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Troops in Afghanistan Need Help, Obama Says
New York Times, United States By JEFF ZELENY July 14, 2008
SAN DIEGO-Senator Barack Obama is proposing that the United States deploy about 10,000 more troops to battle resurgent forces in Afghanistan, a plan intended to shift the American military focus from the Iraq war to the marked rise in violence from the Taliban.
Obama would send 2 more brigades to Afghanistan
By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press / July 14, 2008
WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said Monday that as president he would send at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan, where U.S. soldiers face rising violence and endured their deadliest attack in three years on Sunday.
9 Americans Die in Afghan Attack
The New York Times - National By CARLOTTA GALL July 14, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-Taliban insurgents carried out a bold assault on a remote base near the border with Pakistan on Sunday, NATO reported, and a senior American military official said nine American soldiers were killed.
Spending Bill Suggests Long Stay in Afghanistan
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Monday, July 14, 2008
Congress has quietly used fiscal 2008 legislation on military construction to signal that it plans on a long-term military presence in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan blames Pakistan for spike in attacks
by Sardar Ahmad July 14, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday directly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of being behind a recent series of attacks by extremist Islamic militants that have killed scores of people.
U.S. troops died in Taliban attempt to storm base
By Jon Hemming July 14, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - A Taliban attack that killed nine U.S. soldiers, the biggest single American loss in Afghanistan since 2005, was a well-planned, complex assault which briefly breached the defenses of an outpost near the Pakistan border.
Taliban claim kidnap of Afghan senator
July 14, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — Taliban militants claimed responsibility Monday for the abduction of an Afghan senator who was snatched at a gunpoint 70 kilometres (40 miles) from capital Kabul.
Alokozay Group to invest Dh400m in Afghanistan
Business 24/7 - UAE By VM Sathish Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Jebel Ali-based Alokozay Group of Companies is planning a Dh400 million expansion into Afghanistan in the dairy, food-packaging and petroleum distribution, according to the head of the group.
Taliban benefiting from Pakistan's marble mine: report
New York, July 14 (PTI) A white marble mine in Pakistan's tribal area has become gold mine for Taliban and enabling them to sustain their terrorists activities, a media report said today.
India may send more ITBP personnel to Afghanistan
14 Jul 2008, 2007 hrs IST, PTI
NEW DELHI: With Indian assets in Afghanistan facing increased terror threat, Government on Monday talked about the possibility of augmenting the strength of ITBP personnel there as Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon returned
AP IMPACT: Pakistan militants focus on Afghanistan
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer Sun Jul 13, 4:14 PM ET
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - In early June, about 300 fighters from jihadist groups came together for a secret gathering here, in the same city that serves as headquarters to the Pakistani army.
Afghans lose faith in government as security continues to deteriorate
By Agence France Presse (AFP) Monday, July 14, 2008
KABUL: Nearly a week after a suicide car bombing killed several members of his family, Khan Mohammad is distraught and disillusioned with the government he voted for in Afghanistan's first presidential election in 2005.
Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing
Sunday, 13 July 2008 BBC News
The BBC's Alastair Leithead is the first journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found:
AFGHANISTAN: High birth rate killing mothers, infants - UNFPA expert
KABUL, 14 July 2008 (IRIN) - Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia - 6.7 - which not only means the deaths of thousands of young mothers and infants every year but also poses long-term challenges
AFGHANISTAN: Wheat for locusts plan turns sour
QALA-I-NAW, 14 July 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of people in northwestern Afghanistan are annoyed with the authorities for allegedly failing to give them promised wheat aid in return for dead locusts.
Iran, Afghanistan to produce five films
Tehran, July 14, IRNA
Based on an agreement signed between Iran and Afghanistan, they will jointly produce five films.
Afghan Opposition Spokesman Says Government Likely to Postpone Election
Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Ariana TV on 13 July
[Presenter] The United National Front, an alliance formed by a number of opposition parties, has warned that Kabul is under siege. Addressing a press conference held today, the spokesman for the front said that according to
Minister apologises for lack of progress in Balkh
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 13 July 2008
Criticism prompts government to inject cash into northern province
THE MINISTERS of rural development and counter-narcotics have promised to pump $2 million into the northern province of Balkh province amid criticism that the government has failed to develop the region.
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Troops in Afghanistan Need Help, Obama Says
New York Times, United States By JEFF ZELENY July 14, 2008
SAN DIEGO-Senator Barack Obama is proposing that the United States deploy about 10,000 more troops to battle resurgent forces in Afghanistan, a plan intended to shift the American military focus from the Iraq war to the marked rise in violence from the Taliban.
“As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, wrote in an Op-Ed article published on Monday in The New York Times. “We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there.”
Mr. Obama, who is among those who maintain that Afghanistan has been neglected because of the administration’s Iraq policy, has not previously offered such a specific plan for how to strengthen troop levels in Afghanistan. His proposal comes as he prepares to visit American commanders to assess progress in Iraq and needs in Afghanistan.
He said a new round of violence on Sunday, in which nine American soldiers died in fierce fighting with the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, underscored the military challenges ahead for the United States. He said in a news conference here, “It’s very hard for us to bolster our forces in Afghanistan when we have such a heavy presence in Iraq.”
As the Bush administration considers withdrawing additional combat troops from Iraq in September, the military needs in Afghanistan are coming into sharper focus. Mr. Obama and other Democrats have said the balance of troops in the two war zones should be adjusted. At the same time, a downturn in Iraqi violence has complicated their arguments that a surge of American troops was flawed.
“I continue to believe that we’re under-resourced in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said on Sunday, speaking to reporters after addressing a Latino group here. “That is the real center for terrorist activity that we have to deal with and deal with aggressively.”
Later this summer, at a date that is not being disclosed for security reasons, Mr. Obama said he would be joined on a trip to Iraq, and possibly Afghanistan, by Senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island. All three senators share critical views of the administration’s Iraq policy.
The visit to Iraq, and his findings from briefings with military commanders, represents an important moment for Mr. Obama’s general election candidacy. While he said he still supports removing American combat troops within 16 months, he has struggled to explain how he would balance that plan if conditions on the ground were not suitable for that goal.
He said he was not going to Iraq to promote his withdrawal plan but to gather facts.
“We have one president at a time, so I’m not going to be traveling to negotiate anything or make promises,” Mr. Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane on Saturday evening. “I am there to listen, but there is no doubt that my core position, which is that we need a timetable for withdrawal, not only to relieve pressure on our military, but also to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and to put more pressure on the Iraqi government.”
Several Democratic supporters have criticized Mr. Obama for what they believe is a shift to the political center on a variety of issues, including the Iraq war. He addresses his critics and seeks to make clear in his Op-Ed essay for The Times that his goal to end the war, a central selling point of his primary campaign, has not changed.
“On my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war,” Mr. Obama wrote, adding: “Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been.”
