 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
US-led soldier among scores killed, Afghan district falls
KABUL (AFP) - An international soldier, eight security workers and dozens of rebels were killed in new attacks in Afghanistan while Taliban militants captured a remote district, authorities said Monday.
12 Afghans wounded in clash between militants and foreign troops in eastern Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press / July 21, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants attacked a NATO patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Monday and 12 people were wounded in the ensuing clash, including some civilians, officials said.
Afghanistan coalition member killed in bombing
Associated Press Mon Jul 21, 4:21 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition says one of its members has died after being wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's troubled south.
Abducted Turks, freed in Afghanistan, flown home
ANKARA (AFP) - Two Turks kidnapped in Afghanistan last week flew home on Monday after being freed overnight, Anatolia news agency reported.
FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, July 21
July 21 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported as of 07:30 GMT on Monday.
Obama Sees 'Precarious' Afghanistan
By ARYN BAKER/KABUL Mon Jul 21, 3:35 AM ET time.com
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama started his second day in Afghanistan in a thoroughly American manner: a breakfast of bacon and eggs. He dined with American troops on a military base in the capital, Kabul
AFGHANISTAN: Mine clearance making good progress - UN agency
KABUL, 21 July 2008 (IRIN) - Mine clearance agencies have made "unprecedented progress" in clearing the country of mines, according to the head of the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan (UNMACA).
Militants kill 'US spies' in Pakistan: official
Mon Jul 21, 4:01 AM ET
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Pro-Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal district shot dead two tribesmen after accusing them of spying for US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, an official said Monday.
Behind Afghanistan lies Pakistan
The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Jul 21 1:00 AM Opinion
Like its towering mountains, Afghanistan looms as a serious security threat, with Taliban attacks on US and NATO forces there rising precipitously. But the road to improvement starts in Pakistan, and the route is as winding as the Khyber
Chemicals used for heroin production seized in Afghanistan - UN
Tehran, July 21, IRNA
More than three tons of precursor chemicals used to produce heroin were recently seized in Afghanistan in an operation supported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
8,000 foreign fighters in Fata ring alarm bells in Islamabad
By Hamid Mir The News International (Pakistan) July 21, 2008
ISLAMABAD: In a disturbing report presented to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, days before he travels to the United States, the latest figure of foreign fighters present in the tribal areas of Pakistan is estimated to be more than 8,000
Hard man in a hard country
The Guardian (UK) July 20, 2008
Tomorrow, there will be no presidential hopefuls, no hordes of advisers and staff, no senior TV anchors, none of the razzmatazz of an American election campaign. The routine lack of routine that is life in Kabul will have been restored.
6 civilians killed in Afghan attack on fuel truck
Mon Jul 21, 1:38 AM ET Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A provincial official says an insurgent attack on a fuel truck has killed six civilians in eastern Afghanistan.
Obama pledges to focus on Afghanistan
Financial Times, UK By Andrew Ward in Washington and Aunohita Mojumdar in,Kabul July 21 2008
Barack Obama yesterday warned that the situation in Afghanistan was "precarious and urgent" and said the country would be the central focus of the US "war on terror" if he became president.
U.S. and NATO strikes exact heavy toll in Afghanistan
International Herald Tribune, France By Carlotta Gall July 20, 2008
KABUL-U.S. and NATO missile strikes continued to exact a heavy toll in Afghanistan, with at least 13 Afghans killed in two incidents over the weekend that Afghan officials said were mistakes.
Road mine in Helmand kills 3 children
Written by www.quqnoos.com & foreign news disk Sunday, 20 July 2008 15:52
A mini-bus in Helmand province hits road mine killing 3 children and wounding 4 others
(Xinhua) -- One mini-bus carrying locals from villages to the Greshk district, capital of south Afghanistan's Helmand province, hit roadside mines early Sunday morning, leaving three children dead and four others wounded, an official said.
Coalition forces clash with Farah police
Written by www.quqnoos.com & Foreign disck Sunday, 20 July 2008
Lack of communication results in coalition forces fighting local police in Farah
An Afghan official says foreign troops called in airstrikes during an apparently mistaken clash with Afghan police, killing nine police officers and wounding five in the country's west.
