a difficult pursuit in Afghanistan.
Canadians 'severely disrupt' Afghanistan insurgency: general
Thu Feb 14, 6:37 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Security has improved dramatically in southern Afghanistan in recent months, a Canadian general said Thursday, but the real test will come in May to September when fighting usually intensifies.
Ottawa to hold weekly Afghan briefings, but keep tight lid on information
Thu Feb 14, 7:19 PM By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - The Conservative government threw open the doors to weekly briefings on the Afghan mission Thursday, only to have the Canadian Forces warn it will still have to keep plenty of secrets.
Czechs to reinforce Dutch units in Afghan province
Prague Daily Monitor - Feb 14 11:10 PM
Prague, Feb 14 (CTK) - The Czech military wants to send 62 members of the mechanised company from the 31st radiation, chemical and biological warfare brigade to the Dutch Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT)
Canada, Australia heads confer on Afghanistan
Thu Feb 14, 2:09 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper conferred with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd overnight about the future of NATO's Afghanistan mission, his spokeswoman said Thursday.
Afghan domestic opinion neglected in Ashdown plan
Financial Times, UK February 15 2008 From Mr Michael Shank.
Sir, Paddy Ashdown still does not get it. His three-pronged policy prescription for Afghanistan ("A strategy to save Afghanistan", February 13), while meritorious on many levels, nowhere implies consultation with Afghanistan's
German Coalition To Hold Afghanistan Talks - AFP
BERLIN (AFP)--Leaders of Germany's ruling coalition will hold a special meeting on Tuesday to discuss the country's military mission in Afghanistan, a government spokesman said on Friday.
Canadian PM urges Australia to reinforce Afghan deployment
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-15 05:56:55
OTTAWA, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged Australia to reinforce its troops in Afghanistan in a telephone talk with his counterpart Kevin Rudd, a spokeswoman said here Thursday.
A Young Life Hangs in the Balance in Afghanistan's Cultural War
Death Ordered for Challenging Islam
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 15, 2008; A14
KABUL -- While trolling the Internet last October, Afghan journalism student Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh came across some articles that questioned the limits of women's rights under Islam. According to Afghan prosecutors
Afghanistan, Iran to meet on refugee expulsions
Daily Times, Pakistan Friday, February 15, 2008
KABUL
Kabul is seeking an urgent meeting with Tehran about the deportation of Afghans, the government said Wednesday, with 7,000 forced out in the past month despite a pledge to halt expulsions over winter.
Pakistan A 'Hotbed' For Terror
Lawless tribal belt is al-Qaeda training ground
National Post Peter Goodspeed Friday, February 15, 2008
For centuries the wild Pakistani tribal area -- stretching 1,000 kilometres along the Afghan border -- has been lawless, violent and remote. Now, it is rapidly becoming a central front in the U.S.-led war on
Progress in Afghanistan 'limited' by lack of troops
Canada.com, Canada Mike Blanchfield Canwest News Service Thursday, February 14, 2008
Canada's efforts to bring stability and peace to Kandahar would be much farther ahead if it had more troops to help it, the general in charge of the military's overseas operations has told Canwest News.
Looking for the Good Guys in Afghanistan's Badlands
American forces try out new approaches against insurgents in forbidding Kunar province
U.S. News & World Report, DC By Philip Smucker February 14, 2008
ASADABAD, AFGHANISTAN
On some days, Sgt. James Himrod and his buddies watch what they call "Kill TV" in the control room at Forward Operating Base Michigan, their remote mountain outpost at the foot of the embattled Korengal Valley.
Italy questions its involvment in Afghanistan
Courrier International, France - Feb 14, 2008
After the death of an Italian soldier on February 13th in Afghanistan, Franco Venturini considers the presence of Italian troops in this country. "A tragic event has been thrust upon the Italian electoral campaign. Absorbed by questions
Web warning issued for soldiers in Afghanistan
Innocent photos and reports to families can provide information to insurgents, general says
Feb 15, 2008 04:30 AM Toronto Star, Canada Allan Woods Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA–The Internet poses a major security threat to Canadian soldiers fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan, a ranking Canadian military official says.
Inquest into soldier's Afghanistan death
ITN via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Feb 15 2:58 AM
The father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan has slammed delays in publishing details about the death as "pretty sloppy".
'Canada's mission has to change'
An open letter to Stephen Harper
Stephane Dion, National Post Friday, February 15, 2008
Dear Prime Minister,
Today Canada carries a heavy burden in Afghanistan. Our brave men and women in the Canadian Forces and our civilian officials face very real risks every day, as they serve their country and the people of Afghanistan by working
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Taliban ambush kills four Afghan policemen: officials, militia
Fri Feb 15, 3:47 AM ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol in western Afghanistan, killing four policemen and kidnapping two others, a provincial governor and the militia said Friday.
Two more policemen were wounded in the attack late Thursday in Nimroz province, governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad told AFP.
A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said fighters with his militia had carried out the attack. "We killed four policemen and have taken with us two policemen alive," he said by telephone.
The attack was similar to scores carried out by gunmen who have aligned themselves with the Islamic Taliban movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001.
There are around 60,000 international troops, most of them under NATO-command, fighting an Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban insurgency alongside Afghan forces.
Last year was the deadliest of the insurgency, with more than 6,000 people estimated to have been killed -- most of them rebel fighters.
A Canadian general said Thursday security had improved dramatically in recent months in the south of the country, where Canada commands NATO forces, but the real test would come in May to September when fighting usually intensifies.
"The security effect that we've worked hard with our partners to achieve is beginning to take effect, is beginning to take hold in targeted areas," General Michel Gauthier said.
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US in new push to bolster Afghan police
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 15, 6:41 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - The United States gave Afghan police 70,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 51,000 pistols and 3,500 vehicles last year, part of $2.5 billion in spending to upgrade the force.
Despite that influx of firepower, Taliban militants targeted police in dozens of attacks, killing at least 925 in 2007. Afghan police often work in small groups in remote and dangerous territory, where they are outnumbered, outgunned and overwhelmed by insurgents.
The lack of an effective training program for the police — a role first held by Germany — is often cited as one of the West's biggest failings since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida bases.
Now the U.S. is rolling out a new training program that will see small teams of American soldiers mentor and train police officers over the course of several months.
The U.S. general in charge sees the program, which broadly mirrors the model used to train police in Iraq, as a big step forward to move past the police force's lackluster reputation.
"Regardless of what you think the role of police should be, the reality is that they've become the first line of defense for the Afghan people in many parts of this country and they deserve to have the kind of training that will give them a good chance of survival," Maj. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
The police force has about 75,000 officers now, with a goal of growing to 82,000.