Senator John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, did not campaign on Sunday. But in a visit to his Southwest regional campaign headquarters in Phoenix he brought up the nine deaths in Afghanistan, describing the violence there and the downturn in the American economy, as “difficult times” and “great challenges,” according to a pool report.
Mr. Obama has not visited Iraq since his first trip there in January 2006, which Mr. McCain and Republicans have used to suggest that he is not sufficiently aware of the military progress that has been made. Mr. McCain has been to Iraq at least eight times. Asked about the criticism on Sunday, Mr. Obama grew defensive.
“John McCain has been in Congress 25 years — no doubt about that — if this is a longevity measure, then John McCain wins,” Mr. Obama said. “On the other hand, before we went into Iraq, I knew the difference between Shia and Sunni.”
The comment referred to a misstatement by Mr. McCain earlier this year, when he struggled to explain the distinction between the majority and minority ethnic groups in Iraq. On Sunday, a spokesman for Mr. McCain criticized Mr. Obama’s trip, suggesting that he is not entering it with an open mind to progress that has been made by the American forces.
“If Barack Obama believes that visiting Iraq and meeting with commanders will not give him any new perspective, then we can only assume he’s going just to smile for the cameras,” said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Mr. McCain.
Cover Called ‘Tasteless’
SAN DIEGO — As he flies around the country, Mr. Obama has a fondness for magazines. The New Yorker is often among the titles at the front of his campaign plane.
This week’s issue, though, is not likely to be on board.
The cover of the magazine depicts Mr. Obama wearing a turban, while he offers a fist bump to his gun-toting wife. An American flag singes behind them in the fireplace.
Asked about the drawing at a news conference here Sunday, Mr. Obama held his tongue, saying, “I have no response to that.” A campaign spokesman, Bill Burton, was not so measured.
“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create,” Mr. Burton said in a statement. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive — and we agree.”
The cover of the July 21 issue is titled “The Politics of Fear.” A news release to promote the magazine said the artist, Barry Blitt, “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”
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Obama would send 2 more brigades to Afghanistan
By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press / July 14, 2008
WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said Monday that as president he would send at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan, where U.S. soldiers face rising violence and endured their deadliest attack in three years on Sunday.
The proposed force increase is part of Obama's plan to pull combat troops out of Iraq and focus on the growing threat from a resurgent al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
"As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan," Obama said in an op-ed published Monday in The New York Times, a day before he plans a speech here on his vision for Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama said. "I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq."
Republican John McCain's presidential campaign said the Arizona senator will be speaking about his plan for Afghanistan on Thursday. His advisers declined to say whether he agreed with Obama's Afghanistan proposal before the speech.
U.S. commanders have said they need up to three more brigades in Afghanistan — or as many as 10,000 additional troops — to both train Afghan forces and battle the insurgency. President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have promised to beef up the U.S. force in Afghanistan next year, but military leaders have made it clear they won't be able to do that until they can reduce forces in Iraq.
Obama says he will do that, redeploying combat brigades out of Iraq by summer 2010. He wrote that he would leave in place a residual force of undetermined size behind to "perform limited missions" like going after remnants of al-Qaida and training Iraqi forces.
"Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and al-Qaida has a safe haven," Obama wrote. "Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
There are currently 36,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, including 17,500 serving with the NATO-led coalition and another 18,500 conducting training and counterinsurgency. The recent spike in U.S. troops there resulted largely from the overlap of one brigade moving into the country, as another is preparing to leave.
Violence is on the rise in Afghanistan. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June, and a militant attack Sunday on a remote military outpost killed nine American soldiers, the deadliest assault on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years.
In his op-ed, Obama defended his opposition to President Bush's increase of troops in Iraq despite its success in helping bring down the violence in that country. He credited the increase for protecting Iraqis and weakening al-Qaida's effectiveness.
"But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true," Obama said. "The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we've spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq's leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge."
McCain's advisers blasted Obama in a conference call with reporters for his criticism of the surge.
"The stunning improvement in security is in direct result of the surge, more combat power, and the model of withdrawing troops to bring about stability and security would have been a disaster," said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. "We've got a ways to go yet, but we've turned the corner. And if we start to pull out one to two brigades a month and announce it now, it could jeopardize all the gains that we have made. It would reset the clock in Iraq."
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On the Net:
http://www.barackobama.com
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9 Americans Die in Afghan Attack
The New York Times - National By CARLOTTA GALL July 14, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-Taliban insurgents carried out a bold assault on a remote base near the border with Pakistan on Sunday, NATO reported, and a senior American military official said nine American soldiers were killed.
The attack, the worst against Americans in Afghanistan in three years, illustrated the growing threat of Taliban militants and their associates, who in recent months have made Afghanistan a far deadlier war zone for American-led forces than Iraq.
The assault on the American base in Kunar Province was one of the fiercest by insurgents since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan routed the Taliban and militants in Al Qaeda in late 2001.
The militants have since regained strength in the tribal areas of Pakistan, which they have often used as a base for raids into Afghanistan, an increasingly sore point for the American and Afghan governments.
The new American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan emphasized that issue on Sunday in an interview that took place before details of the Kunar attack were disclosed, asserting that the militants were not only entering Afghan territory but also firing at targets from the Pakistan side.
“It all goes back to the problem set that there are sanctuaries in the tribal areas that militant insurgent groups are able to operate from with impunity,” said the commander, Gen. David D. McKiernan, who took over the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in June.
General McKiernan said insurgents based in Pakistan had carried out some kind of attack on Afghanistan “almost every day I have been here.”
It was the first time a senior commander had stated so clearly that militant groups were not only infiltrating from across the border to attack but were also firing from positions inside Pakistan.
NATO officials reported that nine soldiers were killed in the Kunar attack but did not specify the nationalities, in accordance with the policy of letting member countries report them first. A senior military official in Washington said that all nine were American.
The Kunar attack also left at least 15 other NATO soldiers — almost certainly Americans — and 4 Afghan soldiers wounded, and it was one of at least three significant attacks on Sunday, including a devastating suicide bombing in a southern city’s bazaar that killed at least 25 people, 20 of them civilians.
This year of the Afghanistan war is already proving to be the deadliest since the American-led invasion. Bush administration officials are now considering a redeployment of troops to Afghanistan from Iraq to help deal with the rising threat.
Deaths of American troops and their allies for the last two months have been higher than those inflicted in Iraq. In addition, nearly 700 Afghan civilians were killed in the first five months of the year, a marked increase over previous years, United Nations officials have said.
General McKiernan, a four-star general who commanded allied land forces during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, said there were three main reasons for the increase in violence: a change in tactics by the insurgents to small attacks on more vulnerable targets, such as the civilian population, district centers and convoys; the increasing progress of Afghan and NATO forces in pushing into regions previously controlled by the Taliban, which has led to more fighting; and the “deteriorating situation with tribal sanctuaries across the border” in Pakistan.