Stronger steps needed to pressurise Pakistan: Obama
PakTribune.Com - Afghanistan News Monday July 21, 2008
KABUL-Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Sunday the United States, Nato and Afghanistan must do more to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and he urged stronger steps to prod Pakistan into eliminating cross-border terrorist training camps.
Lives - Watching TV in Kabul
New York Times Magazine By KRISTIN OHLSON July 20, 2008
Last summer, I was at the end of a really lousy month in Kabul. It was my third visit in three years. One of the freelance-writing assignments that took me to Afghanistan this time had fallen through. The person I knew best there had unexpectedly left the country
Taliban attack districts in Logar and Paktia
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 20 July 2008
Taliban claim to have attacked and burnt buildings in districts in two provinces, government says damage minor
Bush Failures May Force McCain, Obama to Make Like FDR in 2009
Bloomberg By Matthew Benjamin and Heidi Przybyla July 21, 2008
When George W. Bush became president in 2001, his main goals included restoring ``honor and dignity to the White House'' after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, raising school-test scores and figuring out how to spend a record budget surplus.
Back to Top
US-led soldier among scores killed, Afghan district falls
KABUL (AFP) - An international soldier, eight security workers and dozens of rebels were killed in new attacks in Afghanistan while Taliban militants captured a remote district, authorities said Monday.
The soldier, who was with the US-led coalition helping Afghanistan to fight the insurgency, died Monday after being wounded in a bomb explosion in the southern province of Helmand at the weekend, the force said in a statement.
The death took to 138 the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year, mostly in hostile action. Nearly 220 foreign soldiers died in violence last year.
Four police officers and four security guards escorting a convoy of civilian trucks carrying supplies for foreign troops were killed in separate attacks in southern Helmand and Zabul provinces, officials said.
Security forces launched a counterattack and killed 15 rebels, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said, citing information from local residents who saw the bodies on the site near the Helmand capital Lashkar Gah.
"Villagers reported to us that they saw 15 Taliban bodies," he said. The claim could not be independently verified.
About 20 other Taliban rebels were killed overnight when international helicopters attacked them in the eastern province of Khost, local government spokesman Khaibar Pashtun told AFP.
The choppers were called in after the rebels ambushed a police convoy, killing a policeman, Pashtun said.
Elsewhere in Khost, an Afghan driver was killed when militants attacked a convoy supplying a foreign military base there, a police official said.
The NATO-led military force in Afghanistan announced late Sunday that one of its troopers had been killed in the same province.
A dozen civilians were meanwhile wounded when NATO-led troops pounded Taliban positions near a residential area in the eastern province of Kunar, provincial governor Abdul Jalal Jalal told AFP.
The troops had responded to a Taliban attack on one of their outposts in the restive province, he added.
Dozens of Taliban militants meanwhile captured a remote district in central Ghazni province overnight, killing one policeman and injuring two others, a government spokesman said.
Local security forces had fled the centre of Ajiristan district, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southwest of Kabul, the interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
"Security forces abandoned the district centre after Taliban attacked. They withdrew under lots of pressure," he said. "We're working on a plan to retake the district."
Ajiristan was captured by Taliban insurgents in October last year. It was retaken the following day when about 300 security forces moved into the small district centre.
The Taliban have captured several mainly remote districts in the past but have not been able to hold them for long, although there are a handful in the southern province of Helmand that security forces admit are in rebel control.
The rebels were in government between 1996 and 2001 when they were driven out in a US-led invasion.
Back to Top
Back to Top
12 Afghans wounded in clash between militants and foreign troops in eastern Afghanistan
By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press / July 21, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants attacked a NATO patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Monday and 12 people were wounded in the ensuing clash, including some civilians, officials said.
The foreign troops were passing through Pech River Valley in Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, when militants fired on them using civilian homes for cover, provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Jalal Jalal said.
Troops returned fire and 12 people were wounded, Jalal said.