The new training program, called Focus District Development — now in its first cycle, provides officers with new equipment — vehicles, weapons, uniforms, radios, protective gear — and enrolls them in an electronic pay system to prevent superiors from skimming paychecks, a common problem.
Some 1,500 mentors — 800 American soldiers and 700 DynCorps contractors — will train police for eight weeks at regional sites. Then small teams will work with police in the field for two to four months.
The training is currently taking place in seven of Afghanistan's 365 districts and will take four years to complete, Cone said.
"In years past, these guys would graduate and then go out to a place like Musa Qala and survive on their own. The police mentoring step is the key," said Lt. Col. David Johnson, a military spokesman.
About 1,000 of the 3,200 Marines scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan this spring will help train Afghan police, he said.
While Afghanistan's army has earned high marks for its continued development, the police force lags far behind despite an influx of funds. The U.S. spent $2.5 billion on the police in fiscal year 2007 and will spend $800 million in 2008, a number that could increase if supplemental funds are passed.
An official at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, which oversees the country's police, said training police officers is more difficult than training an army.
"The police are involved with the people, with the community; they are working in smaller groups than the army," ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said. "They have a presence in every part of the country, and currently beside doing law enforcement duties they are directly involved in fighting insurgents, poppy cultivation and drug dealers."
Afghan police are paid just $100 a month. Unlike in most countries, police duties in Afghanistan often cross over into outright warfare. Officers face attack by suicide bombers and assaults from bands of Taliban militants.
On Thursday, insurgents ambushed a police vehicle in southwest Nimroz province. An ensuing three-hour gunbattle left four policemen dead, two wounded and two others missing, said Gen. Mohammad Ayub Badakhshi, the provincial police chief.
Because of such threats, police carry assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
"We hope to have a police force someday where the (Kalashnikov) is not the primary weapon," Cone said. "But the reality is that they require these kinds of automatic weapons because of the threat they face."
Cone said Afghan police face another tough year of fighting, but there will be three times more trained officers in the field than there were last year, helping improve the overall security picture.
"What we have learned is that the answer to Afghan police needs is a professional, well trained, well disciplined and well paid police, and anything that diverts from that has been fraught with problems," Cone said. "Any shortcuts have been fraught with difficulties."
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NATO Struggles Over Who Will Send Additional Troops to Fight in Afghanistan
By Thomas Omestad U.S. News & World Report - Thu Feb 14, 8:56 AM ET
The struggle to defeat the rising Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan is straining the NATO alliance as the Bush administration ramps up its effort to persuade Europeans to jump into the fight more deeply than ever before.
The question of getting more battle-ready troops and helicopters into the principal conflict zones in southern Afghanistan is, by many accounts, a critical factor in Afghanistan's future: It will help determine whether the insurgents can be beaten back sufficiently to give a fragile Afghan government and security apparatus time to build themselves into an effective long-term counterforce to the Muslim extremists.
The issue arrived front and center this week when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates appealed directly to Europeans at a security conference in Munich: "I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security" emanating from the al Qaeda-linked rebels in Afghanistan, he said. Gates called European public support for the United Nations-mandated mission weak, adding, "Many Europeans question the relevance of our actions and doubt whether the mission is worth the lives of their sons and daughters."
The stakes relate not only to Afghanistan and to the terror threat to Europe, Gates maintained, but to the trans-Atlantic alliance itself. He warned of NATO becoming a "two tiered alliance," where some countries' forces cleave to less dangerous regions--doing training and peacekeeping--"thus forcing other allies to bear a disproportionate share of the fighting and dying."
Some European officials, most publicly in Germany, have objected to what they see as Gates's hints that their forces are dodging most of the risks and putting unacceptable political pressure on governments like Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands that are more directly engaged in combat operations. Germany's troops operate in the less violent north, a reflection of restrictions placed on them by a parliament with many casualty-averse skeptics on the U.S.-led mission.
Bush administration officials have suggested that, in addition to Germany, such major European countries as France, Italy, and Spain ought to provide more troops or at least ease restrictions on their deployments.
Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said that he had been "irritated" by Gates's attitude in a recent letter requesting that Berlin and other allied governments do more. Still, Germany, with the third-largest number of foreign troops in Afghanistan, recently announced that it would add 200 "quick-reaction" troops there this year.
NATO leads what's called the International Security Assistance Force, with 43,000 troops in Afghanistan. Some 14,000 of those are American, and another 13,000 U.S. troops are under a separate U.S. command. The administration is also sending another 3,200 marines--most to the conflict zones in the south--on a temporary deployment.
The growing tension within NATO follows an old tradition of intra-alliance spats, which have included rough debates over deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles during the Cold War, expanding the alliance eastward and southward, and--always--burden-sharing among countries that assess threats differently.
But it comes at a particularly vulnerable moment. A report by the Washington-based Atlantic Council last month warned that NATO forces in Afghanistan are not winning but rather reaching a "strategic stalemate" with Taliban insurgents. That report, as well as others, also say the central government in Kabul has fallen short in reforms and reconstruction.
Some European officials also believe that the Bush administration is wanting for an effective response to the growing Taliban presence in next-door Pakistan, raising the prospect of a deepening insurgency in Afghanistan or even drawing the Europeans into a wider war.
The debate over insufficient troops in Afghanistan was sparked, in part, by political pressures in Canada, whose troops have been involved in some of the heaviest fighting and suffered 66 deaths. Canada's conservative government says it will remove its 2,500 troops next year if other NATO contingents don't send at least 1,000 troops as reinforcements to Kandahar province in the south. The Canadian pullout could, some worry, touch off a chain reaction of withdrawals.
None of the European participants want that, but in many countries they are facing publics that, to some degree, lump together the U.N.-authorized mission in Afghanistan--a legacy of the September 11 attacks and the U.S.-led toppling of the Taliban regime--and the deeply unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq, with its tortured aftermath. Many Europeans contend that an Iraq-obsessed Bush administration allowed Afghanistan to devolve back into insurgency out of inattention and insufficient resources.
Whether that criticism is correct or not, Gates and others now hope to convince Europe that the Afghan effort falls into an entirely different category than the war in Iraq.
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Afghan winter death toll reaches 926
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - Bitter cold, snowstorms and avalanches have killed 926 people in Afghanistan — half of them in the hard hit west — as the country suffers one of the most brutal winters in decades.
More than 316,000 cattle have died and 833 houses have been destroyed, said Ahmad Shikeb Amraz, spokesman for the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Commission.
Amraz said that of the 926 deaths nationwide, 462 have been in Herat province.
Dozens of people in Herat have had their hands or feet amputated because of frostbite.