General McKiernan’s comments followed a weeklong visit to the region by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who discussed a wide array of security issues with Pakistan’s leaders on Saturday in a surprise visit to Pakistan.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, after conferring with President Bush and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, directed Admiral Mullen to add the stop in Pakistan. Given that this was Admiral Mullen’s fourth trip to Pakistan this year and his second in two months, the admiral’s talks with Pakistani officials underscored the Bush administration’s increasing concern over the rising violence in Afghanistan and its links with the Pakistan tribal areas.
“The secretary wanted to take advantage of the fact that Admiral Mullen would be in the region to reinforce our concern with the Pakistanis about the spike in violence in Afghanistan and to keep the pressure on in the tribal areas,” Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a telephone interview about Admiral Mullen’s Pakistan stopover.
Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for Admiral Mullen, said it was apparent to the admiral that “the Pakistani leadership is aware of their challenges in the border region, as well as of U.S. military concerns there, and are working to address those challenges.”
Pakistan, for its part, has complained that American forces have repeatedly hit Pakistani territory, in particular on June 10, when United States air and artillery strikes killed 11 members of the Pakistani paramilitary force, the Frontier Corps, manning a border post.
General McKiernan did not comment on the June 10 attack since a three-party investigation into the border clash had not yet been concluded, but he was very clear that militants were using their sanctuary in Pakistan to fire across the border and that the NATO and American forces had the right to fire back. “We have the ability to protect ourselves,” he said.
“The point that I am trying to make is that the border security situation is not good, and that border runs for 2,500 kilometers,” or about 1,500 miles, he said.
While he expressed optimism that the American-led forces here would prevail and the insurgency would be defeated, “I look at this problem regionally, the viable outcome in Afghanistan to a large degree is dependent on some outcome in Pakistan with these tribal areas. That is a problem that is not getting better with time.”
The base that came under attack in Kunar Province on Sunday lies in one of the most inhospitable mountainous regions where American forces have frequently faced fierce battles with insurgents.
A NATO news release issued in Kabul said the insurgents attacked the Kunar base with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, using houses, shops and a mosque in the nearby village of Wanat for cover. Both sides suffered casualties as the insurgents were repulsed, it said.
The only bigger single death toll for the Americans in the Afghanistan war came in June 2005 — also near Kunar — when an American Chinook helicopter was shot down by Taliban gunners in heavy combat. All 16 aboard and three others on the ground were killed.
The American command also reported a heavy clash on Sunday between Taliban insurgents and Afghan and American forces patrolling in the southern province of Helmand in which it estimated that 40 militants were killed by airstrikes as boats and bridges across the Helmand River were destroyed.
A suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in a busy bazaar in the town of Deh Rawood in the southern province of Oruzgan, killing the local police chief and four subordinates. Twenty civilians were also killed and 30 more were wounded, the provincial police chief, Juma Gul Himat, said by telephone. Bodies and wounded people were strewn across the street as the police rushed to help.
Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan, Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
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Spending Bill Suggests Long Stay in Afghanistan
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Monday, July 14, 2008
Congress has quietly used fiscal 2008 legislation on military construction to signal that it plans on a long-term military presence in Afghanistan.
In the recently approved supplemental funding bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, legislators approved construction of a $62 million ammunition storage facility at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base, where 12 planned "igloos" will support Army and Air Force needs.
"As a forward operating site, Bagram must be able to provide for a long term, steady state presence which is able to surge to meet theater contingency requirements," the Army said in requesting the money.
When he initially sought the funds last year, Adm. William J. Fallon, then commander of U.S. Central Command, described Bagram as "the centerpiece for the CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia."
In another sign that U.S. troops will be there a long time, the Army requested, and Congress provided, $41 million for a 30-megawatt power plant at Bagram. It is capable of generating enough electricity for a town of more than 20,000 homes.
On the other hand, Congress eliminated the Army's request for $184 million to build power plants at five bases in Iraq. Those are to be among the final bases and support locations where troops, aircraft and equipment will be consolidated as the U.S. military presence is reduced.
In his testimony last year, Fallon said: "As smaller contingency operating sites are closed and forces are consolidated on contingency operations bases, the latter will need significantly more electricity." At present, the military uses diesel generators to power the bases.
But Congress "did not want to do anything in Iraq that seemed long-term, and the power plants would have taken up to two years to complete," said one Senate staff member familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak for lawmakers.
The funding plan also shows preparations to shut down Iraqi military facilities. Money was approved to build landfills, at $880,000 apiece, at five forward operating bases scheduled to be closed, including ones at Fallujah and Ramadi.
"These landfills are required to ensure we meet environmental, base camp closure, and property disposal procedures," the Army said in asking for the money.
Congress did approve $11.7 million to build a facility for juveniles held by the United States at an Iraqi army base on the outskirts of Baghdad, called Camp Constitution. A former U.S. forward operating base, it has been turned over to the Iraqi Army, which uses it as an adult detention center. Within it, however, the United States will run what it calls a Theater Internment Facility Reintegration Center for the juveniles.
Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, who until recently ran the U.S. detention program in Iraq, told reporters last June 9 that he separated the younger detainees at Camp Cropper each day and bused them to Camp Constitution, where they were provided schooling and athletic opportunities. That took them away, for a time, from the hardened fighters who had recruited them.
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Afghanistan blames Pakistan for spike in attacks
by Sardar Ahmad July 14, 2008
KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday directly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of being behind a recent series of attacks by extremist Islamic militants that have killed scores of people.
Afghanistan has been hit by a wave of bloody unrest, including a militant assault on a military outpost Sunday that killed nine US soldiers and a suicide attack on the Indian embassy a week ago that left 60 people dead.
"The murder, killing, destruction, dishonouring and insecurity in Afghanistan is carried out by the intelligence administration of Pakistan, its military intelligence institutions," Karzai said in a statement.
"We know who kills innocent people," the president said. "We have told the government of Pakistan and the world and from now on it will be pronounced by every member of the Afghan nation."
The cabinet announced meanwhile that Afghanistan would boycott a series of upcoming meetings with Pakistan unless "bilateral trust" was restored.
Pakistan's "intelligence agency and military have turned that country (in) to the biggest exporter of terrorism and extremism to the world, particularly Afghanistan," a statement from the cabinet said.
Afghanistan regularly accuses Pakistan of supporting militants who have been waging a deadly insurgency in the nation since the 2001 ouster of the hardline Taliban regime in a US-led invasion.
Karzai's statement was however one of the most harsh with the Islamic neighbours officially trying to repair a relationship strained by mounting extremist violence.
US officials also say that Pakistan has allowed Taliban and Al-Qaeda to regroup in its tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.
But Pakistan rejects charges of supporting militants and says it is doing what it can to stop them.
Karzai also referred to a suicide attack that targeted police in southern Uruzgan province on Sunday that killed 24 Afghans, most of them civilians in a bazaar, police said.
