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Police say 24 killed in Afghan suicide blast
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol in southern Afghanistan on Sunday killing 24 people, while a two-day battle sparked by an insurgent attack killed at least 40 militants, officials said.
40 militants killed in Afghanistan: US-led force
Sun Jul 13, 9:13 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - International and Afghan security forces killed at least 40 militants in an operation still under way in the southern province of Helmand, the US-led coalition said Sunday.
India blames Pakistan for Kabul embassy attack
Sun Jul 13, 9:04 AM ET
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's national security adviser has said Pakistan's ISI intelligence service was behind a suicide car-bomb attack on the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul last week that killed 41 people.
NATO force takes casualties in Afghan battle
Sun Jul 13, 2:29 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said it had taken casualties in battles Sunday with Taliban-linked insurgents in the remote and mountainous east of the country.
Afghan border police on patrol with U.S. Marines
By Laurent Hamida Sat Jul 12, 6:53 AM ET
GARMSIR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - "Do you know who these men are?" a U.S. Marine asks residents, gesturing to Afghan border police near the recently captured town of Garmsir. But the answer is always "no," no one has ever seen the force before.
ONLY FEMALE AFGHAN OLYMPIC ATHLETE FLEES AMID DEATH THREATS
Omid Marzban 7/13/08 A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
Nineteen-year-old Mahbooba Ahadyar was due in Beijing this summer to become the first Afghan woman ever to compete in the Olympic 800 meter and 1,500 meter races.
Taliban sow confusion on Pakistan- Afghan border
By Jonathon Burch and Zeeshan Haider Sat Jul 12, 5:54 AM ET
KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan on Saturday blamed militants for a mortar attack two nights earlier that wounded Pakistani soldiers and Afghan police on either side of the border and led to a Pakistani protest.
Taliban sow confusion on Pakistan- Afghan border
Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:54am BST By Jonathon Burch and Zeeshan Haider
KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan on Saturday blamed militants for a mortar attack two nights earlier that wounded Pakistani soldiers and Afghan police on either side of the border and led to a Pakistani protest.
Scores die in wave of attacks in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed at least 21 people, including four police officers, in southern Afghanistan Sunday.
U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout
New York Times, United States By STEVEN LEE MYERS July 13, 2008
WASHINGTON-The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.
It Takes a School, Not Missiles
New York Times, United States By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF July 13, 2008
Since 9/11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan, President Bush’s and Greg Mortenson’s.
New defence chief upbeat on Afghanistan
The Canadian Press July 13, 2008 at 11:47 AM EDT
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canada's newly appointed top soldier has completed a five-day visit to Afghanistan and offered the uniquely upbeat assessment that any increase in violence this year has been negligible.
"We're not going to win the Afghan war because the its government is so weak, incompetent and, corrupt" - Richard Holbrooke
Bloomberg 07/12/2008 Interview with Richard Holbrooke
AL HUNT: And we begin the program with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for being with us.
US asks Pakistan to get tough with militants: Mullen comes unannounced
Pakistan Dawn, Pakistan By Anwar Iqbal and Baqir Sajjad Syed July 12, 2008
WASHINGTON / ISLAMABAD-Amidst growing fears of a unilateral American action against ‘terrorist sanctuaries’ in tribal areas, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen made an unscheduled visit to Islamabad
Pakistani criminals, Taliban find easy cash in kidnapping
San Francisco Chronicle, USA Ashraf Ali, Chronicle Foreign Service Saturday, July 12, 2008
Peshawar, Pakistan-Before he dies, Abdul Ghaffar, 75, says his greatest wish is to see his eldest son alive.
Afghan Courts, Derided on Kabul Streets, Targeted for Overhaul
Bloomberg By Bill Varner July 12, 2008
Afghanistan's leading judges and prosecutors began a new effort today to inspire confidence in the country's justice system, an initiative some Kabul residents say should start in the exclusive neighborhood they call the ``Den of Thieves.''
'Rebels will take Nuristan unless troops are sent in'
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 12 July 2008
Officials say residents and police are fighting a losing battle against rebels
(PAN) The Taliban will overrun a district in the north-eastern province of Nuristan unless the government ships more police and soldiers to the area immediately, the head of the local council said.
Rebel chief Haqqani loses his son in battle
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 12 July 2008
Son of militant leader dies from his wounds in clashes with Afghan army
(PAN) The son of notorious militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, accused by some of masterminding a number of high-level attacks in Afghanistan, has died aged 20.
Jewish temple restored to former glory
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 12 July 2008
Ancient temple for Jews stands again after work to rebuild it ends
(PAN) Work to restore one of Herat’s largest Jewish temples to its former glory has come to an end, eight months after work began.
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Police say 24 killed in Afghan suicide blast
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol in southern Afghanistan on Sunday killing 24 people, while a two-day battle sparked by an insurgent attack killed at least 40 militants, officials said.
The bomb attack on a police patrol at a busy intersection of the Deh Rawood district in the southern province of Uruzgan killed five police officers and 19 civilians, wounding more than 30 others, said Juma Gul Himat, the province's police chief. Most of those killed and wounded were shopkeepers and young boys selling goods in the street, he said.
Afghan civilians have suffered from a rash of bombings this month. About 55 civilians were killed in a massive bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul Monday, while a government commission said this week that U.S. airstrikes killed 47 civilians in eastern Nangarhar province on July 6.
Elsewhere, Taliban militants executed two women in central Afghanistan late Saturday after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a U.S. base.
The women, dressed in blue burqas, were shot and killed just outside Ghazni city in central Afghanistan, said Sayed Ismal, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor. He called the two "innocent local people."
Taliban fighters told Associated Press Television News the two women were executed for allegedly running a prostitution ring catering to U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors at a U.S. base in Ghazni city.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a U.S. military spokesman, said he had not heard allegations "anything close to that nature."
Meanwhile, at least 40 militants were killed following an attack on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces in Helmand province, the coalition said in a statement.
The militants attacked the combined forces near Sangin on Saturday from "multiple concealed and fortified positions," the coalition said. Thirty "enemy boats" and several small bridges have been destroyed on the Helmand River during two days of fighting, it said.
A soldier with NATO's International Security Assistance Force died in a roadside blast in Helmand province Sunday, a statement said. The soldier's nationality was not released and it wasn't clear if the death was connected to the two-day battle.
More than 2,300 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.
In eastern Kunar province, fighting erupted when militants attacked a NATO security force outpost, the military alliance said in a statement.
NATO accused militants of using civilian homes and a mosque for cover. It said there were casualties on both side, but it did not provide any figures.
Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry, confirmed the fighting and said four Afghan soldiers were wounded.
In the country's north, a soldier serving with ISAF died of wounds caused by an explosion Saturday, the military alliance said in a statement.
The statement did not give any further details of the explosion. The soldier's nationality was not been disclosed.
There are nearly 53,000 troops from 40 nations serving the ISAF in Afghanistan.
In the eastern Logar province, meanwhile, gunmen kidnapped parliament member Abdul Wali and his driver on Sunday, said provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Mustafa.