Meteorological records indicate this is the worst winter in a decade, but that is only as far back as national statistics go. Afghan officials believe it is the coldest in 30 years. The lowest recorded temperature this season was minus 22.
The cold spell has eased in recent days, but officials worry that people living in difficult to reach, remote areas will suffer from a lack of aid and that more deaths will be reported as roads reopen.
Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries and is largely mountainous, with winter temperatures often plunging well below freezing.
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Love is tough in Afghanistan
by Waheedullah Massoud Fri Feb 15, 4:01 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Five young Afghan women slipped out to lunch in an upmarket Kabul eatery on Valentine's Day, each wearing a red scarf in a wink to the day of love -- a difficult pursuit in Afghanistan.
"It was fun. We also bought a cake," said one of them, a 26-year-old employee of an international nongovernment organisation who asked to be called Jamila to hide her identity.
The red scarves were a sign known only to this group of friends whose brush with foreigners introduced them to Valentine's Day -- an event largely unknown in Afghanistan, where love outside of marriage is taboo.
Three of them even have boyfriends but it would be a scandal if their parents found out.
They had bought the guys gifts to be handed over at an early dinner, Jamila said. "But, of course, it is a secret occasion that no one is meant to know about except us."
Sharifa, another modern Kabuli girl, told her relatives she was having lunch with her best girlfriend. "She is trusted by our family," the 23-year-old said the day before February 14. "Instead I will go out with my boyfriend."
Her lunch was a daring breach of cultural and religion in a society where rigid custom means unrelated girls and boys rarely mix and marriages are fixed by parents.
But even though the tatty winter roses in the capital's famous Flower Street were not dressed up for love this year, Valentine's Day is creeping into modern Afghanistan -- although still under the radar of the conservatives who rail against it in other Islamic countries.
"Our society is driven by strict traditions," said Jamila. "Even families willing to give freedom to their children refrain from doing so to avoid scandal and criticism."
Afghanistan's decades of war and turmoil, and the rule of the hardline Taliban, imposed another layer of conservatism on an already strictly religious society.
"It takes time, I suppose decades, to catch up with the caravan of civilisation of the rest of the world, to transform century-old practices considered as family pride to the needs of today," said Mohammad Farid, 31.
Violations of these customs can result in "honour killings", in which families kill a woman deemed to have insulted the family name. There are no figures for this kind of murder but hundreds are believed to go unreported to police.
Farid, a property dealer, is unmarried -- rare in Afghanistan for someone of his age although many men have to save for years to afford the costly and lavish weddings dictated by tradition.
He would not say if he had a girlfriend but he lamented the lack of places to take a date.
"If you are rich, you can rent a room in a high-class hotel to have private moments, otherwise you use telephones or SMS (instant messaging) as the only means of private communication," he said.
Even in Kabul -- a bubble of modernity in mostly rural and illiterate Afghanistan -- cinemas, concert halls and public parks are off limits to women and said to be frequented only by "bad men."
"The only place a boy and a girl feel comfortable to talk to each other, without fingers being pointed at them, is the university campus where they together as classmates," Jamila said.
Despite the restrictions on couples, love is all around in Afghanistan: there are new television soaps with romantic intrigue, Bollywood movies and sometimes-racy music videos, as well as ancient Afghan love poems and ballads.
The conservatives, including in government, grumble about "unIslamic values" and disrespect of culture.
But youngsters here, as anywhere, find ways to "break the chains," Farid said.
"Some daring couples take the risk of trying of make time for themselves, going to each others' houses while the rest of the family is away, driving around in their cars or meeting up at shopping centres," he said.
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Canadians 'severely disrupt' Afghanistan insurgency: general
Thu Feb 14, 6:37 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Security has improved dramatically in southern Afghanistan in recent months, a Canadian general said Thursday, but the real test will come in May to September when fighting usually intensifies.
"The security effect that we've worked hard with our partners to achieve is beginning to take effect, is beginning to take hold in targeted areas," said General Michel Gauthier.
Over the past six months, insurgents have been "severely disrupted" in southern Kandahar province, where 2,500 Canadian troops are based as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), he said.
"In conversations with ISAF commanders, there is optimism about the future," he said, noting fewer attacks on Afghan police stations in Zharey and Panjwayi districts west of Kandahar City.
But a lull in Taliban and Al-Qaeda attacks in winter is usually followed by a spike in violence in spring and summer, Gauthier added.
"The measure of our success will be whether or not the security conditions are better in the May to September time frame of this year as compared with the May to September time frame of 2007," he said.
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Ottawa to hold weekly Afghan briefings, but keep tight lid on information
Thu Feb 14, 7:19 PM By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - The Conservative government threw open the doors to weekly briefings on the Afghan mission Thursday, only to have the Canadian Forces warn it will still have to keep plenty of secrets.
The general in charge of all of Canada's overseas military operations says they're doing their best to balance the public's right to know with the need to safeguard operations and lives.
Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, head of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, said there is a recognition that both the positive achievements and the "challenges" need to be disclosed.
The Manley panel report on the future of the Afghan mission criticized the Conservative government for not providing the public with enough information about the war - an appraisal Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he accepted. The government recently announced update briefings on the mission would be held weekly, instead of monthly.
Opposition parties have long complained that here has been too much secrecy, especially around the issue of handling prisoners.
However, Brig.-Gen Peter Atkinson, director of overseas operations, said Internet-savvy insurgents are trolling for even the most innocuous bit of information that can be of benefit.
"Simply put: (Operational security) is keeping the good guy's secrets from the bad guys," he said.
"We firmly believe Canadians have a right to know about our operations in Afghanistan. We also understand the importance of independent reporting and analysis of the government of Canada's effort in this environment."
Atkinson quoted from a purported al-Qaida training manual to make his point, saying the terrorist group believes it can gather 80 per cent of the information it needs for attacks and post-attack assessments through publicly available material.
"In the hands of a journalist unrelated pieces of information can be turned into an excellent story," he said.
"The same is true for sensitive information, which may not in itself be sensitive, but formed together they create a comprehensive picture of significant use to our adversaries."
But the definition of what should be considered an operational secret has been fluid and the longer the war has gone on, the more restrictive the government has become with what it allows the public to see and hear.
Last fall, the military was instructed to run interview and information requests through the Privy Council Office, the administrative wing of the prime minister's office. This was in addition to the Defence Department subjecting written access to information requests to a review by a special "tiger team" of officers even after the documents had been screened.
But opposition parties say there is a difference between operational secrets meant to save lives and political secrets meant to stop embarrassment.
"I would like someone to clearly explain to me the definition of operational security," said Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre.
"What is accountability for the government?"
Coderre pointed to the fact that the politically-sensitive transfer of captured Taliban fighters to Afghan authorities was halted for almost three months without the issue becoming public.