He also condemned the Taliban's killing in Ghazni province the same day of two women whom the militants alleged were prostitutes and worked for the police.
"These ladies were martyred by terrorists who have been trained in terrorist nests and intelligence offices outside Afghanistan where respect of (women's) honour doesn't mean anything," he said.
The president's comments followed one of the deadliest incidents involving international forces since they arrived in Afghanistan in late 2001 to drive out the Taliban government.
The storming on Sunday of a military outpost in the remote Kunar province, near Pakistan, left nine US soldiers dead and 15 wounded, officials said.
"It was a well-organised attack, it was a ferocious attack," said a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, Captain Mike Finney. Officials have suggested the attackers were from bases in Pakistan.
Hours of fighting, including air strikes, prevented the militants from taking over the base, with rebel casualties in the "high double figures", said Finney.
There were reports that several civilians were also killed but they could not be immediately confirmed.
Between 400 and 500 militants from various anti-government factions including Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Hezb-i-Islami faction were involved, a senior Afghan defence ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
"They attacked the newly established base there and reached even its walls. At one point they had entered the base," he said. The soldiers had only occupied the base about five days before.
Americans form the bulk of the nearly 70,000 international troops in Afghanistan to help the fragile government fight back an insurgency led by the hardline Taliban but influenced by Al-Qaeda.
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U.S. troops died in Taliban attempt to storm base
By Jon Hemming July 14, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - A Taliban attack that killed nine U.S. soldiers, the biggest single American loss in Afghanistan since 2005, was a well-planned, complex assault which briefly breached the defenses of an outpost near the Pakistan border.
The Taliban have largely shied away from large-scale attacks on foreign forces since suffering severe casualties in assaults on NATO bases in the south in 2006. Instead the militants have scaled up hit-and-run attacks and suicide and roadside bombs.
"The insurgents went into an adjacent village, drove the villagers out, used their homes and a mosque as a base from which to launch the attack and fire on the outpost," said NATO spokesman Mark Laity on Monday.
"Some of the insurgents also then attacked. I think it looks as if they made a brief breach into the base and were repelled," he said.
Troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan army only moved into the combat outpost in the mountainous and forested Pech Valley district of Kunar province days before and the defenses were not fully constructed.
The Taliban began their attack just before dawn on Sunday.
After driving back the assault, the defenders, numbering between 100 to 150, called in airstrikes from attack helicopters and warplanes. Fierce fighting went on till mid-afternoon.
Scores of Taliban fighters were either killed or wounded.
"There was very heavy fighting and they suffered very heavy casualties," Laity said.
Tens of Taliban were killed, an Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman said.
CROSS-BORDER THREAT
There has been a marked increase of violence in Afghanistan this year, especially along the eastern border where militants have effectively secured their rear with de-facto ceasefires with Pakistani forces and launched more attacks into Afghan soil.
The surge in violence is also partly due to the higher numbers of ISAF and Afghan forces establishing footholds in areas, such as the Pech Valley, where they seldom went before.
Afghan officials said on Sunday the Taliban fighters had infiltrated from nearby Pakistan to launch the attack. However, ISAF spokesman Captain Michael Finney said it was unclear whether the militants had crossed the border.
But Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan were "a matter of great concern," he said.
Afghan leaders are growing increasingly impatient with Pakistan, whose new government has adopted a policy of trying to make a treaty with militant leaders instead of battling them.
Afghan officials have accused Pakistani agents of involvement in a string of attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide bomb on the Indian embassy in Kabul last week which killed 58 people and an attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai in April.
Karzai last month threatened to send troops into Pakistan if Islamabad does not take action against militant sanctuaries.
Pakistan denies it is aiding militants and says the Kabul government should try harder to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict, which it says is an internal Afghan issue.
(Editing by Valerie Lee)
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Taliban claim kidnap of Afghan senator
July 14, 2008
KABUL (AFP) — Taliban militants claimed responsibility Monday for the abduction of an Afghan senator who was snatched at a gunpoint 70 kilometres (40 miles) from capital Kabul.
Abdul Wali, a member of the Upper House of the parliament from the province of Logar adjoining Kabul, was kidnapped Sunday as he was driving with his two guards and driver, police said.
"Taliban have abducted Dr. Abdul Wali and until now Taliban's leading council have not made any decision on his fate," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
The extremists, who were in government between 1996 and 2001, have killed several of the dozens of hostages over the past few years.
Police said however they expected the militants to ask for release of their prisoners in Afghan jails in exchange for the release of the senator. The rebels have made similar demands in past abductions.
"Taliban have claimed responsibility for the abduction. I think they might ask for the release of some of their prisoners in exchange," said Ghulam Mustafa Muhsini, the deputy police chief of Logar province.
The provincial police had on Sunday started an investigation and search for the senator, Mohseni said.
Afghan parliamentarians have frequently been targeted in the rising violence in Afghanistan, much of it linked to an insurgency led by the hardline Taliban movement.
A member of the lower house of parliament was shot dead by unknown gunmen in the southern province of Kandahar on July 5.
The parliamentarian, Habibullah Jan, was the tenth lawmaker to be killed since Afghanistan's first democratically chosen parliament was elected in 2005.
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Alokozay Group to invest Dh400m in Afghanistan
Business 24/7 - UAE By VM Sathish Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Jebel Ali-based Alokozay Group of Companies is planning a Dh400 million expansion into Afghanistan in the dairy, food-packaging and petroleum distribution, according to the head of the group.
Abdul Rahman Alokozay, managing director of Alokazay International Ltd, told Emirates Business the company has an agreement with the Afghan Government to set up the foodstuff projects in the Afghan cities of Ghaziabad and Kabul. The group will set up edible oil factories, food-processing units and diary farms in and around the cities while the petroleum and gas distribution network will cover the entire country.
"We will invest around Dh400m in the near future for various projects in Afghanistan," Alokozay said.
Hashim Karzai, CEO of Alokozay International Ltd, said the company is already in the process of setting up an edible oil factory in Jebel Ali with a production capacity of 100,000 tonnes per year expandable to 300,000 tonnes to serve the Middle East and CIS countries.
The factory in Afghanistan will be a replica of the Jebel Ali factory, he said.
"Alokozay International is working to put up a similar plant in Northern Afghanistan to serve the local Afghan market and the neighbouring countries. We also have plans to set up beverage production and packaging factories in Afghanistan," he said.
The business plan includes setting up a factory in Kabul for packaging milk, juice, mineral water and carbonated drinks.
The purpose of this plant is to supply quality products at reasonable prices to the Afghanistan market, said Karzai. According to the company's agreement with the Afghanistan Government, the group will turn the Ghaziabad agriculture project, which covers a large area of land, into a major olive oil production centre with a modern refinery and packaging factory.
"The production of the olive oil plant will be for Afghanistan's domestic market and for export to the Middle East, CIS region, Europe and North Africa," Alokozay said.