_
Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report
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40 militants killed in Afghanistan: US-led force
Sun Jul 13, 9:13 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - International and Afghan security forces killed at least 40 militants in an operation still under way in the southern province of Helmand, the US-led coalition said Sunday.
The fighting started on Saturday after militants ambushed an joint Afghan and international security patrol in the province's volatile Sangin district, the US-led coalition said in a statement.
"The ensuing fight led ANSF (Afghanistan National Security Forces) and coalition forces to return fire and call for precision air strikes," it said.
"At least 40 militants have been killed in the last two days, while over 30 enemy boats and several ... bridges were also destroyed on the Helmand River," it said.
A soldier with the same unit was killed by a bomb blast Sunday, the coalition announced earlier.
Helmand is a hotbed for violence by Islamist Taliban militants leading an insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
The violence has surged in recent weeks, with several suicide attacks blamed on the militants.
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India blames Pakistan for Kabul embassy attack
Sun Jul 13, 9:04 AM ET
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's national security adviser has said Pakistan's ISI intelligence service was behind a suicide car-bomb attack on the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul last week that killed 41 people.
"We have no doubt that the ISI is behind this," M.K. Narayanan told NDTV late on Saturday, referring to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
He told another news channel India had a "fair amount" of evidence linking the ISI to Monday's car bomb. Among the dead were an Indian defense attache and a diplomat.
An Afghan spokesman said after the attack that it bore the "hallmarks of a particular intelligence agency."
Pakistan has denied any involvment in the embassy attack.
"We have already stated that in no way were Pakistan's security agencies or anyone from Pakistan involved in any incident in Afghanistan," said Information Minister Sherry Rehman.
Rehman said it was unfortunate the accusations were being made when Pakistan was seeking to move forward with a peace process with India.
Narayanan told NDTV he hoped the peace talks, which the nuclear-armed rivals resumed in 2004, would continue.
"We are in the favor of the peace process, but the ISI is not in any way part of it. The ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed," he said, according to a transcript of the interview on the NDTV Web site.
India has close ties with Afghanistan, where it has pledged about $750 million towards reconstruction of the war-ravaged country. Some political analysts think Pakistan is increasingly wary of losing influence in Afghanistan to India.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, and they nearly went to war a fourth time in 2002.
(Additional Augustine Anthony in Islamabad)
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Robert Birsel and Matthew Jones)
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NATO force takes casualties in Afghan battle
Sun Jul 13, 2:29 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said it had taken casualties in battles Sunday with Taliban-linked insurgents in the remote and mountainous east of the country.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could however not give further information as the battle in the province of Kunar was continuing.
"The fighting started early today and it's still ongoing. We have taken casualties," ISAF spokesman Captain Mike Finney told AFP.
The clashes were near an ISAF base in Wanat close to the province of Nuristan, an Afghan official said. ISAF soldiers had recently moved into the base after quitting one in Nuristan.
On Saturday Afghan security forces fought with Taliban attackers elsewhere in Nuristan for several hours, the interior ministry said.
One local national who had joined the security forces was killed, the ministry said, accusing Taliban militants based in Pakistan of launching the attack.
ISAF has about 53,000 soldiers from 40 countries helping the government to tackle an insurgency led by the Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001 and are linked to the extremist Al-Qaeda movement.
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Afghan border police on patrol with U.S. Marines
By Laurent Hamida Sat Jul 12, 6:53 AM ET
GARMSIR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - "Do you know who these men are?" a U.S. Marine asks residents, gesturing to Afghan border police near the recently captured town of Garmsir. But the answer is always "no," no one has ever seen the force before.
The Afghan border police, accompanied by U.S. Marines, went out on patrol for the first time this week since Garmsir district centre was recaptured from Taliban control in April. No one knows or can remember the last time the border police were seen there.
A fighting force of some 2,200 U.S. Marines was deployed to Afghanistan earlier this year to make up for shortfalls in troops Washington failed to persuade other NATO allies to fill.
The Marines moved into Garmsir district in late April, taking up positions east of the river that cuts through the desert region, and in early May began a fierce fight to push Taliban militants west and south.
"This is the first integrated patrol today. It's just kind of a test one for both sides, so they can get to know us, we get to know them and they start to learn how we operate," said Lieutenant Marc Matzke.
Garmsir, at the southern end of the inhabited green strip along the Helmand River, had been a transit and logistics hub for Taliban fighters moving in from the south. Helmand is also the largest opium producing region in the world.
NEW GUYS ON THE BLOCK
Government presence in the largely empty desert south of the district centre all the way to the Pakistan border some 80 km (50 miles) distant has always been either poor or non-existent, said Captain John Moder of the U.S. Marines.
His men's mission, he said, was to secure a perimeter around the town, which had been captured by the Taliban, and help the government establish its authority in the area. The long-term plan is to extend that perimeter, he said.
Although the district centre is now under control of U.S. Marines, there are still insurgents left in the surrounding areas, but Marines are not being engaged like before.
The Marines were sent to Garmsir as the more than 8,000 mainly British forces in Helmand, holding a string of bases to the north, did not have the numbers to take the town alone.
Since beginning the operation the U.S. Marines have killed more than 400 Taliban, the governor of Helmand said this week, a figure the U.S. military supports.
With the Marines due to leave in October the question had always been what would happen after they went. They had been intended as a mobile force to be replaced by other foreign and Afghan troops to hold the ground they had captured.
But so far due to the lack of either government or other foreign forces, the Marines have stayed in Garmsir, security experts said. Last week the U.S. government extended the Marines' tour of duty by 30 days till November.
The Marines are hoping visual patrols with Afghan border police witnessed this week will increase public confidence in the area as well as keep insurgents away from the district centre.
"You know, the locals, when they are asked questions like: who do you talk to when you have problems, who do you go to have these problems fixed? They say, we go to our government; our officials," said Matzke.
But for the residents in Garmsir anybody who fixes their problem is the official. Two months ago it just happened that they were Taliban, he said.
"But now we are trying to show them that there are some new guys in town."
(Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Jerry Norton)
(Kabul newsroom, +93 799 335 284))
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ONLY FEMALE AFGHAN OLYMPIC ATHLETE FLEES AMID DEATH THREATS
Omid Marzban 7/13/08 A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
Nineteen-year-old Mahbooba Ahadyar was due in Beijing this summer to become the first Afghan woman ever to compete in the Olympic 800 meter and 1,500 meter races.
But on July 4, unbeknown to her coach, Ahadyar snuck away from an Olympic training center in Formia, Italy -- taking her passport and her luggage with her.
Ahadyar’s coach, Shahpoor Amiri, was on the verge of tears when he spoke on July 10 to RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan about Ahadyar’s disappearance. Amiri says he has spoken to Ahadyar once by telephone since she left.
Amiri says Ahadyar told him she does not want to return to Afghanistan and did not specify where she had gone. He says Ahadyar told him that two other female athletes -- one from Pakistan and one from Bangladesh -- had helped retrieve her passport from an official of the International Association of Athletics Federations, who was holding the documents of all the athletes at the pre-Olympics training camp in Italy.