The Tories defended the silence by saying it's up to the military to decide what secrets to keep.
Compared to other NATO allies, Canada is exceptionally secretive when it comes to releasing information about prisoners - a practise the country's top military commander has defended as necessary to keep the Taliban guessing.
The U.S., Britain and the Netherlands all disclose details on the capture of prisoners.
Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier said recently that insurgents put a lot of effort into discovering the whereabouts of their missing fighters and if they're doing that, they're not building roadside bombs - or planting booby-traps.
But it isn't that hard for the Taliban to ascertain where their people are even without the Canadian army saying very much. The International Committee of the Red Cross is in regular contact between prisoners and their families and passed along 13,200 messages in Afghanistan in 2007.
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Czechs to reinforce Dutch units in Afghan province
Prague Daily Monitor - Feb 14 11:10 PM
Prague, Feb 14 (CTK) - The Czech military wants to send 62 members of the mechanised company from the 31st radiation, chemical and biological warfare brigade to the Dutch Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the South Afghan province of Uruzgan, the Defence Ministry told CTK Thursday.
The mission is to cost some 110 million crowns and to last from early July till the end of December, the Defence Ministry said.
The Czech Republic will help the Netherlands only if the support does not reduce the activities of the Czech PRT in another Afghan province of Logar, it added.
The contingent's task will be to protect the Dutch base in the area.
"Members of the military contingent will not go outside the base and will certainly not fulfil combat missions," the Ministry said.
Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said earlier the Czech Republic was considering deploying its troops in the Afghan combat areas in which the Dutch were operating.
The Defence Ministry said the Dutch would only be helped if the Netherlands offered material and technical aid.
The chief motivation is solidarity with the allies, the Defence Ministry said.
"The Netherlands said in the second half of 2007 it would lack soldiers for the protection of the PRT base in Uruzgan and officially asked for help," the Defence Ministry said.
Along with the Czech Republic, help to the Netherlands will also be provided by Slovakia or Australia.
The Defence Ministry said by sending its troops to Uruzgan, the Czech Republic had reacted to a NATO appeal to increase the fulfilment of its mission to Afghanistan.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned at a recent security conference in Munich against the disintegration of NATO unless certain European states are ready for a greater military commitment.
The Czech Republic is significantly increasing the number of its troops in Afghanistan.
The first part of its PRT has been flown to Logar to ensure the development of the region.
In all, there will be some 200 soldiers there along with another ten civilian experts in agriculture, construction and hydrology.
The Czech team is to stay in Afghanistan for at least three years. After Lithuania and Hungary, the Czech Republic is the third new NATO member to have its own PRT.
Along with Logar, Czechs are present in the field hospital in Kabul.
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Canada, Australia heads confer on Afghanistan
Thu Feb 14, 2:09 PM ET
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper conferred with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd overnight about the future of NATO's Afghanistan mission, his spokeswoman said Thursday.
Speaking by telephone, Harper told Rudd that Canada wishes to extend its deployment 2,500 troops in battle-scarred Kandahar province to 2011, but only if NATO allies send reinforcements.
Otherwise, Canada will withdraw from Afghanistan at the end of its current mandate in February 2009, he said.
"Prime Minister Rudd confirmed that Australia's Labor government is determined to stay the course in Afghanistan and looks forward to collaborating with Canada and other allies in our international effort to enable Afghans to provide for their own security and see their country prosper," Harper's spokeswoman said in an email.
Harper, meanwhile, "noted with interest the historic message of apology" delivered by Rudd this week to aboriginal Australians," she said, and both leaders urged continued Australia-Canada collaboration on climate change.
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Afghan domestic opinion neglected in Ashdown plan
Financial Times, UK February 15 2008 From Mr Michael Shank.
Sir, Paddy Ashdown still does not get it. His three-pronged policy prescription for Afghanistan ("A strategy to save Afghanistan", February 13), while meritorious on many levels, nowhere implies consultation with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.
This approach, unfortunately, is consistent with years of interventionist neglect of local opinion by the US, UK and Nato.
Ironically, Lord Ashdown recommends talking to and working with Mr Karzai, while failing to make it clear whether his policies were co-ordinated with Kabul. This is one of many reasons Mr Karzai did not want Lord Ashdown as the United Nations special envoy; it follows on the heels of disregard for the host country's voice in any matter.
In 2001, post-invasion, the interventionist US had an opportunity to restore power to the King, a move thought wise by many in Afghanistan. Instead, the US propped up former oil executive Hamid Karzai, a move no doubt beneficial to interventionists' interests.
Lord Ashdown's approach is thus founded on this ideology, that external preference trumps internal logic. And while his three-pronged plan is a somewhat sound one, and his emphasis on human security essential, the fact that it was apparently formulated in the UK and not in Kabul is deeply disconcerting.
Michael Shank, Government Relations Adviser, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington, VA 22201, US
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German Coalition To Hold Afghanistan Talks - AFP
BERLIN (AFP)--Leaders of Germany's ruling coalition will hold a special meeting on Tuesday to discuss the country's military mission in Afghanistan, a government spokesman said on Friday.
The government is considering renewing the force mandate - which expires in October - for more than the usual year to prevent it running out just after Germany's next general elections in September 2009, foreign ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger told reporters.
"Members of the coalition will meet to discuss the upcoming mandate in order to align their positions," Jaeger said.
"The actual date for renewing that mandate will be in the middle of October 2009, when the next German government will be very new."
A senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union said last week that extending the mandate for more than a year would help to prevent Afghanistan from becoming an election issue.
Jaeger denied press reports that the government will discuss increasing the number of German soldiers in Afghanistan in reponse to repeated calls from it NATO allies for reinforcements.
"This is not the right moment to talk about that. We have to wait and see what happens, notably with the Afghanistan conference in Paris," he said, referring to a donor conference announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Germany this month agreed to deploy a rapid reaction force of 200 men in northern Afghanistan, where most of its 3,200 soldiers serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is based.
But Berlin has resisted pressure from the U.S. and U.K. to send more men to Afghanistan and to deploy them in combat in the south where NATO is battling to contain a Taliban resurgency.
The Sueddeutshe Zeitung reported on Friday, however, that the coalition partners are considering altering Berlin's mandate to raise the number of soldiers it can deploy in Afghanistan from 3,500 to 5,000.
The newspaper said the government will on Tuesday discuss extending the mandate in Afghanistan by 15 to 18 months in October.
The meeting will be attended by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung and the parliamentary leaders of Merkel's party and the left wing Social Democrats.
Germany's six-year-old military mission in Afghanistan is controversial with the public. A poll published this week showed that 84% of Germans oppose sending combat troops to the south.