Also in Ghaziabad, the company is working with Australian experts to raise a dairy farm to provide quality fresh milk and other dairy products for the domestic market in Afghanistan.
The company also plans to establish a nationwide distribution and storage network of LPG and petroleum products in Afghanistan, which has been named the Sungas Project. For this purpose the group set up three sister companies – International Oil Ltd in Delaware, United States, Afghan National Petroleum Ltd and Sungas in Kabul – to build LPG storage facilities in Hairetan (near Mazar-e-Sharief on the Uzbekistan border) and Turghundy (near Herat on the Turkmenistan border), and expanding storage facilities in other strategic locations across the country.
The project also includes LPG cylinder refilling units in Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Pul-e-Qumri, Kandahar and other cities and locations across Afghanistan.
Two LPG storage facilities covering 25,000 square metres and with 1035 cubic metres of storage capacity each, have already been built along with administrative facilities. The LPG refilling stations will cover all major cities of Afghanistan within three years, the group has said.
The company is also setting up a nationwide gas distribution network. A fleet of 21 brand new tankers with 45 cubic metres of capacity each is already in operation.
The distribution system will sell LPG cylinders of 2kg, 6kg, 12kg, 24kg and 45kg capacities.
The petroleum products facilities include storage for diesel and petrol.
The facility in Hairetan will be expanded from 6,000 tonnes to 12,000 tonnes.
There are similar expansion plans for Kabul – from 6,000 tonnes to 15,000 tonnes. Gasoline stations and storage facilities will come up in important centres across Afghanistan.
Afghan business growth
In a bid to showcase the success of Afghan businesses in the region and to attract international investors to Afghanistan, the Afghan ambassador to the UAE took diplomats of 24 countries on a tour of Alokozay Group's facilities in Jebel Ali
Abdul Farid Zikria, the Afghan ambassador, was accompanied by ambassadors and diplomats from countries including the United States, Iran and India. The delegation visited the Alokozay Group's head office and the company's 320,000sq ft tea processing plant in Jebel Ali.
Addressing the delegates during their visit, Alokozay CEO Hashim Karzai said: "We will set up similar factories in the CIS countries, Russia and Iran. Due to US economic sanctions and restrictions on export to Iran, we have decided to set up a manufacturing plant there. We can use the local supply from Iran and local resources for the tea factory.
"It is better to be near the customer and we can avoid the huge cost involved in transportation.
"The group is producing specially blended finest premium tea products under our own brand name – Alokozay Tea – which is available in 40 countries."
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Taliban benefiting from Pakistan's marble mine: report
New York, July 14 (PTI) A white marble mine in Pakistan's tribal area has become gold mine for Taliban and enabling them to sustain their terrorists activities, a media report said today.
The quarry in the Mohmand tribal district, situated strategically between the city of Peshawar and the Afghan border, is a new effort by the Taliban to harness the abundant natural resources of a region where there are plenty of other mining operations for coal, gold, copper and chromate, the New York Times said.
For four years, the reports said, the quarry lay dormant because of Tribal squabbles and government ineptitude.
But in April, the Taliban appeared and imposed a firm hand. They settled the feud between the tribes, demanded a fat fee up front and a tax on every truck that ferried the valuable treasure from the quarry.
Since then, Mir Zaman, a contractor from the Masaud subtribe, which was picked by the Taliban to run the quarry, has watched contentedly as his trucks roll out of the quarry with colossal boulders bound for refining in nearby towns, the report said.
"With the Taliban it is not a question of a request to us, but a question of force," Zaman was quoted as saying. At least the quarry was now operating, he said.
The takeover of the Ziarat marble quarry, a coveted national asset, is one of the boldest examples of how the Taliban have made Pakistan's tribal areas far more than a base for training camps or a launching pad for sending fighters into Afghanistan, the Times said.
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India may send more ITBP personnel to Afghanistan
14 Jul 2008, 2007 hrs IST, PTI
NEW DELHI: With Indian assets in Afghanistan facing increased terror threat, Government on Monday talked about the possibility of augmenting the strength of ITBP personnel there as Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon returned from Kabul after assessing the security scenario.
Menon, who was on a two-day visit during which he met Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, apprised Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee about his discussions with Afghan leaders on how to ensure better protection of Indian Embassy in Kabul and consulates elsewhere in Afghanistan.
He is understood to have conveyed the plans that the Afghan government and Indian authorities would implement to prevent any further attacks on Indian assets.
Menon visited Kabul to review security in the aftermath of the July 7 suicide attack at the Indian embassy in which 58 people, including India's Defence Attache, a senior IFS officer and two ITBP jawans were killed.
Both Afghan and Indian government have accused Taliban and its mentor Pakistan's ISI of being behind the attack and cautioned of more such strikes.
In view of the increased threat, Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said the government could consider sending more ITBP personnel to Afghanistan to supplement about 400 of them already stationed at various Indian installations and Indian projects in that country.
"If required, we will augment the strength (of ITBP personnel)," Gupta said, adding that the requirement would be reviewed with the Ministry of External Affairs.
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AP IMPACT: Pakistan militants focus on Afghanistan
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer Sun Jul 13, 4:14 PM ET
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - In early June, about 300 fighters from jihadist groups came together for a secret gathering here, in the same city that serves as headquarters to the Pakistani army.
The groups were launched long ago with the army's clandestine support to fight against India in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. But at the meeting, they agreed to resolve their differences and commit more fighters to another front instead: Afghanistan.
"The message was that the jihad in Kashmir is still continuing but it is not the most important right now. Afghanistan is the fighting ground, against the Americans there," said Toor Gul, a leader of the militant group Hezb-ul Mujahedeen. The groups included the al-Qaida-linked Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, banned by Pakistan and branded terrorists by the U.S., he said.
The U.S. military says militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan have increased 40 percent this year over 2007. And for two straight months, the death toll of foreign troops in Afghanistan has exceeded that of Iraq. On Sunday, nine U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, the deadliest single attack for the U.S. since June 2005.
Pakistani military and European intelligence officials, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information is sensitive, confirmed the June meeting and said it was the second such gathering this year. A senior military official described the inability to prevent the meetings as "an intelligence failure."
Despite growing pressure on Pakistan to quell Islamic militancy, jihadist groups within its borders are in fact increasing their cooperation to attack U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to interviews with a wide range of militants, intelligence officials, and military officers.
Militants say they operate with minimal interference, and sometimes tacit cooperation, from Pakistani authorities, while diplomats say the country's new government has until now been ineffectual in dealing with a looming threat.
"Where there were embers seven years ago we are now fighting flames," a serving Western general told The Associated Press, referring to both Afghanistan and Pakistan's border regions. He agreed to be interviewed on condition his identity and nationality were not revealed.
A Pentagon report released late last month described a dual terror threat in Afghanistan: the Taliban in the south, and "a more complex, adaptive insurgency" in the east. That fragmented insurgency is made up of groups ranging from al-Qaida-linked Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's radical Hezb-i-Islami group to Pakistani militants such as Jaish-e-Mohammed, the report said.