About the reason for her disappearance, she just told me that she had a lot of problems. I told her that running away would not solve those problems. But she said she would not return and had already decided what to do," Amiri says.
The deputy chairman of the Afghan National Olympic Committee, Sayed Mahmood Zia Dashti, has claimed that Ahadyar injured her leg and was receiving treatment in Italy.
Death Threats
But Ahadyar herself expressed her fears to RFE/RL about death threats she had received from extremists in Afghanistan who oppose the idea of women competing in sports.
Speaking by telephone from Italy the day before her disappearance, Ahadyar told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that she was gravely concerned about what would happen to her upon returning to her home in Kabul.
"When I was in Kabul, I received many anonymous phone calls from people who threatened me and told me not to compete in sports. Even some of our neighbors have harassed me about it," Ahadyar said.
Women were banned from attending school or participating in sports during the Taliban’s rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to late 2001. Indeed, the Taliban placed such severe restrictions on women that they were only allowed to leave their homes if clad in an all-encompassing burqa.
Today, more than six years after the collapse of the Taliban regime, many Afghan men still prefer that their women wear a burqa when they leave their homes.
Contributing to the pressures that Ahadyar faced in Kabul, some conservative clerics in Afghanistan have deemed it un-Islamic for women to compete in sports at all.
Dashti, the deputy chairman of Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee, told RFE/RL just before Ahadyar’s disappearance that he also was concerned about what the reaction would be back in Afghanistan to Ahadyar’s appearance on the track in Beijing.
"Athletes are allowed to wear either shorts or long trousers. [Ahadyar] will attend the games wearing long trousers," Dashti said.
Meanwhile, Ahadyar’s coach, Shahpoor Amiri, told RFE/RL that he thought the main concerns of extremists in Afghanistan would be placated if Ahadyar wore long trousers while competing in Beijing.
"Our country and our culture does not allow us to let an Afghan Muslim girl participate in the [Olympic] Games if they are dressed like the athletes of European or some Asian countries," Amiri said.
"There are no rules that can prevent us from attending the Olympic Games because of the way we want our athletes to be dressed. If there were such rules, we would prefer not to participate in the Olympic Games at all."
lympic Dress Code
Still, following that dress code apparently is not good enough for some Afghans. Afghanistan’s only other female Olympians, Fereba Rezaie and Robina Muqimyar, both wore long trousers when they competed in the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. However, neither wore head scarves to cover their hair.
When Rezaie returned to her home in Kabul, she received many death threats -- and reportedly was even beaten by a group of unidentified Afghan men. Within months of her Olympic experience, Rezaie and her family fled Kabul to seek safety abroad in an undisclosed country.
Ahadyar told RFE/RL just before she fled the training camp in Italy that she has always been careful to observe Afghan and Islamic cultural values -- fearing that someone would try to kill her back in Afghanistan if she violated those traditions.
"I have come to a foreign country, but I still have not forgotten my Islamic culture and values," Ahadyar said.
Referring to Ahadyar’s disappearance, International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the IOC accepts that athletes "sometimes feel they have to make hard choices to improve their lives." Moreau said it appears that this is what has happened in Ahadyar’s case.
Moreau also said that while the IOC did not have any official information on Ahadyar’s whereabouts, it "knows that she might be seeking asylum in Norway."
Ahadyar’s departure leaves the Afghan Olympic team with only three male athletes to compete at Beijing. But officials from Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee say the team will most likely send another woman to compete in the place of Ahadyar.
Editor’s Note: RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz contributed to this story
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Taliban sow confusion on Pakistan- Afghan border
By Jonathon Burch and Zeeshan Haider Sat Jul 12, 5:54 AM ET
KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan on Saturday blamed militants for a mortar attack two nights earlier that wounded Pakistani soldiers and Afghan police on either side of the border and led to a Pakistani protest.
"Insurgents simultaneously fired at targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan on the evening of July 10," said a statement from the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul.
ISAF said it had reports four Afghan police and eight Pakistanis were wounded in the two-way attack, and added it suspected the insurgents' aim was "to spark a border incident."
The clash occurred on the border near the Pakistani village of Angor Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region, a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Angor Adda lies across the border from Bermal, a village near a U.S. base at Shikin in Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The peacekeepers said ISAF's retaliatory air and artillery strikes did not touch Pakistani territory.
"ISAF forces tracked the fire to two points within Afghanistan and returned fire with artillery and one GBU-13 bomb dropped from an F-15 aircraft," the statement said.
"All ISAF rounds were verified to have hit the origins of insurgent fire."
Pakistani troops had also returned fire after coming under a mortar attack that wounded six soldiers and two civilians, a Pakistani military spokesman said.
He did not say if U.S.-led coalition or Afghan forces fired mortars but added that a "strong protest" had been lodged with the headquarters of the coalition forces in Kabul on Friday.
The latest incident comes at a time of increased tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Also, there are growing fears in Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, that the United States is planning to mount operations inside its territory.
Afghan officials say there have been more attacks inside Afghanistan after the Pakistan military reached a de facto truce with militants based in Pakistan tribal areas.
The militants had unleashed a wave of attacks across Pakistan over the past year.
After coming to power in March the new Pakistani government led by the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto tried to quell the violence by using tribal intermediaries to hold a dialogue with Taliban factions.
Militant leaders suspect the Pakistan army is using the breathing space to prepare fresh offensives against them.
On Saturday, tribesmen in Razmak in North Waziristan fired at pilotless U.S. drone aircraft overflying their lands, but the drones were well out of range, according to a Pakistan intelligence official.
Tribesmen have reported increased sightings of the drones in recent months. Drone missile strikes have killed dozens of suspected militants in northwest Pakistan this year.
Last month, Pakistan was outraged when 11 soldiers were killed in a U.S. air strike ordered after coalition forces came under fire from militants in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal region.
(Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Taliban sow confusion on Pakistan- Afghan border
Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:54am BST By Jonathon Burch and Zeeshan Haider
KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan on Saturday blamed militants for a mortar attack two nights earlier that wounded Pakistani soldiers and Afghan police on either side of the border and led to a Pakistani protest.
"Insurgents simultaneously fired at targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan on the evening of July 10," said a statement from the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul.
ISAF said it had reports four Afghan police and eight Pakistanis were wounded in the two-way attack, and added it suspected the insurgents' aim was "to spark a border incident".
The clash occurred on the border near the Pakistani village of Angor Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region, a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Angor Adda lies across the border from Bermal, a village near a U.S. base at Shikin in Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The peacekeepers said ISAF's retaliatory air and artillery strikes did not touch Pakistani territory.
"ISAF forces tracked the fire to two points within Afghanistan and returned fire with artillery and one GBU-13 bomb dropped from an F-15 aircraft," the statement said.
"All ISAF rounds were verified to have hit the origins of insurgent fire."
Pakistani troops had also returned fire after coming under a mortar attack that wounded six soldiers and two civilians, a Pakistani military spokesman said.
He did not say if U.S.-led coalition or Afghan forces fired mortars but added that a "strong protest" had been lodged with the headquarters of the coalition forces in Kabul on Friday.