Six of those were sent to a hospital in the provincial capital of Asadabad for treatment, said Dr. Hafizullah, a doctor at the hospital, who like many Afghans goes by one name.
A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul said one of its patrols was fired upon in the area and returned fire. Speaking on customary condition of anonymity, he said he had no reports of casualties.
The civilian population is often caught in the fight against militants, a sore point between the Afghan government and foreign troops. President Hamid Karzai has pleaded with U.S. and other foreign forces to avoid civilian casualties.
On Sunday, six civilians were killed when militants hit a fuel tanker with a rocket-propelled grenade in neighboring Laghman province, said Abdul Wakil Atak, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
Two people were killed inside the truck and four others died in a minibus that was caught in the blast, Atak said.
Also on Sunday militants attacked a police checkpoint near the provincial capital in Helmand killing two officers and wounding another, said Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, a provincial police chief.
Insurgents on Monday attacked a convoy of trucks ferrying goods on the main Kandahar-Kabul highway, killing four private security guards, said Shadi Khan, a local government official in Zabul province.
Also in the south, where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, a U.S.-led coalition member died Monday after being wounded by a roadside bomb in Helmand province a day earlier, the coalition said in a statement.
They did not release the victim's name or nationality pending notification of family. The majority of coalition members are American.
Afghanistan faces intensifying militancy nearly seven years after the U.S.-led invasion ousted the hard-line Islamic Taliban movement from power.
More than 2,500 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures. Most have been militants, but the total includes hundreds of ordinary Afghan citizens.
__
Associated Press writer Noor Khan contributed to this report from Kandahar.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan coalition member killed in bombing
Associated Press Mon Jul 21, 4:21 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition says one of its members has died after being wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's troubled south.
The coalition says in a statement that the blast occurred in Helmand province Sunday and that the wounded fighter died Monday morning.
It did not release the victim's name or nationality pending notification of family, but the majority of coalition members are American.
Afghanistan is facing a raging insurgency nearly seven years after the Taliban were ousted from power, and the country's south is the primary hub for the militancy. As a sign of the nation's deepening troubles, American casualties are running higher than in Iraq.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Abducted Turks, freed in Afghanistan, flown home
ANKARA (AFP) - Two Turks kidnapped in Afghanistan last week flew home on Monday after being freed overnight, Anatolia news agency reported.
The pair and their Afghan driver, working for a Turkish road construction company, were snatched on July 14 as they drove to their compound on the outskirts of the western city of Herat.
There were conflicting accounts of how their release was secured.
"The two Turkish nationals were freed last night and they say they paid some ransom," the regional police spokesman in Herat, Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, told AFP, without being able to say what amount was paid or who the abductors were.
"The company did not coordinate their efforts with us," he said.
But the Gulsan firm, which employed the pair, denied that any ransom was paid, saying that the abductors felt remorse for their action, Anatolia reported.
Speaking in the eastern Turkish city of Elazig, where the two men were flown Monday afternoon, manager Sefik Gul said the release was secured through the help of Afghan officials and a Turk living in Afghanistan.
The abductors were not linked to Islamist militants loyal to Osama Bin Laden, he said, describing them as "bandits or marauders."
The two men were identified as Gokhan Gul, an engineer and a nephew of the Gulsan owners, and Erhan Gunduz, whose job in the company was not specified. Turkish officials had previously described both as engineers.
Gokhan Gul said they were not mistreated by their abductors.
The Taliban, the main militant group waging an insurgency against the US-backed government in Kabul, have been responsible for scores of such abductions while criminal gangs have also carried out kidnappings for ransom.
The Taliban have been holding a member of Afghanistan's parliament they abducted in Logar province -- near Kabul -- some two weeks ago.
Two French aid workers abducted in the central province of Day Kundi were kidnapped around the same time although it was not clear who has captured them.
Afghan police have said a German national abducted near Herat in mid-December is believed to have been killed after a ransom was not paid for his release.
Back to Top
Back to Top
FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, July 21
July 21 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan reported as of 07:30 GMT on Monday.