Hekmatyar's is the strongest rebel group in Afghanistan's Kunar province, where Sunday's deadly ambush occurred. His group has also had close contacts with jihadi groups in Pakistan.
In the past, the Taliban were suspicious of the mujahadeen groups with close associations to the Pakistani military and intelligence. But now Gul, who fights alongside Hekmatyar's men in Kunar province, said they are united in the fight for Afghanistan. He told the AP he had been to Kunar in the last two months but refused to be more specific.
Mark Laity, NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, said Pakistan's new civilian government has reduced its preventive military action and is trying to negotiate peace deals with the militants. He expressed concern that the deals were leading to "increased cross border activity."
The Pakistani government also appears to be loosening its grip on the volatile northwest, where the influence of Islamic extremists is expanding. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere along the rugged, lawless Afghan-Pakistan border.
Pakistan's Mohmand and Bajaur tribal areas are emerging as increasingly strong insurgent centers, according to Gul, the militant. His information was corroborated by Pakistani and Western officials. Both those tribal areas are right next door to Afghanistan's Kunar province.
"Before there were special, hidden places for training. But now they are all over Bajaur and Mohmand," he said. "Even in houses there is training going on."
A former minister in President Pervez Musharraf's ousted government, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, said insurgents were being paid between 6,000 and 8,000 rupees — the equivalent of $90 and $120 — a month in Mohmand and grain was being collected to feed them. He did not identify the source of the donations but said Pakistan's army and intelligence were aware of them.
Maulvi Abdul Rahman, a Taliban militant and former police officer under the ousted hardline regime, said jihadist sympathizers in the Middle East are sending money to support the insurgents and more Central Asians are coming to fight. Rahman said under a tacit understanding with authorities, militants were free to cross to fight in Afghanistan so long as they do not stage attacks inside Pakistan, which has been assailed by an unprecedented wave of suicide attacks in the past year.
"It is easy for me now. I just go and come. There are army checkposts and now we pass and they don't say anything. Pakistan now understands that the U.S. is dangerous for them," he said. "There is not an article in any agreement that says go to Afghanistan, but it is understood if we want to go to Afghanistan, OK, but leave Pakistan alone.'"
The Taliban appears to have considerable latitude to operate. Last month Baitullah Mehsud, the chief Pakistani Taliban leader, held a news conference attended by dozens of Pakistani journalists in South Waziristan tribal region. Authorities did nothing to stop it, although the Pakistani government and the CIA have accused Mehsud of plotting the December assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
Journalists who attended said there were no security forces to be seen as a convoy of as many as 20 vehicles passed into the Mehsud's hideout — not far from where the army itself had taken an entourage of foreign journalists just a week earlier.
Tensions in Pakistan's anti-terror alliance with the United States are growing. U.S. airstrikes during a border clash with militants on June 10 killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops — the deadliest incident of its kind, prompting a sharp rebuke by Pakistan's army to Washington.
Pakistan's army vehemently denies giving covert aid to militants and points out that 1,087 of its soldiers have died in the tribal regions since 2002 — more than the U.S. military and NATO have lost in Afghanistan.
"If anyone says the army is providing sanctuary, nothing could be further from the truth," army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said. He criticized the U.S. and NATO forces for failing to capture insurgents when they cross into Afghanistan or stop them from coming into Pakistan.
"Is it the responsibility of only one side to stop the border crossings?" he asked.
A senior government official also said Pakistan — which once backed the Taliban but formally abandoned its support after the Sept. 11 attacks on America — has become the scapegoat for U.S. and NATO failures in Afghanistan.
"They don't want to tell their bosses that they've made a mess of it in Afghanistan, where there is no governance, corruption is everywhere and the Afghan government is involved up to the hilt in heroin smuggling, gun running," said the official, who had the authority to speak only if his name was not used. He denied the army was helping militants.
"Maybe one or two individuals are allowing things to happen, but as a policy it makes no sense to me. Just because we were in bed with them once doesn't mean we are today."
However, the Afghan government has directly accused Pakistani intelligence of plotting a recent assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai and the July 7 bombing outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed at least 58 people.
Such allegations are virtually impossible to substantiate. But retired Pakistani general Talat Masood said the army still treats militants and Afghan rebels as "assets" because of its deep conviction that India is expanding its influence in Afghanistan and using its consulates there to foment an ethnic rebellion in Pakistan's troubled southwest Baluchistan province.
"There are certain (militant) groups that have the full blessing of the army, some to which they are neutral and some they are against," he said.
Although Pakistan has received some $10 billion in mostly military aid since 2001, the army mistrusts the United States — worried it could one day abandon Pakistan and even turn its guns on a country where it has repeatedly voiced concern that al-Qaida's leadership is regrouping.
"They still believe in the same thing — that America will leave them tomorrow," Masood said. "And we'll be left high and dry with India strong, and a hostile government in Afghanistan and that we will have no friends."
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Afghans lose faith in government as security continues to deteriorate
By Agence France Presse (AFP) Monday, July 14, 2008
KABUL: Nearly a week after a suicide car bombing killed several members of his family, Khan Mohammad is distraught and disillusioned with the government he voted for in Afghanistan's first presidential election in 2005. The retired colonel lost a daughter, three grandchildren - including 3-year-old twins - and a daughter-in-law in the blast at the Indian Embassy in Kabul.
They were among more than 100 civilians killed in five days in Afghanistan including the bombing and two air strikes by US-led troops, according to Afghan officials.
"In the election I not only voted but I encouraged many Afghans to do so," Mohammad told AFP over the weekend.
"I was thinking the new government would bring security, it would help reconstruct the country - but look what has happened. Security is so bad. You have suicide bombings everywhere. This time I was the victim," he added.
The suicide blast at the gates of the Indian Embassy killed more than 40 people, including two senior Indian diplomats.
It was the deadliest of such attacks on the capital since the 2001 ouster of the extremist Taliban regime who claim many of the dozens of suicide bombings across Afghanistan, but denied any responsibility for this one.
Days earlier, two US-led coalition air strikes against militants in mountains near the border with Pakistan together killed 64 civilians, according to official investigations ordered by President Hamid Karzai.
The US-led coalition says it believes only militants were hit in Nuristan and Nangarhar provinces and is itself investigating.
The killings are alienating people from their government, said Mohammad Asif Shinwari from one of the inquiries that found 47 civilians - most of them women and children - were killed in strikes in Nangarhar on July 6.
"If the government keeps quiet about these civilian casualties like in the past, the situation will worsen and is bad for security," said Defense Ministry official General Mohammad Amin, who headed the other inquiry that found 17 civilians were killed in July 4 strikes in Nuristan.
The international forces who are in Afghanistan to help the government fight insurgents say they do everything they can to avoid harming civilians.