The latest incident comes at a time of increased tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Also, there are growing fears in Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, that the United States is planning to mount operations inside its territory.
Afghan officials say there have been more attacks inside Afghanistan after the Pakistan military reached a de facto truce with militants based in Pakistan tribal areas.
The militants had unleashed a wave of attacks across Pakistan over the past year.
After coming to power in March the new Pakistani government led by the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto tried to quell the violence by using tribal intermediaries to hold a dialogue with Taliban factions.
Militant leaders suspect the Pakistan army is using the breathing space to prepare fresh offensives against them.
On Saturday, tribesmen in Razmak in North Waziristan fired at pilotless U.S. drone aircraft overflying their lands, but the drones were well out of range, according to a Pakistan intelligence official.
Tribesmen have reported increased sightings of the drones in recent months. Drone missile strikes have killed dozens of suspected militants in northwest Pakistan this year.
Last month, Pakistan was outraged when 11 soldiers were killed in a U.S. air strike ordered after coalition forces came under fire from militants in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal region.
(Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Scores die in wave of attacks in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed at least 21 people, including four police officers, in southern Afghanistan Sunday.
In the country's north, coalition troops reported suffering casualties in heavy fighting with insurgents and at least 40 militants were killed in the south.
The latest incidents are part of a deadly wave of weekend attacks that also included a suicide attack at an army camp in the Helmand province and the death of two coalition soldiers.
The motorcycle attack occurred in the southern Afghanistan city of Tarin Kowt Sunday, Afghan defense ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.
The suicide bomber blew himself up in a market, causing the casualties, authorities said.
Also Sunday, NATO soldiers were engaged in intense fighting with insurgents in Kunar province, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)said in a statement.
"There have been casualties on both sides of the fight," the ISAF statement said, "but accurate numbers could not be confirmed as the fighting is ongoing."
ISAF said insurgents attacked a military outpost in the province and used homes, shops and a village mosque for cover. NATO-led troops along with members of the Afghan army responded with firepower of their own.
In Helmand province on the country's southern border, Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and coalition troops killed at least 40 militants in an ongoing operation, a coalition statement said.
"Militants attacked an ANSF and Coalition forces security patrol beginning [Saturday] in Sangin district, using small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, from multiple concealed and fortified positions. The ensuing fight led ANSF and Coalition forces to return fire and call for precision air strikes," the coalition statement said.
"At least 40 militants have been killed in the last two days, while over 30 enemy boats and several hand bridges were also destroyed on the Helmand River."
The Helmand province was also the site of a deadly suicide attack by a teenager this weekend. Authorities said the teen detonated his explosives-laden vest outside an Afghan National Army camp on Saturday. The blast killed the bomber and three others, officials said.
The boy approached the army camp in the Marja district. A soldier discovered the vest while searching the teenager but it detonated immediately afterward, ISAF said.
The blast killed the teen and two soldiers. A child later died of his injuries, ISAF said.
Another officer, a second child and a local man were wounded.
In another incident in Helmand province, a coalition member was killed in a roadside bomb on Sunday, the U.S. military said. The identity and nationality of the soldier was not disclosed.
In northern Afghanistan Saturday, a soldier assigned to ISAF was killed in an explosion. The soldier's nationality was not released.
Meanwhile, the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan will resume issuing visas on Monday, a week after a massive bombing outside its gates killed 58 people.
An embassy staff member told CNN that maintenance work at the offices was almost complete.
The suicide car bomb detonated on July 7 in a crowded street outside the embassy, where dozens of people were lined up to apply for visas. Among the 58 people killed were two Indian diplomats and 14 students at a nearby school, said India's Ambassador to Afghanistan Jayant Prasad.
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U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout
New York Times, United States By STEVEN LEE MYERS July 13, 2008
WASHINGTON-The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.
Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.
One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.
More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month.
Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for withdrawal, the officials said.
The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.
The most optimistic course of events would still leave 120,000 to 130,000 American troops in Iraq, down from the peak of 170,000 late last year after Mr. Bush ordered what became known as the “surge” of additional forces. Any troop reductions announced in the heat of the presidential election could blur the sharp differences between the candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, over how long to stay in Iraq. But the political benefit might go more to Mr. McCain than Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain is an avid supporter of the current strategy in Iraq. Any reduction would indicate that that strategy has worked and could defuse antiwar sentiment among voters.
Even as the two candidates argue over the wisdom of the war and keeping American troops there, security in Iraq has improved vastly, as has the confidence of Iraq’s government and military and police, raising the prospect of additional reductions that were barely conceivable a year ago. While officials caution that the relative calm is fragile, violence and attacks on American-led forces have dropped to the lowest levels since early 2004.
“As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better, then we will be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future,” Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said in Fort Lewis, Wash., on Tuesday. “And I think that this transition of control and of responsibility, primary responsibility for security is a process that’s already well under way and based on everything that I’m hearing will be able to continue.”
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, has already begun the review of security and troop levels. He and Mr. Bush promised in April that such a review would take place. General Petraeus is expected to be more cautious than some policy makers in the administration and at the Pentagon might like. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing military planning, said he was more likely to recommend a smaller reduction, but still a withdrawal.
One senior administration official cautioned that the president, who will have the final say, would be reluctant to endorse deep or rapid reductions if they jeopardized his goal of establishing a stable and democratic government in Baghdad.
Still, there is broad consensus in Washington and Baghdad that more American forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in Afghanistan.
“There hasn’t really been any discussion of numbers, and it’s definitely based on conditions on the ground,” a military officer in Baghdad said. And conditions, he went on, “are a lot more favorable than in December or April or even two months ago.”
General Petraeus, who will step down as commander in Iraq in September, will soon take over as the commander of the United States Central Command. In that position, he will oversee American forces and operations throughout the Middle East and Central and South Asia, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate confirmed him and his replacement as commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, to their new positions on Thursday.
The Pentagon has previously signaled that commanders wanted additional troops in Afghanistan — as many as 10,000 more than the roughly 32,000 there now — but with two wars seriously straining the Army and Marines in particular, officials have struggled to produce the extra forces.
A reduction of combat brigades in Iraq would free additional troops that could instead be sent to Afghanistan, though officials said that no additional forces would go until next year, when fighting is expected to intensify with the arrival of spring.
Mr. Gates has already extended the deployment of a force of 3,200 marines in southern Afghanistan by one month, essentially until winter arrives and closes many of the country’s mountain passes and remote villages.
The Pentagon also announced the redeployment of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and its support ships from the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea to provide what one official described as greater air power and surveillance for the mission in Afghanistan until next spring.
“We have clearly seen an increase in violence in Afghanistan,” Mr. Gates said at Fort Lewis, discussing the carrier’s redeployment. “At the same time, we’ve seen a reduction in violence and casualties in Iraq. And I think it’s just part of our commitment to ensure that we have the resources available to be successful in Afghanistan over the long haul.”
Last year Mr. Bush accepted General Petraeus’s recommendation to gradually withdraw the five extra combat brigades that he had ordered to Iraq. The last of those, Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division, is completing its withdrawal this month, bringing the number of combat brigades to 15 and the overall troop levels to about 140,000.