KHOST - NATO-led troops killed 20 Taliban rebels in an air strike when the insurgents ambushed a joint convoy of NATO and Afghan forces in southeastern Khost province on Sunday, the provincial governor said. NATO said one of its soldiers was killed in the Taliban attack.
HELMAND - A soldier from U.S.-led coalition forces died on Monday from wounds he had suffered in a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province the previous day, the U.S. military said.
FARAH - U.S.-led coalition air strike killed "several militants" in an open area in western Farah on Sunday, a U.S. military statement said.
KUNAR - Taliban attacked a police post in eastern Kunar and kidnapped three officers late Sunday, police said. Three Taliban were killed and nine others wounded in the clash with police who suffered no casualties, he added.
LAGHMAN - Taliban insurgents fired rockets on a fuel truck killing six civilians including two truck drivers on Sunday in Laghman province, which also lies in the east, a senior police official said.
PAKTIKA - A missile strike by the insurgents wounded nine civilians in southeastern Paktika province on Sunday, the defence ministry said.
WARDAK - An Afghan soldier was killed in an attack by the militants in Wardak province which lies on a vital highway, linking Kabul with southern and western regions, it added.
The Taliban could not be reached immediately for comment about any of the reported incidents.
(Compiled by Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Jerry Norton)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Obama Sees 'Precarious' Afghanistan
By ARYN BAKER/KABUL Mon Jul 21, 3:35 AM ET time.com
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama started his second day in Afghanistan in a thoroughly American manner: a breakfast of bacon and eggs. He dined with American troops on a military base in the capital, Kabul, with his congressional traveling companions, senators Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed. As they ate they were joined by soldiers from their respective states - Illinois, Nebraska and Rhode Island - for convivial conversations about what was going on in Afghanistan, life back at home, and the presidential campaign. "The food was good but the companionship and friendship was even better," says Lt. Col. David Johnson, a public affairs officer who attended the event.
Obama was visiting Afghanistan as part of a multi-stop tour through the Middle East and Europe that is calculated in part to bolster his foreign policy credentials. He will also be stopping in Baghdad, which will be the senator's second visit to Iraq. Obama started his visit to Afghanistan with a briefing at Bagram Air force Base on Saturday, followed by a quick helicopter trip to the eastern province of Nangahar where he met with the provincial governor. He returned to Kabul in the evening and stayed the night at the US embassy. In an interview aired Sunday morning on CBS's Face the Nation, Obama called the situation in Afghanistan "precarious" and "urgent," and stressed that Washington needs to start planning now to send more troops to the country rather than leaving that to the next president. He also took the opportunity to complain that neighboring Pakistan is not doing enough to go after militant training camps in its remote tribal areas.
Back on the ground in Afghanistan, breakfast with the troops was one of his favorite parts, Obama told a military reporter at the event, according to CNN. "To see young people like this, who are doing such excellent work with so much dedication and pride, it makes you feel good about the country," he said. "You want to make sure that everybody back home understands how much pride people take in their work here and how much sacrifice people are making. It's outstanding."
The delegation went on to a briefing at NATO's military headquarters in the capital, followed up by lunch with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Over a traditional meal of mutton baked with rice, carrots and raisins, Karzai and the senators spoke on a broad range of issues, according to presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada. "The discussions focused on significant progress we have made, but also on the unmet challenges that are still ahead of us."
During his stay, Obama would have gotten a taste of some of those issues - on the first night of his visit a misunderstanding between Coalition forces, the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police led to an air strike in western Afghanistan that killed eight police and injured six, according to Khalilulah Rahmani, Police chief of Farah Province. "It was an unfortunate incident of friendly fire," says Hamidzada, who explained at a press conference that Afghan soldiers traveling with US forces had mistaken the police for Taliban militants and asked for air support.
And in the country's southeast two mortar rounds fired by NATO-led troops at militants fell a kilometer short and killed four civilians, according to a report released by the International Security Assistance Force. Over the past few weeks President Karzai has vigorously protested such events of civilian casualties - on July 6th NATO forces bombed a wedding party in southeastern Afghanistan by mistake, killing 47. But today's lunch was neither the time nor the place to focus on civilian casualties, says Hamidzada, pointing out that the Senator's visit was more of an introduction to the country, and that such specific policy issues should be reserved for US leaders. "It is Afghan tradition to welcome visitors and focus on the positive," he said.