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Canadian PM urges Australia to reinforce Afghan deployment
www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-15 05:56:55
OTTAWA, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged Australia to reinforce its troops in Afghanistan in a telephone talk with his counterpart Kevin Rudd, a spokeswoman said here Thursday.
Harper called Rudd late Wednesday in the latest of a string of calls to allied leaders aimed at finding reinforcements for Afghanistan, Sandra Buckler said.
Harper briefed Rudd about the report of an independent panel, which recommended extending Canada's combat mission beyond 2009 if NATO can find about 1,000 reinforcements and if pilotless surveillance drones and other new equipment are acquired for the Canadian soldiers.
Rudd confirmed that his government is determined to stay the course in Afghanistan, pledging collaboration with Canada and other allies in an effort to promote security in Afghanistan, according to Buckler.
Australia has about 500 troops in Afghanistan.
Canada's 2,500 troops are taking part in military operations against Taliban in Kandahar province. Harper's Conservative government favors extending the mission by more than two years after it expires early next year, with which all three opposition parties disagree. The Liberal Party recently said it would support an extension to the middle of 2011, but it would only allow the troops to engage in military operations when it is necessary to protect reconstruction works.
The government has tabled a confidence motion on extending the mission, which will go to vote in the parliament in March. If the motion fails to pass, the government will be toppled and a snap election will follow.
Harper has also called the leaders of France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States in recent weeks, according to Canadian media reports.
Editor: Yan Liang
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A Young Life Hangs in the Balance in Afghanistan's Cultural War
Death Ordered for Challenging Islam
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 15, 2008; A14
KABUL -- While trolling the Internet last October, Afghan journalism student Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh came across some articles that questioned the limits of women's rights under Islam. According to Afghan prosecutors, he downloaded the articles and circulated them on campus.
In the West, it would have been an innocent act. In Afghanistan, it has just earned him a death sentence.
Now inside a provincial Afghan prison cell, Kambakhsh, 23, sits at the center of a cultural war between two powerful forces that have clashed repeatedly in the six years since the Taliban's extreme Islamic rule ended in Afghanistan.
One is the sway of conservative Islamic leadership and entrenched values that traditionally have dictated every aspect of Afghan religious life. The other is the fast-growing, Internet-driven influence of Western ideas that encourage young Afghan students and professionals to challenge everything, even their faith.
As many older, devout Afghans view it, Kambakhsh committed an unforgivable sin against Islam by circulating the articles, one of which questioned why Muslim men can have more than one spouse at a time but women can't. They support the court's harsh ruling, partly as punishment and partly as a deterrent to such behavior and thinking.
"We believe in free speech, but Islam is more important to us than anything. When someone insults our religious traditions, he is not a journalist, he is a traitor," said Enayatullah Balegh, the imam of a large mosque in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Kambakhsh's actions, he said, were tantamount to "insulting 30 million Afghan Muslims. The court has given the right punishment."
As many younger, educated Afghans view it, Kambakhsh was engaging in the kind of intellectual debate that is inevitably entering Afghan society, healthy for its democratic development and legally protected by its constitution. They view the court's action as unjust, cruel and motivated by political pressure to quash investigative journalism.
"If it is illegal to read and write something, then this is not a democracy; it's a dictatorship," said Rahimullah Samander, president of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association. He said the ruling, handed down last month by a panel of judges in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, was symptomatic of an older generation of Afghan religious and militia leaders who view themselves as a bulwark of Islamic tradition. "They want to show they still have power," he said.
Afghan officials and analysts said this week that Kambakhsh is highly unlikely to be put to death. The lower-court decision has already been appealed and could eventually reach the Supreme Court, which is headed by a respected, Western-educated judge. Moreover, the final decision on any execution rests with President Hamid Karzai, who generally opposes the death penalty and has found ways to circumvent it in several previous capital cases.
Aside from the religious issues involved, several irregularities have been discovered in the handling of the case by police and the court. Kambakhsh, who did not have a lawyer or a public trial, was hauled from his cell after court hours and privately informed of his sentence by a panel of judges. It is also unclear whether he apologized to the authorities -- which is grounds for leniency under sharia, or Islamic law -- or was forced to confess to a crime he did not commit.
"There will be several opportunities to review the case very carefully, by very serious experts," said Rashid Rasheed, a spokesman for the Supreme Court. "Sharia law is very broad-minded and forgiving. If this accused gentleman has apologized and he is not stubborn, I am hopeful that things will not go harshly and that this will be seen as a fault rather than a criminal offense."
Nevertheless, the case has provoked a domestic and international firestorm, once again squeezing Karzai's government between the demands of Western democracies -- which helped free Afghanistan from harsh Islamic rule in late 2001 -- and the demands of a largely conservative Muslim society that is deeply resentful of foreign interference and highly sensitive to any slight against its religion.
The Kambakhsh case is only the latest in a series of incidents in which journalists and publishers have come under legal and religious pressure for disseminating material or ideas deemed anti-Islamic. Late last year, a government press aide, Ghaus Zalmai, was arrested and nearly lynched for circulating a translation of the Koran in Afghan Dari that senior religious scholars had not approved. He is still in prison awaiting trial.
This time, deluged with protests from international human rights groups and governments that provide the bulk of aid and security for his country, Karzai has tried to find a diplomatic middle ground. Last week, asked about Kambakhsh during a one-day visit here by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, he carefully promised that "justice will be done, in the right way."
At home, the controversy has brought out competing public demands from organized groups on both sides of the culture war.
An influential council of religious scholars has pressed for Kambakhsh's execution and also for the return of harsh public punishments once carried out by Taliban authorities. Its leaders say that they fear young Afghans will fall prey to the libertine influence of the West and that the international community's aid is not worth the undermining of Islam.
"If Afghanistan is a free country, the foreigners should not interfere. If they support this boy, people will start to hate them," said Balegh, the imam. "We appreciate the help of foreign troops, but if the Americans and the British are coming here and sending their money to use against Islam, we don't want them. Either we have our own laws and traditions or we are an occupied country."
At the same time, newly emboldened civic organizations have held unprecedented street protests defending Kambakhsh in Kabul and Jalalabad, while national press associations appear to have played a careful role in persuading authorities to take a closer look at the case.
Nevertheless, these groups say they feel under increasing threat from the combined forces of conservative religious and armed political groups that still command enormous power, especially in rural provinces where Karzai's government is weak. They assert that the prosecution of Kambakhsh was intended to intimidate his older brother, an established journalist in Mazar-e Sharif who has investigated corruption and abuses by former militia leaders.