If the withdrawals continued at the same pace, roughly one every 45 days, three more brigades could leave Iraq by the end of Mr. Bush’s presidency.
In April, Mr. Bush approved the general’s plan to “pause” the withdrawals for 45 days, basically until mid-September, while reviewing the effect of having fewer American troops in the country. The Bush administration has been wrongly optimistic before about the future of the war in Iraq. But with major military operations in Basra, Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, and Mosul, violence has continued to drop, and Iraqi forces have increased their share of the fighting.
The White House declined to discuss the withdrawals now under consideration, but a spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, cautioned that while the president hoped to bring more troops home, he would await General Petraeus’s recommendation in September.
“For now,” he said, “we will continue discussions with the Iraqis on our shared goals of a reduced U.S. troop presence.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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It Takes a School, Not Missiles
New York Times, United States By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF July 13, 2008
Since 9/11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan, President Bush’s and Greg Mortenson’s.
Mr. Bush has focused on military force and provided more than $10 billion — an extraordinary sum in the foreign-aid world — to the highly unpopular government of President Pervez Musharraf. This approach has failed: the backlash has radicalized Pakistan’s tribal areas so that they now nurture terrorists in ways that they never did before 9/11.
Mr. Mortenson, a frumpy, genial man from Montana, takes a diametrically opposite approach, and he has spent less than one-ten-thousandth as much as the Bush administration. He builds schools in isolated parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, working closely with Muslim clerics and even praying with them at times.
The only thing that Mr. Mortenson blows up are boulders that fall onto remote roads and block access to his schools.
Mr. Mortenson has become a legend in the region, his picture sometimes dangling like a talisman from rearview mirrors, and his work has struck a chord in America as well. His superb book about his schools, “Three Cups of Tea,” came out in 2006 and initially wasn’t reviewed by most major newspapers. Yet propelled by word of mouth, the book became a publishing sensation: it has spent the last 74 weeks on the paperback best-seller list, regularly in the No. 1 spot.
Now Mr. Mortenson is fending off several dozen film offers. “My concern is that a movie might endanger the well-being of our students,” he explains.
Mr. Mortenson found his calling in 1993 after he failed in an attempt to climb K2, a Himalayan peak, and stumbled weakly into a poor Muslim village. The peasants nursed him back to health, and he promised to repay them by building the village a school.
Scrounging the money was a nightmare — his 580 fund-raising letters to prominent people generated one check, from Tom Brokaw — and Mr. Mortenson ended up selling his beloved climbing equipment and car. But when the school was built, he kept going. Now his aid group, the Central Asia Institute, has 74 schools in operation. His focus is educating girls.
To get a school, villagers must provide the land and the labor to assure a local “buy-in,” and so far the Taliban have not bothered his schools. One anti-American mob rampaged through Baharak, Afghanistan, attacking aid groups — but stopped at the school that local people had just built with Mr. Mortenson. “This is our school,” the mob leaders decided, and they left it intact.
Mr. Mortenson has had setbacks, including being kidnapped for eight days in Pakistan’s wild Waziristan region. It would be naïve to think that a few dozen schools will turn the tide in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Still, he notes that the Taliban recruits the poor and illiterate, and he also argues that when women are educated they are more likely to restrain their sons. Five of his teachers are former Taliban, and he says it was their mothers who persuaded them to leave the Taliban; that is one reason he is passionate about educating girls.
So I have this fantasy: Suppose that the United States focused less on blowing things up in Pakistan’s tribal areas and more on working through local aid groups to build schools, simultaneously cutting tariffs on Pakistani and Afghan manufactured exports. There would be no immediate payback, but a better-educated and more economically vibrant Pakistan would probably be more resistant to extremism.
“Schools are a much more effective bang for the buck than missiles or chasing some Taliban around the country,” says Mr. Mortenson, who is an Army veteran.
Each Tomahawk missile that the United States fires in Afghanistan costs at least $500,000. That’s enough for local aid groups to build more than 20 schools, and in the long run those schools probably do more to destroy the Taliban.
The Pentagon, which has a much better appreciation for the limits of military power than the Bush administration as a whole, placed large orders for “Three Cups of Tea” and invited Mr. Mortenson to speak.
“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr. Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books. The thirst for education here is palpable.”
Military force is essential in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban. But over time, in Pakistan and Afghanistan alike, the best tonic against militant fundamentalism will be education and economic opportunity.
So a lone Montanan staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy apparatus of the Bush administration.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.
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New defence chief upbeat on Afghanistan
The Canadian Press July 13, 2008 at 11:47 AM EDT
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Canada's newly appointed top soldier has completed a five-day visit to Afghanistan and offered the uniquely upbeat assessment that any increase in violence this year has been negligible.
The cheerful prognosis from Canada's new chief of defence staff, General Walter Natynczyk, flies in the face of an independent analysis that shows a 77-per-cent surge in Taliban attacks in Kandahar province this year.
The comparatively sunny assessment from Gen. Natynczyk after his tour of Afghanistan is also at odds with the increasingly grim portrait being painted by Canada's allies.
The Pentagon has cited a 40-per-cent increase in insurgent attacks in eastern areas of Afghanistan where U.S. forces operate, and notes that it is now losing more soldiers here than in Iraq.
Britain's Defence Secretary calls Afghanistan a generational struggle that will require a foreign troop presence for many years.
Local business people say they are increasingly discouraged about the security situation in their city, amid fear that the economic gains after 2001 are being wiped away.
In Ottawa, however, the Canadian government has been a beacon of unparalleled optimism and its sunny read of the situation was echoed this week by the new military boss.
Gen. Natynczyk flew into Kandahar only two weeks after being sworn in as defence chief, visited a handful of outlying Canadian bases, and toured the region by helicopter and in convoys.
He has been in the region three times before and said he sees encouraging signs.
”We're generally along the same lines as we have been the past few years,” Gen. Natynczyk told a news conference at Kandahar Airfield.
”Looking at the statistics, we're just a slight notch – indeed an insignificant notch – above where we were last year.”
According to a prominent security firm that compiles insurgent incidents reported by NATO and local security forces, that notch is actually a 77-per-cent increase in attacks from 2007.
Statistician Sami Kovanen at Vigilant Strategic Services Afghanistan says the number of killings, bombings, kidnappings, suicide strikes, mine explosions, and mortar assaults by pro-Taliban insurgents through July 6 was 532 incidents this year, compared with only 300 last year.
When confronted with such numbers, Canadian officials respond that incident tallies tell only part of the story.
They note that the economy has grown since 2001, far more children are going to school, and human rights have expanded dramatically since the days of the Taliban.
When asked about security, their optimism appears based on anecdotal evidence; some locals have tipped them off about the location of a roadside bomb, they have seen a traffic jam – a sure sign of activity in Kandahar city, a bazaar has reopened and there are new businesses.
A well-known Kandahar businessman offers some anecdotal evidence of his own.
”I don't see businesses opening,” he says, shaking his head when asked if things are getting better in the city. ”All I see are businesses closing.”
And as for the occasional traffic jam, he says the city was far more bustling a couple of years ago.