But "while we try to minimize or even eliminate civilian casualties, they [insurgents] are actually careless," said Mark Laity from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
ISAF says about 350 civilians have been killed in rebel attacks this year. The number of civilians it has killed is in the "low double figures," said Laity. There were no figures for the separate US-led coalition.
"We have conveyed our strong concerns to the international forces and we'll be working with them to make sure incidents like this are avoided in the future," Karzai's spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told AFP.
But ex-army Colonel Mohammad, mourning his daughter and grandchildren killed as they were applying for visas to visit London via New Delhi, said the government has failed its people.
"You don't feel secure at the center of the city. The countryside is of course worse," he said.
The India travel agent across the road from the embassy and the small shops that used to make photographs and photocopies for visa applications are in ruins - mounds of glass and brick are swept up outside blown-out shells of buildings.
Meters away is the compound of the Interior Ministry, which covers the police.
"The explosion occurred under their noses," said Feroz, who did not offer his full name, as he watched workers load a van with whatever could be salvaged from his destroyed photocopy shop.
"They should be ashamed, but they are not," said the 28-year-old, who estimates he lost a business worth $16,000. "I have no idea what to do now."
Feroz said he would not vote for Karzai during the next presidential election due next year. "I would rather vote for a dog," he added.
Across the road, the owner of a badly damaged printing shop that had made business cards for the Indian Embassy said many people he knows are thinking about quitting Afghanistan because of the deteriorating security.
"No one wants to leave their country but if this continues, we have no choice," said Sayed Zarif, 34, who returned from 17 years in exile in Pakistan after Karzai took over following the removal of the Taliban in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
Sayed Ezatullah was washing the windows of his business when the suicide car bomber struck. "In a few seconds everything was rubble," he said.
The street outside was littered with bodies and debris. Ezatullah helped some people into ambulances.
"I could not sleep for two nights," said the 35-year-old. "I really don't know what is going on, who we should blame."
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Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing
Sunday, 13 July 2008 BBC News
The BBC's Alastair Leithead is the first journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found:
On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck.
Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequinned and brightly decorated clothes - the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day.
After hours of driving to the village deep in the bandit country of Nangarhar's mountains we heard time and again the terrible account of that awful day.
What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.
The US forces said they targeted insurgents in a strike. But from what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the many mourners, no militants were among the dead.
Bombing children
A big double wedding was taking place between two families, with each exchanging a bride and a groom.
So Lal Zareen's son and daughter were both getting married on the same day.
He gave the account with his son, a 13-year-old groom, sitting at his feet.
"This is all the family I now have left," he said in a disturbingly matter of fact sort of way.
From his story and from those of other survivors, it appears the wedding group was crossing a narrow pass in the mountains which divides the valleys where the two families live.
From nowhere a fast jet flew low and dropped a bomb right on top of the pass near a group of children who had impatiently rushed ahead and were resting, waiting for the women to catch up.
Lal Zareen was waiting expectantly for the guests to arrive when he heard the explosion and began to climb up the steep mountain track to the pass.
Shah Zareen was part of the group up on the path - he had narrowly escaped being caught in the first bomb and told the women to stay where they were as he rushed to help the children.
Second blast
Shah Zareen picked up one of the injured, ran down to the village and on his way was calling his local member of parliament on a mobile phone to say they had been attacked.
But then he heard the second blast - the bomb had been dropped on top of the women and almost all of them had been killed.
Three girls escaped, among them the bride, but as they ran down the hillside a third bomb landed on top of them.
Shah Zareen explained to me how one of the many new graves contained just body parts of two or three people and the graves that had been dug and not filled were for those still missing - once their remains had been found.
The BBC team I was with were the first outsiders to see where the bombs hit - even the Afghan investigators did not climb up the steep mountainside - and there was much evidence to support the story.
The fact we could travel to the area in local cars was proof that Taleban insurgents, al-Qaeda operatives or foreign fighters were not present in the valley.
The local people said they had not seen militants, but admitted there could have been people crossing the high pass as the next ridge along leads to Tora Bora, the notorious insurgent area.
Costly mistakes
The US military says it is investigating the incident and it is understood they may have some aerial footage from hours earlier showing insurgents moving nearby.
But it is obvious a huge mistake was made on 6 July. A US statement about the bombing said "any loss of innocent life is tragic".
"I assure you we do not target civilians and that our forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties," said Lt Nathan Perry.
The US no longer insists the dead were insurgents, as it did for two days after the bombing, but it could be some time before the investigation is complete.
Civilian casualties are not new to Nangarhar province - last year a convoy of US Marines was hit by a bomb attack and in the chaos they opened fire in a bazaar killing 19 people.
They were sent home and their officers charged, but a subsequent ruling cleared them of any responsibility for the deaths.
Mirwais Yasini, a local MP and the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's lower house, made the point that civilian casualties widen the gap between the people and the government, and the international forces.
As another memorial service took place in the mountains, Lal Zareen told me: "I want President Karzai to make sure the people responsible for this face justice."
That will depend on the US findings and how the Afghan government acts.
These mistakes are incredibly costly in a counter-insurgency campaign which relies on winning people over, not forcing them against the authorities.
I wonder how many enemies have been created in Nangarhar as a result of the latest bloodshed?
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AFGHANISTAN: High birth rate killing mothers, infants - UNFPA expert
KABUL, 14 July 2008 (IRIN) - Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia - 6.7 - which not only means the deaths of thousands of young mothers and infants every year but also poses long-term challenges, an expert of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) warned.
Ramesh Penumaka, UNFPA's country representative, said the average Afghan woman gives birth to 6-7 children and if this trend were to continue Afghanistan's current estimated population of 26 million would surpass 56 million by 2050.
"If the fertility rates are not reduced, Afghanistan's population will more than double by 2050; from 47th most populous country, Afghanistan would become the 31st most populous country in the world," Penumaka said.
A substantial increase in the population rate would more than double demand for land and water, exacerbate pressure on the infrastructure and adversely affect the environment, experts said.
"Continued rapid population growth poses a bigger threat to poverty reduction in most countries than HIV/AIDS," the UNFPA said in a statement on World Population Day, 11 July.
The UNFPA said slower population growth would help the least developed countries like Afghanistan to invest properly in children's health, education and progress, and reduce the maternal and infant mortality rate, as well as HIV infection rates.
High maternal mortality
After Sierra Leone, Afghanistan has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world with at least 1,600 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to UNFPA and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
"That is a staggering 24,000 women dying every year, and 87 percent of them [deaths] are preventable," Ramesh Penumaka told reporters in Kabul on 14 July.
Lack of access to obstetric and health services, early marriages and multiple short-term pregnancies are the main reasons why about 60 mothers die every day.
UNFPA said birth intervals of at least 36 months would contribute to a considerable reduction in maternal and infant mortality rates.
"Research shows that birth spacing saves lives by allowing mothers to space their children to healthier intervals, improving the lives of women and their children," UNFPA said. "Access to contraceptives empowers women. It can also save their life."