"They are putting pressure, they are trying to censor the press. As long as we have such contradictions in our own laws and constitution, it will continue," said Samander, president of the journalists' association. He noted that police searching Kambakhsh's home had confiscated writings on human rights and modern thought, including a classic study of religion by Will Durant. "I have that book here in my office," he said with a wry grimace.
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Afghanistan, Iran to meet on refugee expulsions
Daily Times, Pakistan Friday, February 15, 2008
KABUL
Kabul is seeking an urgent meeting with Tehran about the deportation of Afghans, the government said Wednesday, with 7,000 forced out in the past month despite a pledge to halt expulsions over winter.
Iran has agreed to the meeting but a date has yet to be set, foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen told AFP. The United Nations and Afghan officials say about 7,000 Afghans have been deported to Afghanistan since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced a temporary halt in mid-January for “humanitarian reasons.” Most of the returnees are Afghans who were in Iran illegally to work. Tehran had also told the government it would suspend the returns until the end of winter, Baheen said.
“We do not have the capacity to receive a mass return of Afghans,” he said. “We need to find a solution for those who have no documents.” “We are also insisting that all returns should be voluntary and with dignity.” Some of those who had returned had been held in a camp at Safed Sang, between the Iranian town of Mashad and the border with Afghanistan, where the conditions were described as “very bad,” he said. Iran estimates there are about 1.5 million Afghans illegally living within its borders with another 900,000 there as registered refugees. afp
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Pakistan A 'Hotbed' For Terror
Lawless tribal belt is al-Qaeda training ground
National Post Peter Goodspeed Friday, February 15, 2008
For centuries the wild Pakistani tribal area -- stretching 1,000 kilometres along the Afghan border -- has been lawless, violent and remote. Now, it is rapidly becoming a central front in the U.S.-led war on terror.
The harsh mountainous territory, which Pakistan doesn't control and is off limits to U.S. troops, has become a breeding ground for jihad and the chief training centre for al-Qaeda.
Just days before Pakistanis vote in a crucial election, their country is being threatened by a new generation of radicalized Islamist insurgents who have allied themselves with international terrorists.
Fighters in the tribal areas have been blamed for carrying out more than 60 suicide attacks in Pakistan in the last year, including the Dec. 27 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. But fears are growing another high-profile attack could ignite the sort of chaos Islamic radicals thrive on.
But as al-Qaeda and the Taliban dispatch suicide bombers from the tribal belt to attack Pakistani security personnel and politicians, there are increasing indications Pakistan has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda and the ideological heartland for Islamist terrorists worldwide.
According to top U.S. security officials, South Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan, is the new headquarters for al-Qaeda's global operations and forms the centre of a web of terror plots and assassination attempts that reaches into Europe and the United States.
In testimony before Congress last week, retired admiral Michael McConnell, the U.S. director of national intelligence, stressed al-Qaeda has "regenerated its core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks."
"Al-Qaeda has been able to retain a safe haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) that provides the organization many of the advantages it once derived from its base across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale," he said.
"The FATA serves as a staging area for al-Qaeda's attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives, for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States.
"The next attack on the United States will most likely be launched by al-Qaeda operating in the 'under-governed regions' of Pakistan," he added
Judging from online videos and local reports from Pakistan, a study published yesterday in the CTC Sentinel, a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, estimates "al-Qaeda is running as many as 29 training camps in the [FATA] region that are less elaborate than those found in Afghanistan in the 1990s."
But those camps funnel new recruits or "Lions of Islam" into the fight against NATO forces, including Canadians, in Afghanistan, and train potential terrorists from overseas to launch attacks.
Unlike the large military-style camps al-Qaeda used in Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks, the new training in Pakistan's tribal areas is being done in small groups and is specially tailored to prepare Western recruits for attacks.
On Monday, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that officials in Germany's federal police believe four men in their 20s are being trained in Pakistan to conduct terror attacks in Germany.
Also on Monday, David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, while encouraging NATO to redouble its efforts in Afghanistan, noted that 70% of all terrorist incidents in Britain had their origins in Pakistan.
In the last six months, Danish, German and Spanish officials have all broken up alleged terror plots that are linked to Waziristan.
Last month in Barcelona, police claimed to have broken up a plot to attack Spain's transit system and in four neighbouring countries.
"In my opinion, the jihadi threat from Pakistan is the biggest emerging threat we are facing in Europe," said Judge Baltasar Garzon, Spain's top anti-terrorism magistrate.
"Pakistan is an ideological and training hotbed for jihadists, and they are being exported here."
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Progress in Afghanistan 'limited' by lack of troops
Canada.com, Canada Mike Blanchfield Canwest News Service Thursday, February 14, 2008
Canada's efforts to bring stability and peace to Kandahar would be much farther ahead if it had more troops to help it, the general in charge of the military's overseas operations has told Canwest News.
Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, chief of the Canadian Forces expeditionary command, said Thursday the "pace of progress" has been limited by too few troops on the ground in Kandahar - the most violent province in Afghanistan - where Canada has 2,500 soldiers and the Taliban insurgency has been most intense.
Gauthier's comments echo those of other NATO commanders, as the alliance faces broader shortfalls of up to 7,500 troops throughout Afghanistan. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has threatened to withdraw Canada's troops next year unless NATO can find an additional 1,000 soldiers to share the burden in Kandahar.
"We've been relatively limited in what we've been able to do with the number of troops that we've had available," Gauthier said in an interview Thursday.
"I've said all along that we will do what we can with what we have. That simply means that you get to the finish line or you get to the end state more slowly than you would if you had more troops."
Gauthier did not point fingers at any other NATO or allied countries, and went out of his way to laud the collaborative efforts of some of Canada's unsung military partners on the ground, including Nepal, which has sent Gurkha fighters, as well as such countries as Belgium and Poland that have recently contributed troops and military hardware.
The arrival of 3,400 U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan later this spring will also "have a substantial effect" on the international community's capacity to "progress more quickly," he added.
But Gauthier said extra troops on the ground are crucial to help coalition forces "clear and hold" tough areas. Canada had to fight last year to retake Taliban strongholds in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts that they had previously won.
Gauthier said Afghan police outposts, with Canadian assistance, are helping hold that re-won ground.
"The 'hold' element of this is particularly challenging," Gauthier explained. "To hold ground, to make it secure enough, to give the locals and to give international organizations a sense of confidence that it's safe for them to work to make the lives of Afghans better."
Gauthier said the core recommendation of the Manley panel - one country, preferably, with 1,000 troops to partner with Canada in the south - is "being worked hard at all levels."
In the last six months, Gauthier said that Canadian troops and the Afghan troops they have been training are making progress. He said 75 per cent of the province's population base is secure, while Taliban operations have been disrupted.