One of Canada's signature projects in the country is designed to spur economic activity in the outlying rural areas that surround Kandahar city.
Gen. Natynczyk took a helicopter flight to see the Dahla dam, a $50-million Canadian reconstruction initiative aimed at improving irrigation in the region and opening up new fertile soil for farmers.
The defence chief said he is encouraged that the Taliban no longer even bother trying to muster forces for conventional battlefield fights because they are crushed every time.
”They are not 10 feet tall,” Gen. Natynczyk said of the enemy. ”They know that if they take us on directly, they'll either lose or they'll have to flee.”
He also said he is encouraged that the areas around Canada's forward operating outposts are secure.
”I've compared that with my three previous trips and we've made significant progress,” he said.
One problem gen. Natynzcyk and other Canadians have readily acknowledged is the dearth of troops in this country to achieve the objectives set out by NATO.
While the debate in Canada became sidetracked by the call for 1,000 additional troops in the Manley report, analysts here say the military needs are far more drastic.
The Soviets tried to control this country with 10 times more soldiers than NATO has here now, yet fled the country in frustration after a decade of failure.
Counterinsurgencies have been statistically more likely to succeed with higher troop coverage, accompanied by effective humanitarian aid and political engagement.
In the Kosovo and Bosnia international interventions, for instance, the peacekeeper-to-citizen ratio was one soldier for every 50 citizens in Kosovo and one for every 66 citizens in Bosnia.
For most of the Afghan mission, the ratio has been around one soldier per 2,000 citizens.
In Kosovo, there was one international soldier per 0.3 square kilometres of land. In Afghanistan, it's been one per 13.21 square kilometres.
”We could take all the troops we could get,” Gen. Natynczyk said.
He expressed hope that additional U.S. deployments to the country will make a difference but cautioned that foreign forces can shoulder only so much of the burden.
Gen. Natynczyk ruled out one possible solution to the troop shortage: extending the rotation stay for combat forces. The idea had floated around under his predecessor, Rick Hillier.
”Six months is enough,” he said.
”Six months is enough due to the risk they're assuming on a daily basis. The fact is you want people to be fresh when they do this. You want them to have their wits about them when they do those kinds of missions.”
He said other Canadian soldiers in less combat-heavy roles will continue serving nine- and 12-month tours, especially if their job requires building local contacts.
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"We're not going to win the Afghan war because the its government is so weak, incompetent and, corrupt" - Richard Holbrooke
Bloomberg 07/12/2008 Interview with Richard Holbrooke
AL HUNT: And we begin the program with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for being with us.
AMBASSADOR RICHARD HOLBROOKE: Great to be here.
MR. HUNT: Let's start with Iraq. Maliki is demanding a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Doesn't that suggest the surge is working and should we go on with it?
AMB. HOLBROOKE: It's kind of amazing to watch this argument between the U.S. and Iraq over the Status of Forces Agreement. Let's call it the SOFA, which is what we - I negotiate a lot of these SOFAs. The United States, the - I don't understand why the administration doesn't just say you want a three-to-five-year timetable, fine. The Iraqis need it for political purposes; it would be the smart thing to do. But the administration and Senator McCain seem to think it's a threat to our national security and yet, Bush has said repeatedly if the Iraqis don't want us, we'll leave.
MR. HUNT: Let's go next door to Iran which, as you know, launched nine missiles this week, including one capable of -
AMB. HOLBROOKE: Maybe eight, who knows with the photoshopping.
MR. HUNT: Well, that's right. (Laughter.) If the Israelis, as has been speculated a great deal over there, decide the danger is too grave and plan a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, should the United States give them the green light or try to stop it?
AMB. HOLBROOKE: Obviously, you can't take a force option off the table completely in any contingency. And obviously, Iran proposes an existential threat to the state of Israel. But at this time, based on what we now know, a military action against Iran would - by anyone, which would necessarily involve the U.S. - it is not, in my mind, a desirable thing. We have two wars on our hands, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said; we don't need a third.
MR. HUNT: Richard, the other war, Afghanistan, where you've traveled recently, worst month - the most violent month since the invasion. Things seem to be getting worse. You, according to reports, lectured Karzai on the need to get tougher when you were there. Karzai seemed like a nice man. But really, it appears he's just not up to the tough job -
AMB. HOLBROOKE: I don't think I lectured him. I asked him some questions and received a lecture in return. (Chuckles.) We have three overwhelming problems in Afghanistan, but let me say two things before I list them. Number one, this is the war we cannot fail in. This is the war which, if we fail, al Qaeda and the Taliban come back. Number two, we are not going to lose in Afghanistan because the Taliban are so hated, but we're not going to win because the government is so weak, incompetent and, let's be honest, corrupt.
There are three overwhelming problems. The border areas with Pakistan, you can't stabilize Afghanistan unless Pakistan buys in and the U.S., under the Bush administration, is has two policies; they have an Afghanistan policy and a Pakistan policy, and they've never integrated them. I was in Islamabad and Peshawar and Kabul on this recent trip, went down into the provinces on the border. Everybody has got their own theories. Point number two, the drugs. Fifty percent of the GDP of Afghanistan is drugs; Karzai has never arrested a single drug lord. Everyone knows who they are. You go into the central marketplace in Kabul and the big villas are the drug lord people. Instead, they eradicate crops, driving farmers out of work and into the hands of the Taliban.
MR. HUNT: Well, that suggests he's just not up to it, doesn't it?
AMB. HOLBROOKE: Whether he's up to it or not, I don't think the United States and the rest of the world should be giving him money - $20 billion pledged to Karzai the week before last in Paris - with no kind of conditions.
The third issue is the government's weakness and corruption, and of course, the police. So you've got to fix the police and the government weakness, you've got to change our policy towards drugs - we've wasted about a $1 billion a year on drug policies in Afghanistan. And Al, you know what's happened for that? The drug crop goes up every year. This is Bloomberg Television. I think your viewers know that's not a good business model.
MR. HUNT: No, it's not.
AMB. HOLBROOKE: And the third thing is the border. This war in Afghanistan is going to go on much longer than Iraq. In fact, it's my view that before it's done, Afghanistan will surpass Vietnam as the longest war in American history. Vietnam measured, at its greatest, 1961 to '75 was 14 years. We are about to begin our eighth year in Afghanistan and the situation has deteriorated.
MR. HUNT: From your perspective as a Democratic geopolitical thinker, strategist, analyze John McCain's foreign policy.
AMB. HOLBROOKE: Well, it's interesting you ask that, Al, because I've lately been comparing Senator Obama and Senator McCain's positions. Of course, I support Senator Obama. That's hardly a secret. But what really strikes me is two things about Senator McCain and his positions. He is - on almost all major foreign policy issues, with one important exception, which I'll get back to in a minute - Senator McCain is running to the right of President Bush: Iraq, he's harder line; Iran, he's harder line. He's famously said that the only thing worse than war with Iran is a nuclear Iran.