Obama, too, may have faced some trepidation before the meeting with Karzai. On July 11 Obama questioned Karzai's leadership in an interview with CNN, saying, "I think the Karzai government has not gotten out of the bunker and helped to organize Afghanistan and [the] government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence." At the time the Afghan government reacted angrily to the comment, but now that the president and the presidential hopeful have met, the tensions seem to have eased. "We didn't see it as criticism per se, because there is a degree of realism in that." says Hamidzada. "We are facing a significant threat of terrorism, and the reality is we are spending resources on that. Our hope is to minimize threat of terrorism so that we can focus on reconstruction and development of Afghanistan."
That's something everyone, including Karzai, Obama and even his opponent John McCain, can agree on. View this article on Time.com
Back to Top
Back to Top
AFGHANISTAN: Mine clearance making good progress - UN agency
KABUL, 21 July 2008 (IRIN) - Mine clearance agencies have made "unprecedented progress" in clearing the country of mines, according to the head of the UN Mine Action Center for Afghanistan (UNMACA).
The agencies had demolished 38,294 anti-personnel landmines, 419 anti-tank mines and over 957,000 explosive remnants of war over the past six months, Haider Reza, the director of UNMACA, told reporters in Kabul on 21 July.
He noted that 389,000 anti-personnel landmines had been neutralised in the 18 years since mine clearance work began.
The monthly number of landmine victims - dead and injured - declined in June to 24, compared to an average of about 40 in previous months.
"If each mine [normally] causes one death, then we have saved the lives of 38,294 people," Reza said.
About 70,000 Afghans, mostly children, have been killed and/or maimed by landmines over the past 18 years, UNMACA said.
Landmines were planted all over Afghanistan after the former Soviet Union invaded in December 1979. Thousands of mines were also laid when Mujahedin parties embarked on internecine fighting in the 1990s.
Afghanistan destroyed its last formal landmine stockpile in 2007 and has made a commitment not to produce, use, or stockpile anti-personnel landmines, in accordance with the Ottawa Convention. The country is also committed to rid its territory of mines by 2013.
De-miners targeted
However, worsening insecurity and repeated attacks on demining organisations have affected mine-clearing efforts, officials say.
In the past eight months 11 deminers were killed and nine injured in several deliberate armed attacks, UNMACA said.
"Insecurity is a major challenge for us… If security further deteriorates and impedes mine clearance activities, we will not be able to meet the 2013 target," UNMACA's Reza said.
About four million Afghans are still living in 2,286 communities contaminated by landmines, UNMACA's statistics show.
UNMACA appeals to Taliban
The Interior Ministry has accused Taliban insurgents of planting new landmines, and causing death and injury to many civilians.
Three schoolchildren were reportedly killed and four wounded in a landmine explosion in the Gerishk District of Helmand Province (southern Afghanistan) on 20 July, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
No Taliban spokesperson was available to comment on charges that the Taliban are laying new landmines.
Reza said his organisation did not have "facts and figures" to confirm whether new landmines were being planted by anti-government elements, but he acknowledged "indirect reports" about landmine casualties in areas where the problem had not been reported in the past.
UNMACA called on all warring parties, and specifically the Taliban, to respect Afghanistan's commitment to the Ottawa Convention and "stop planting new landmines".
Back to Top
Back to Top
Militants kill 'US spies' in Pakistan: official
Mon Jul 21, 4:01 AM ET
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Pro-Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal district shot dead two tribesmen after accusing them of spying for US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, an official said Monday.
A note left on the bodies in the border village of Lowara Mandi in North Waziristan tribal district, a known hub of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, indicated that the two men were spying for US forces, the official said.
"All those spying for the US will suffer the same fate," it said.
Militants have killed several tribesmen in recent months in the tribal region, accusing them of spying for the US-led coalition forces across the border.