Counterinsurgency operations and nation-building "are troop intensive," Gauthier said.
More troops give commanders broader options, such as chasing insurgents into more remote areas, as well as making it easier to pursue diplomacy and development efforts on ground that has already been won, he said.
"It really depends on the chain of command in theatre to make those kinds of judgments. Is it more important to have an ability to operate in many different places to disrupt the insurgents? Or is it more important to concentrate forces; be able to hold terrain, to be able to do the three lines of operation in a particular area? More forces give you more options is what it comes down to."
At an earlier briefing with reporters, Gauthier attempted to steer clear of the political debate on Canada's future military involvement, particularly the suggestions by the Liberal opposition that Canada can keep its troops in Afghanistan but refrain from combat.
Gauthier echoed what his boss, Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, and numerous other NATO allies have said on the matter.
"I think the Manley panel recognized the fact that you can't separate security requirements from reconstruction and rebuilding efforts," said Gauthier.
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Looking for the Good Guys in Afghanistan's Badlands
American forces try out new approaches against insurgents in forbidding Kunar province
U.S. News & World Report, DC By Philip Smucker February 14, 2008
ASADABAD, AFGHANISTAN
On some days, Sgt. James Himrod and his buddies watch what they call "Kill TV" in the control room at Forward Operating Base Michigan, their remote mountain outpost at the foot of the embattled Korengal Valley. Video monitors show the action as U.S. helicopters unleash Hellfire missiles and other high-tech weaponry at the meagerly armed enemy. "You'll see a group of five of them running down the hill, and then, blam, they are all dead," says Himrod. "Sometimes," he adds, "I think we are trying to kill flies with an ax."
Himrod recognizes that the combat images on the small screens do not capture the big picture of how U.S. military strategy is shifting in Afghanistan. That can be seen more clearly at the base used by the NATO-run Provincial Reconstruction Team near the provincial capital of Asadabad, where lessons learned from six years of fighting the war on terrorism are being translated into new counterinsurgency tactics. Taking the lead on that are the road engineers, "human terrain" officers, and good governance experts serving under Col. Chip Preysler's contingent of the U.S. Army's 173rd Division.
Al Qaeda influences. Tiny Kunar province is one of Afghanistan's most violent battle fronts—and a testing ground for new anti-insurgency tactics. The region of inhospitable, rocky terrain straddles the Afghan-Pakistani border, an area where al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants are believed to be hiding. A notorious Egyptian al Qaeda leader, Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, and his armed followers roam Kunar's mountains and valleys, intimidating local Afghans and engaging in regular attacks on U.S. forces.
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Larry LeGree, who heads up the military's "stabilization" efforts here, admits that the work his experts and foot soldiers do is not what U.S. soldiers and sailors usually sign up for. "Call us well-meaning amateurs, but we showed up for the job," says the Naval Academy graduate. The 80-man team that LeGree commands is the central actor in the U.S. government's efforts to achieve a degree of peace and prosperity in Kunar. "Everything we do goes to the idea of looking for an end state in Afghanistan," he adds.
That end state is a long way off. Corruption is as endemic in Kunar as it is across Afghanistan. The last governor, Haji Mohammed Didar, a notorious warlord with a penchant for highway shakedowns and with ties to the same insurgency that U.S. forces are fighting, was sent packing last November. He is best remembered for squandering a half-million dollars to give away 5,000 goats to bolster his popularity. He is suspected of embezzling more than $2 million in Afghan and American money, say U.S. and Afghan government sources. On his way out of the country last week, Didar was prevented by LeGree's soldiers from hurrying off with a $190,000 armored car that belongs to the U.S. government.
But change is in the making, says Capt. Jay Coughenour, a reservist who is also a senior official with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Los Angeles. The new development-savvy governor, Sayed Wahidi, has helped to cobble together district-level meetings aimed at establishing public services. For the first time in decades, large groups of men and women are meeting in downtown Asadabad to hammer out, with American and United Nations support, their complaints and needs. The men sit on the floor around a drawing of a giant "problem tree." They cut scrap paper and paste their ideas about the "root" causes of government corruption and inaccessibility.
As Coughenour, who dresses in local garb and leaves his machine gun on base, makes the rounds to the offices of the health and welfare administrators, all of them pay at least lip service to Governor Wahidi's new anticorruption campaign. The U.S. government gave Kunar province $40 million last year alone for development, although only some of that money is accounted for. As one U.S. Army colonel says: "In Afghanistan, it is not just a matter of corruption; it is a matter of knowing precisely how corrupt your partners are."
Why they fight. That is one reason for the new focus in Kunar on gaining a better knowledge of the "human terrain." Called back to military service just as he was preparing to begin doctoral studies in anthropology at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Staff Sgt. Justin Faulkner is now assigned by LeGree to learn about the personal ties, customs, and culture in the Korengal Valley, where the U.S. military is facing a protracted military engagement. "There really hasn't been much ethnographic work done here since the British back in the 19th century," says Faulkner. "I'm assigned to try to meet with elders and try and understand why they fight us," he adds. "We are finding out that it has a lot to do with tribal differences and geographic isolation."
A U.S. government report on Kunar province warns that officials and soldiers must try to avoid "another Korengal" in other isolated valleys of the province by promoting more economic development. To achieve that, LeGree is stressing stronger ties between U.S. soldiers and the local population. He is also trying to crack the nut of geographic isolation. As he hikes up a new road snaking into the violent valley where dozens of American soldiers have perished, a crackle comes across the radio and a lieutenant warns of movements by enemy fighters. "As we push up this valley and into higher terrain, we will be effectively encroaching upon them and taking away their population base," says LeGree, who pays the Afghan road workers a daily wage just above what al Qaeda is known to give its own fighters.
In time, he hopes there will be less to see on Kill TV. "To win in Afghanistan, you have to separate the insurgents from the population," he says. "That has more to do with assisting in an economic struggle than any role we have as combatants."
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Italy questions its involvment in Afghanistan
Courrier International, France - Feb 14, 2008
After the death of an Italian soldier on February 13th in Afghanistan, Franco Venturini considers the presence of Italian troops in this country. "A tragic event has been thrust upon the Italian electoral campaign. Absorbed by questions more likely to influence the ballot box, our internal debate had overlooked Italy's international presence and the risks it entails, especially in Afghanistan where strategic confusion and dissension among allies have reached a critical point ... . The NATO summit in Bucharest [in April], may be saved by Nicolas Sarkozy, who will announce the reinforcement of French troops. But the real question, that no increase of troops will resolve, is that of strategic orientation ... . Without this, numerous sacrifices, such as that of Giovanni Pezzulo, are likely to go down in history as pointless deaths."