On Russia, he wants to throw the Russians out of the G8, which is an impossibility and a bad idea to boot. On the United Nations, he wants to create a new league of democracies which would have the power - and I quote from his own speech "to act whether Moscow and Beijing like it or not." Now, our closest allies, our greatest Democratic allies plus the world's largest democracy, India, are not going to participate in an organization like that which would abrogate to itself the authorities. On Cuba, he is harder line.
So he is taking very strong positions which really are neoconservative. His advisory team has the same schizophrenic approach that George W. Bush has had. He's got the so-called realists.
MR. HUNT: The Powells and the Cheneys. (Chuckles.)
AMB. HOLBROOKE: Powell has actually not endorsed anyone.
MR. HUNT: No, but I mean that type.
AMB. HOLBROOKE: But Kissinger, Baker, Scowcroft - these men have all endorsed McCain and privately they're all concerned about the views I just discussed. And you have the neo-cons, most important and visible of whom, of course, is Senator Lieberman, but there are many others. John McCain is very confident of his own views and he believes he can reconcile this. But if you look at the actual positions - now, the one exception, and I need to say this, is climate change. Of the nine Republican candidates for the nomination, he was the only one who got up and said, global warming is real; it's a problem and we've got to do something about it. If you compare the Obama and McCain positions on climate change and energy, Obama's is far more forward-leaning, far more comprehensive. But at least McCain has said he will change the Bush - Bush has wasted seven-and-a-half years on climate change.
MR. HUNT: Ambassador Holbrooke, thank you so much for being with us. When we come back, financial markets in turmoil. Who should regulate them? Who assumes the risk? We'll talk with our reporters right after the break.
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US asks Pakistan to get tough with militants: Mullen comes unannounced
Pakistan Dawn, Pakistan By Anwar Iqbal and Baqir Sajjad Syed July 12, 2008
WASHINGTON / ISLAMABAD-Amidst growing fears of a unilateral American action against ‘terrorist sanctuaries’ in tribal areas, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen made an unscheduled visit to Islamabad on Saturday and met top military leadership of the country to persuade it to “act decisively” against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants suspected of mounting cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.
Sources said that the United States was “deeply frustrated” with Pakistan’s lack of ability or willingness, or both, to move decisively to end the rising infiltration by the Taliban militants into Afghanistan.
Recent reports in the Washington Post and New York Times claimed that the US administration was considering using direct military force to stop the infiltration and it may use commando forces, besides direct missile attacks, on militants’ targets.
“Admiral Mullen was here on a day’s visit and has already left,” US embassy spokesperson Kay Mayfield told Dawn, but would not say anything about his meetings.
During his brief stay, Admiral Mullen met the Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen Tariq Majeed, and discussed with them the latest situation in Afghanistan and joint efforts to deal with the challenge posed by terrorists in Fata.
Pakistan army spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas would neither confirm nor deny the meeting, saying no meeting between Admiral Mullen and the Chief of the Army Staff was scheduled.
The sources said that Mullen conveyed to Pakistan military leaders the US government’s growing frustration over Pakistan’s ‘inaction’ against Taliban militants in tribal areas.
Admiral Mullen reiterated Washinton’s stance that these safe havens of the militants should be eliminated, emphasising that Pakistan’s peace deals with terrorists were not achieving the desired results of isolating them and were rather aggravating the problem.
The sources quoted Mullen as complaining that militants were moving across the border with greater liberty now than during the previous government. This was Mullen’s fourth visit to Islamabad this year. But, contrary to his previous visits, this visit was kept in low profile and no official announcement was made.
The United States, in a clear shift in its military strategy in Afghanistan, has stopped sharing information with Pakistan regarding action against terrorists in tribal areas.
During the meeting, Gen Kayani is reported to have protested at recent attacks in Angoor Adda and Mohmand Agency in which Pakistani troops were killed and injured.
The army chief recalled Pakistan’s sacrifices in the war on terror and pledged that Pakistan’s resolve against terrorism remained firm. The Chief of the Army Staff, the sources said, asked the US admiral to share actionable intelligence against terrorists with the Pakistan army.
Earlier this week, Mullen had told reporters in Kabul that Pakistan’s government needed to crack down on Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Fata.
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Pakistani criminals, Taliban find easy cash in kidnapping
San Francisco Chronicle, USA Ashraf Ali, Chronicle Foreign Service Saturday, July 12, 2008
Peshawar, Pakistan-Before he dies, Abdul Ghaffar, 75, says his greatest wish is to see his eldest son alive.
For the past seven years, Ghaffar, a white-bearded dirt farmer, has roamed the provinces of Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan and the tribal areas of the Northwest Frontier Province abutting Afghanistan on a rickety Chinese-built bicycle in search of his son, Abdul Sattar. On most days, his bike is loaded with a mattress, a watercooler, and a sign with Sattar's portrait under the words: "In Search of Justice."
In 2001, Abdul Sattar was kidnapped by a criminal gang for ransom in the Northwest Frontier Province, a traditionally lawless area whose Pashtun population includes Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers. At the time, the kidnappers said they would release the 25-year-old bus driver in exchange for $4,285 in ransom.
Too poor to pay the price, Ghaffar, who is widely known as Baba - an endearing term for an elderly man - set off on his bicycle to reason with the kidnappers. On three occasions, he says, witnesses have sighted Sattar languishing in detention centers set up by the kidnappers. Each time, he was moved to another place.
"Every drop of blood running in my veins tells me that my son is alive," said Ghaffar, who has four other children.
Kidnapping for ransom is a flourishing business in Pakistan and an easy source of money for criminals and Taliban fighters. In May, Tariq Azizuddin, the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, was released after being held for three months by his Taliban kidnappers. In exchange, the Pakistan government released more than 40 militants and paid $2.5 million, according to the daily newspaper Dawn.
Some critics say the rise in kidnapping for ransom is the result of increasing prices, poverty and unemployment. But others blame President Pervez Musharraf for firing Iftikhar Mohammed Chauhdry, the nation's Supreme Court chief justice, and 50 other high court justices in anticipation of a court ruling last year that would have deemed Musharraf ineligible to run for president while also head of the military. Some detractors say kidnappers have taken advantage of the disruption to the judicial process to increase abductions.
"People have lost confidence in judicial institutions," said Musarrat Hilali, a legal expert in Peshawar.
Ghaffar says a lack of faith in the justice system spurred him to search for his son. "How can I expect justice in a country where justice itself is in search of justice?" he asked.
But many police officials say the rise in abductions is mainly because of the difficulty in investigating kidnappings in Taliban-controlled areas, the kidnappers' increasing use of cellular phones to tip off safe houses when police close in, and the lack of cooperation from families who fear putting their loved one in danger if they collaborate with authorities.
But Malik Naveed, the provincial police chief for Northwest Frontier Province, is hopeful police will find Sattar and other hostages thanks to a recent decision by the federal government to bolster paramilitary forces in tribal areas.
"With additional patrolling and introduction of a mobile quick-response unit, we will soon be able to control it," Naveed predicted.
Some observers, however, say the situation can only worsen after the Pakistan Taliban legalized kidnapping in March. According to Article 18 of the Taliban's shadow constitution in the tribal areas they control, a "holy warrior who detains a foreign soldier, journalist or aid worker has the right to ask for money or exchange them for Taliban prisoners."