US and Afghan officials have repeatedly claimed the rugged tribal region is used by militants to launch cross-border attacks on international coalition troops deployed in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has been fighting hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who fled over the border from Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in late 2001 that followed the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Behind Afghanistan lies Pakistan
The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Jul 21 1:00 AM Opinion
Like its towering mountains, Afghanistan looms as a serious security threat, with Taliban attacks on US and NATO forces there rising precipitously. But the road to improvement starts in Pakistan, and the route is as winding as the Khyber Pass highway that connects the two countries.
Al Qaeda has regrouped in Pakistan's lawless tribal region on the border, reaching pre-9/11 strength. Taliban militants also find safe haven in this remote region and cross regularly into Afghanistan.
This growing hornets' nest poses a risk not only to Afghanistan and NATO forces, but to the world as a whole. Islamist terrorists in the border area are hostile to the newly elected secular government in Pakistan. Remember that Pakistan has the world's second-largest Muslim population and is equipped with nuclear weapons.
Thankfully, Washington is starting to pay more attention to this part of the world. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama visited Afghanistan over the weekend, and last week, Republican candidate John McCain elevated the region's importance by speaking extensively about it. Both recognize the critical role that Pakistan plays.
Meanwhile, Gen. David Petraeus is talking with Pakistani officials about how to better wage a counterinsurgency in the tribal areas. And last week, the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pushed a bipartisan bill that provides a far more balanced US approach to Pakistan.
The bill, sponsored by Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware and Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana, would more than triple development aid to Pakistan over the next five years and aim to extend it for another five. It would put the American contribution to roads, secular schooling, and clinics ahead of military aid.
America has poured more than $7 billion into military aid to Pakistan over the past six years, with little result. In the bill, the military aid is contingent on Pakistan making a concerted effort to put down the terrorist groups.
By emphasizing development aid that won't dry up at the next US dispute with Pakistan, the senators hope to rebuild Pakistani trust – and build up a poor region, helping to drive out extremist Islam.
Many Pakistanis resent America's support for the military rule of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was spurned in February elections. They blame the US for the growing strength of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, saying it failed to finish them off at Tora Bora in 2001 and then got distracted in Iraq.
Passing the bill can help reverse this attitude, much as US aid for Pakistanis in the 2005 earthquake created a surge of goodwill toward America. But the legislation, which has support from the White House, must be viewed as just one rounding of the bend on the way to a reduced terrorist threat.
Other challenges include a Pakistani government in disarray; a triangle of suspicion involving Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India; and Pakistani security forces ill-suited to counterinsurgency. All of these factors contribute to Pakistan's intermittent and ineffective dealings with the terrorist infestation.
The US is making a more serious effort with Pakistan. A week from today, Pakistan's new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, is to meet with President Bush. Mr. Gillani should acknowledge this US effort and show that he, too, is more serious about the border region.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Chemicals used for heroin production seized in Afghanistan - UN
Tehran, July 21, IRNA
More than three tons of precursor chemicals used to produce heroin were recently seized in Afghanistan in an operation supported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Nearly 3,200 kilos of the chemicals, including 2,229 kilos of ammonium chloride and 736 kilos of sodium carbonate, were hidden in sacks of fertilizer and rice and smuggled across the Pakistani border by truck, UN Information Center said.
The shipment was intercepted in Kabul by the Counter Narcotics Police in Afghanistan (CNPA), as part of the UNODC-supported "Operation Tarcet" which targets the smuggling of precursor chemicals into the strife-torn nation, which supplies more than 90 per cent of the world's heroin.
Working with UNODC and regional governments, the CNPA has stepped up its efforts to intercept consignments of smuggled precursors through its participation in Operation Tarcet, which began in Afghanistan and now covers the region.
Operation Tarcet has also led to the recent seizure of five tons of acetic anhydride, a chemical needed to produce heroin, in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas, and a 14-ton seizure of the same precursor in Karachi, Pakistan.
"This seizure shows that regional and targeted collaboration works," says Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Chief of UNODC's Europe and Asia Section.