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Web warning issued for soldiers in Afghanistan
Innocent photos and reports to families can provide information to insurgents, general says
Feb 15, 2008 04:30 AM Toronto Star, Canada Allan Woods Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA–The Internet poses a major security threat to Canadian soldiers fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan, a ranking Canadian military official says.
Brig.-Gen. Peter Atkinson, a top strategic adviser to Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff, says sites like Facebook are an "invaluable tool" for deployed soldiers to keep in touch with their families. But he warned that seemingly innocuous photos, videos and news reports can be the source for as much as 80 per cent of the intelligence that insurgents routinely gather on operations.
YouTube and personal Web logs are uncensored and can pose a threat, but Wikipedia is among the most dangerous of the public-access websites, he said. Wikipedia is an online public encyclopedia that allows individuals to submit entries on a wide range of subjects.
"Due to its collaborative content contribution, anybody can add to the content, providing a compilation of details on a specific incident, like the descriptions of a casualty, photos, locations and news articles contributed by several sources," Atkinson told reporters.
He said Taliban and Al Qaeda commanders use such information to determine the accuracy of their attacks.
"Because of the speed and capacity of today's technology, we are virtually providing the enemy with his battle damage assessment instantly," he said. "We need to make their collection efforts as difficult as possible by denying them 80 per cent of the solution. This will make it difficult for groups like Al Qaeda to plan their operations."
His warning came in a briefing to journalists on the Afghan mission, part of the government's attempt to avoid criticism that it is being too secretive about its part in the NATO operation.
The military has cited operational security as the prime reason for withholding information on certain operations, future events and the locations of sensitive engagements. Operational security was also cited for the decision to withhold details of battlefield detainees captured by Canadian soldiers in Kandahar province, even though many other countries provide information on how many suspected insurgents they have rounded up and where they are being held.
The government kept silent for three months about a decision to stop transferring detainees to Afghan prisons after evidence that a prisoner had been abused in local custody.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said "clarity, honesty and transparency are essential to the success of the mission," and cited the obfuscation concerning allegations of detainee abuse.
Forcing the government to provide more information to the public also factors into the Liberal proposal for the extension of the mission past February 2009 to 2011. The government was seeking an extension of the combat mission to the end of 2011, and also wants other NATO countries to contribute 1,000 additional troops. The Liberal counterproposal calls for a firm end to the mission in 2011 and for Canadian soldiers to take on a strictly training, development and security role – not counter-insurgency. The proposed mission extension will be debated by MPs later this month before an eventual parliamentary vote.
Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, the commander of Canada's overseas forces, stayed clear yesterday of questions about the feasibility of the Liberal plan to have soldiers move into a non-combat role. But he said the military would eventually provide operational advice when the government decides what role Canadian soldiers should perform in Kandahar after 2009.
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Inquest into soldier's Afghanistan death
ITN via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Feb 15 2:58 AM
The father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan has slammed delays in publishing details about the death as "pretty sloppy".
The inquest is being held into the death of Captain James Philippson, 29, of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, who was killed on June 12, 2006 after a shoot-out with suspected Taliban forces.
A Ministry of Defence Board of Inquiry report into his death said Capt Philippson was killed as a result of "poor tactical decision-making", a lack of standard operating procedures and a shortage of "mission-essential equipment".
Outside Oxford Coroner's Court, Capt Philippson's father Anthony, of St Albans, Hertfordshire, said there are three things he wants from the hearing.
Mr Philipsson wants Deputy Assistant Coroner for Oxfordshire, Andrew Walker, firstly, to confirm what happened to his son; secondly, to address "unjustified" BoI criticism of his son's commanding officer; and thirdly, to recognise the bravery of seven of Capt Philipsson's colleagues who risked their lives to carry his body to safety.
Mr Philippson said: "The MoD has been pretty sloppy, publishing the BoI report on the internet on Wednesday when we asked them to two weeks ago. It was signed off last June but the sending of it to me and the coroner was delayed until November."
He added: "Hopefully today there will be some sort of conclusion to things, an end if you like."
The BoI report states that it would "most certainly have helped" if the soldiers had been equipped with more underslung grenade launchers, light machine guns - and in particular extra night-vision goggles.
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'Canada's mission has to change'
An open letter to Stephen Harper
Stephane Dion, National Post Friday, February 15, 2008
Dear Prime Minister,
Today Canada carries a heavy burden in Afghanistan. Our brave men and women in the Canadian Forces and our civilian officials face very real risks every day, as they serve their country and the people of Afghanistan by working to bring hope and stability to this troubled region.
We are in agreement that we cannot abandon the people of Afghanistan, as there remains much to be done to ensure that the stability and governance institutions are in place to allow Afghans themselves to resolve their differences. But Liberals recognize that Canada's mission has to change. We cannot simply continue to extend the same mission indefinitely. That is why we have provided the government with an alternative plan for the future of Canada's mission in Afghanistan.
The Liberal plan is consistent with our long-standing position that Canada's mission in Kandahar must change in February, 2009. It brings clarity to our goals in Afghanistan by placing a greater emphasis on stronger and more disciplined diplomatic efforts, and striking a better balance with respect to the reconstruction and development efforts that will be essential to creating a stable Afghanistan.
In drafting this new wording, we were guided by three simple principles that we thought were lacking from the government's motion: - The mission must change: NATO must ensure the rotation of new troops into Kandahar so that Canadian troops can shift in February, 2009, to training of the Afghan National Army and police, and protection of reconstruction efforts; - The mission must end: We must have a clear end date of February, 2011, not a further review date that will lead us down the path of a never-ending mission; and - The mission must be about more than the military: There is no exclusively military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan so our efforts must be balanced between defence, diplomacy and development.
Liberals also believe that clarity, honesty and transparency are essential to the success of the mission. To this end, we believe, and our amended motion stipulates, that the government should provide the public with franker and more frequent reporting on events in Afghanistan.
For example, Canadians' faith in the Afghan mission has been undermined by the troubling reports of abuse in Afghan prisons and the government's secrecy surrounding these allegations. Canadians must have faith that core values, including respect for human rights and the belief in the dignity of all people, are at the heart of this mission.
In the coming weeks, we will continue our national debate on Afghanistan.
It is my continued belief that the future of Canada's mission should be openly discussed in Parliament with all of Canada watching.
On Tuesday, we put forward this clear and substantive position, which we believe represents the common ground that best reflects the values of the majority of Canadians. The government immediately expressed openness to our position.
It is my hope that you will consider accepting the terms of the Liberal motion, which was put forward with the objective of defining values and goals for the mission that all Canadians can respect, and not with partisan political calculations in mind. - Stephane Dion is the leader of the Official Opposition.
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