"We strongly condemn kidnapping for ransom, but if it's for the promotion of the Islamic cause, then it's fair to kidnap persons or soldiers to get our men released," said Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban, an umbrella organization of the Pakistan Taliban. In the meantime, Ghaffar is back on the road after a quick stop home to care for Sattar's three young children.
"I have a backache, I am quickly losing my eyesight, but if I become too weak to walk, I will crawl on my chest until I find my son," Ghaffar said. "I will not abandon my struggle until he is found."
Kidnapping in Pakistan Kidnapping for ransom in the lawless frontier region with Afghanistan began in earnest after the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan in 2001 and streamed into the area, most analysts agree. A 2007 report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says there are currently 400 hostages.
"Abductions and enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture and other ill-treatment plagued the region and, in many cases, were carried out with impunity," says Amnesty International.
The kidnappers are mostly common criminals or Taliban militants who target government officials, foreign aid workers and business executives. The ransom price typically ranges from $1,000 to millions of dollars.
In recent months, there have been several high-profile kidnappings:
In February, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin was kidnapped while driving to Afghanistan.
In May, Shahdid Kahn, a World Health Organization officer, was kidnapped in the tribal region.
Azizuddin and Kahn were released after the Pakistan government paid a $2.5 million ransom for the ambassador and $71,500 for the WHO worker, according to the Pakistani daily, Dawn.
In June, 16 Iranian border guards were kidnapped by a Sunni Muslim group called Jundallah, or God's Brigade. They are still in captivity somewhere in Pakistan.
- Ashraf Ali
E-mail Ashraf Ali at foreign@sfchronicle.com
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Afghan Courts, Derided on Kabul Streets, Targeted for Overhaul
Bloomberg By Bill Varner July 12, 2008
Afghanistan's leading judges and prosecutors began a new effort today to inspire confidence in the country's justice system, an initiative some Kabul residents say should start in the exclusive neighborhood they call the ``Den of Thieves.''
A United Nations and World Bank plan designed to reduce the backlog of cases and corruption in the courts was adopted by Justice Minister Sanwar Danish, Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabit and Supreme Court judges.
Afghans, when asked about their justice system, point to two square miles of mansions surrounded by high walls and armed guards in the Sherpur section of Kabul. While Sherpur means ``Den of Lions'' in Dari, the language spoken in Kabul, the neighborhood acquired its nickname because residents say corrupt officials and opium dealers stole the land.
``Poor people lived there, but their land was taken away from them starting in 2002 and their homes were destroyed,'' Basir Naderi, 36, said at the Internet cafe he runs on a street near Sherpur. ``How can we believe in justice when those big houses keep getting built and no one does anything about it?''
The ``National Justice Program'' adopted at Afghanistan's Supreme Court building today is an acknowledgement that Afghans are turning increasingly to tribal and religious leaders, including the Taliban, for justice. The program will fund new courthouses, armored vehicles for judges to get to work safely, training for prosecutors and pay raises for people working in the judiciary.
Fragmented Efforts
``All the efforts to support the justice sector, which have been quite fragmented, will be embodied in a coherent, comprehensive program,'' Chris Alexander, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, told reporters today. ``There will be better pay and logistical support for the system.''
Improving the justice system is vital to the nation's recovery from 30 years of civil wars and international intervention such as the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the militant Islamic Taliban then ruling the country, according to Paul Fishstein, director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, which tracks the nation's progress.
``The justice sector is just about universally considered to be one of the most problematic in terms of progress, and one of the most fundamental,'' Fishstein, 55, said in an interview in his Kabul office. ``It is something on which everything else stands, whether property rights, support for the state, or investment, because if there is no guarantee of property rights, people won't make investments.''
President Hamid Karzai's government, the U.S. and other major foreign donors have given ``minimal attention'' to improving the court system in recent years, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a 2007 report.
Taliban Nostalgia
``Most Afghans are reluctant to refer their cases to the formal court system because they are unable to afford the high levels of bribery required,'' the report said. ``A few Afghans, particularly in the south, are recalling the rule of the Taliban with nostalgia for a time when harsh justice was delivered against criminal actions.''
Many judges lack the most basic resources to administer justice, including law libraries, clerks and even electricity in courtrooms, according to Alexander. He said the justice system's failings lead to more corruption because the government isn't able to investigate and prosecute corruption cases.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Varner in Kabul at wvarner@bloomberg.net
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'Rebels will take Nuristan unless troops are sent in'
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 12 July 2008
Officials say residents and police are fighting a losing battle against rebels
(PAN) The Taliban will overrun a district in the north-eastern province of Nuristan unless the government ships more police and soldiers to the area immediately, the head of the local council said.
Militants flooding into the district of Bargi Matal, which borders Pakistan, have been trying to take the area for the last three days, council chief Rahmatullah Rashidi said on Saturday.
Residents and police are trying to fend off the rebel offensive but face a fighting force of 500 armed Taliban, Rashidi said.
There are only 150 police serving in the district and residents said they are running out of ammunition.
Representatives from Nuristan have waited 20 days to meet with officials in the Ministry of Interior to discuss the crisis.
One of the representatives, Abdullah Asad, said if the district fell into the Taliban’s hands, then the rest of the province would follow in its footsteps, decreasing the already poor security situation in the east of the country.
Taliban from Chechnya, the Middle East and Pakistan are co-operating with local Taliban in the region, he said.
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Rebel chief Haqqani loses his son in battle
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 12 July 2008
Son of militant leader dies from his wounds in clashes with Afghan army
(PAN) The son of notorious militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, accused by some of masterminding a number of high-level attacks in Afghanistan, has died aged 20.
Omar Haqqani was injured in a clash between Taliban rebels and Afghan troops in the south-eastern province of Paktia on July 9, dying from his wounds two days later, his brother Salahuddin said.
Local residents said Omar was buried in the Zadran area of Khost province, where his father has his military bases.
Omar’s brother hailed the 20-year-old as a great warrior.
Jalaluddin Haqqani has two wives, one Arab and one Afghan, according to Salahuddin. His Afghan wife has six sons, and the Arab wife three sons. Omar was his Afghan wife’s sixth son.
The governemnt linked the Haqqani network to the assassination attempt on President Karzai in April.
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Jewish temple restored to former glory
Written by www.quqnoos.com Saturday, 12 July 2008
Ancient temple for Jews stands again after work to rebuild it ends
(PAN) Work to restore one of Herat’s largest Jewish temples to its former glory has come to an end, eight months after work began.
The temple, known as Kanisa, will be used as a centre for Islamic studies for women and courses in the arts, according to Ayamuddin Ajmal, who heads up the ancient monuments department in the western province.
Most of the province’s Jews lived in the old part of Herat, in the Bazar-e-Iraq and Mahali Muhmandha quarters, the head of the information and culture department, Nimatullah Sarwary, said. Most were traders.
Jews left the province to other countries about forty years ago, when the Arab-Israel war started. Afghans opposed the Jews’ presence in the country at the time.
The temple of Kanisa was rebuilt with the help of the Agha Khan Foundation.
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