Poor health services
Afghanistan's Public Health Ministry says basic health services reach up to 85 percent of the country, but only 18 percent of deliveries were attended by skilled birth attendants in 2007, UNFPA's statistics show.
Most pregnant women do not have access to skilled health care and obstetric services due to a lack of awareness, access problems and/or men's unwillingness to take females to health centres.
"The key to better maternal health lies with the men, who have to be sensitive to the health problems and the needs of women," Penumaka said.
Early marriages
Up to 50 percent of Afghan girls get married before they are 15; some are married at the age of eight, UNFPA has found.
Consequently many young mothers, who also have little access to health care, nutrition and other services, die due to pregnancy-related complications.
Early marriages also contribute to high infant mortality rates; 165 in every 1,000 infants die before their first birthday, according to UNICEF.
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AFGHANISTAN: Wheat for locusts plan turns sour
QALA-I-NAW, 14 July 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of people in northwestern Afghanistan are annoyed with the authorities for allegedly failing to give them promised wheat aid in return for dead locusts.
After locusts swarmed into Badghis Province in early April damaging crops, people were told that for each kilogram of dead locusts they delivered to a specified government department they would receive 7kg of wheat.
According to provincial government officials, within 15 days of the launch of the programme - announced by the Afghanistan National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA) - people had handed over thousands of kilos of dead locusts.
"We have issued receipts to the people indicating the amount of received locusts and the wheat aid to be given… We have received 9,680 kilograms of dead locusts," Abdullah Mishkawani, secretary of the provincial emergency response commission, told IRIN.
"We have to give these people about 67,760 kilograms of wheat for their contributions," he said.
Those who had captured and killed the locusts said they had had to work very hard and also been exposed to various diseases such as diarrhoea. Officials conceded that the anti-locust drive had helped eradicate the seasonal pest quickly and effectively.
Let down by aid agencies?
It is now two months since people began to bring in piles of dead locusts but no wheat aid has been delivered, locals and provincial officials said.
"We have nothing to distribute to these people. Officials in Kabul have repeatedly told us that they also do not have anything to deliver," said Mishkawani.
Abdul Matin Edrak, the director of ANDMA in Kabul, told IRIN that he had launched the campaign as a feasible and cheap disaster management tool, but had been let down by aid agencies.
"People were our last hope in fighting the locusts in Badghis Province because we did not have… pesticides. We called on them to help us stop the locusts and we promised to help them in return," said Edrak.
"We will continue our efforts and will urge aid agencies to help these people," he said.
Joma Khan Haidari, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Badghis, said UN agencies were not part of the plan and therefore could not provide the required wheat.
Meanwhile, peoples' patience is wearing thin: Requests for the promised wheat aid have been turning into threats.
"We want our rights," chanted one middle-age man, Burhanudin. "We did our bit and now the government should fulfil its promise," he said.
"We'll abandon our homes here and will move to Kabul to demand what we've been promised," said Samiullah, another local resident.
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Iran, Afghanistan to produce five films
Tehran, July 14, IRNA
Based on an agreement signed between Iran and Afghanistan, they will jointly produce five films.
According to Youth Cinema Association, these films are to deal with the cultural concepts of the two Persian-speaking nations.
The pact was signed by Iran's Youth Cinema Association and Afghanistan's Cinema Union on the sidelines of the Third International Festival on Short and Documentary Films in Kabul.
Managing director of the association Nasser Bakideh served as a juror in the event.
Holding joint seminars by the two countries' cinema, organizing specialized tours and camps in Iran and Afghanistan are among the other parts of the deal.
Iran which has produced more than 2,000 short and documentary films is considered an acclaimed country in the field.
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Afghan Opposition Spokesman Says Government Likely to Postpone Election
Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Ariana TV on 13 July
[Presenter] The United National Front, an alliance formed by a number of opposition parties, has warned that Kabul is under siege. Addressing a press conference held today, the spokesman for the front said that according to the reports from the presidential office, a number of high-ranking government officials were trying to postpone the presidential elections by disrupting security. The presidential office has described the claim as groundless.
[Correspondent] Addressing the press conference, Fazel Sancharki, the United National Front spokesman, has voiced concern over the critical situation in Afghanistan. He said the government's diminished capability and a lack of coordination between native and foreign security troops was the main cause of the problem. Mr Sancharki says reports from the presidential office indicate that some of senior government officials are trying to disrupt security in a bid to put off the presidential elections.
[Fazel Sancharki] Those circles, which share interests with the government or work inside the government, find their interests in disrupting security and remaining in power by undemocratic means. We have already received classified information according to which these circles say they did not have any chance of victory in the elections. As a result, they want to declare a state of emergency, hold the Loya Jerga [Grand Assembly] and extend the president's term in office for another five years.
[Correspondent] The spokesman has also warned that Kabul city has been put under siege.
[Fazel Sancharki] The armed opposition groups are stationed in the provinces of Ghazni, Maydan-Wardag, Konar and Logar as well as in the areas such as Tagab and Nejrab. Actually, Kabul has been somehow surrounded by the opposition. Insecurity is also getting worse in the east and south. Elements of the armed opposition are infiltrating the north and this is worrying.
[Correspondent] However, Sebghatollah Sanjar, head of the policy- making department of the presidential office, has described the claim as groundless, stating that security is not so critical as to postpone the election. The official emphasized that the election will be held as scheduled.
[Sebghatollah Sanjar] Their remarks are completely irresponsible and baseless. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, particularly the executive branch and the chief commander of the Afghan armed forces, Mr Hamed Karzai, feel responsible for ensuring security in Afghanistan. We assure the Afghan people that the election is going to be held in the month of Mizan next year.
[Correspondent] The United National Front has expressed concern over a delay in the presidential election at a time when the Independent Election Commission has recently warned that the election might be postponed in case security was not satisfactory.
Originally published by Ariana TV, Kabul, in Dari 1530 13 Jul 08.
Story Source: BBC Monitoring South Asia
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Minister apologises for lack of progress in Balkh
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 13 July 2008
Criticism prompts government to inject cash into northern province
THE MINISTERS of rural development and counter-narcotics have promised to pump $2 million into the northern province of Balkh province amid criticism that the government has failed to develop the region.
The Minister for Counter-narcotics, General Khodaidad, apologised to the region’s people for the government’s disregard for the area.
Despite the province’s eradication of the opium drug, the government had failed to inject the cash needed to strengthen people’s trust in the Kabul administration, Khodaidad said.
The governor of Balkh, Ata Muhammad Noor, said if the government and international community continued to ignore the northern provinces, security in the region would deteriorate to levels currently seen in the south, where the Taliban are fighting a strong insurgency.
Asphalting 2.4 km of road in Balkh, the construction of a 16 km road in the Chimtal district and the construction of the Nowbahar High School are all part of the government’s attempt to develop the province.
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