"Dealing with the drug issue is a shared responsibility.
Translating this shared responsibility into action is the art." Operation Tarcet aims to educate law enforcement officials on identifying and intercepting smuggled chemical shipments, and to intercept consignments using modern methodologies.
It is part of UNODC's broader "Rainbow Strategy" to counter Afghan opium production, trafficking and consumption, through cross-border cooperation, intelligence, precursor control, money flows and drug demand reduction.
Back to Top
Back to Top
8,000 foreign fighters in Fata ring alarm bells in Islamabad
By Hamid Mir The News International (Pakistan) July 21, 2008
ISLAMABAD: In a disturbing report presented to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, days before he travels to the United States, the latest figure of foreign fighters present in the tribal areas of Pakistan is estimated to be more than 8,000 but the government is reluctant to officially confirm this number.
At a special cabinet briefing on Sunday in which Asif Ali Zardari was also present, besides the prime minister and Adviser to the Interior Ministry Rehman Malik, said the government will have to use force if the process of dialogue does not produce the results but his view was opposed by the minister from FATA Hamidullah Jan.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his key ministers will visit Peshawar on Monday for a special meeting, which could decide the launching of a major operation against foreign fighters in Fata, Interior Ministry Adviser Rehman Malik told The News on Sunday.
It would be a short and effective operation like the one in Bara recently, officials told The News. Information Minister Sherry Rehman confirmed the briefing to The News without giving any number for the foreign fighters but expressed the determination of the government to pull them out. Mr Zardari listened to the briefing without making any comment.
Although officially the government of Pakistan accepts that foreign fighters are present, their unusually large number has set alarm bells ringing in Islamabad and possibly in other capitals as well. Interior Adviser Rehman Malik, when pressed by this correspondent, however, conceded that the number of foreign fighters was about 1,000.
According to the report presented to the PM, a majority of these foreign fighters are living in North and South Waziristan and Bajaur. Prime Minister Gilani has also been informed that some foreign intelligence agencies are pushing their agents into the Pakistani tribal areas from Afghanistan under the cover of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters. These under-cover agents are trying to instigate the local population to fight against Pakistani forces as part of a "great game" in the region.
Taliban sources on the other hand are not ready to confirm that they are hosting thousands of foreign fighters in their areas. They claim that the number of foreigners is just a few hundred and most of them are living in the tribal areas from the time when the American CIA and Pakistani ISI encouraged them to come and fight against the Soviet Union.
Independent sources in both the Pakistani tribal areas and eastern Afghanistan have, however, claimed that number of foreign fighters started increasing in 2007. The biggest attraction for these young militant guests from the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe was the increase in the number of US troops in Afghanistan. A lot of young Muslims are coming to Afghanistan to fight the US troops who, they believe, have come to Afghanistan not to fight terrorism but to occupy more Muslim lands, including Pakistan, and to plunder their resources.
According to some Afghan sources, foreign fighters are welcomed not only in the Pakistani tribal areas but also in eastern, southern and western Afghanistan. The rising number of civilian causalities has created lot of hatred and resentment against foreign security forces in these Afghan and Pakistani areas. Angry locals believe that the foreign fighters are coming to avenge these killings.
A few years ago, Pakistan was the safest route for foreign fighters to enter into Afghanistan but now they rarely use this old route. Most of them come as tourists and traders directly from Dushanbe, Baku, Istanbul, Dubai, Sharjah, Delhi and Frankfurt to Kabul by different airlines. Many Afghans in Kabul, Karachi, Dubai and Delhi are working for them as travel agents. It is also very easy to make a new Afghan passport for them in Kabul.
Two American-born Al-Qaeda operators Adam Gadhan alias Azzam al Amriki and Abu Ahmad alias Amir Butt are known in the Afghan Kunar province for making travel arrangements of these young and educated Muslims from the US, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Canada and Australia. Most of these Western Muslims tell their Afghan and Pakistani hosts that they will take not only their revenge from the ?occupying forces? but they will also take the revenge for the sacreligious cartoons of their prophet from Western governments who encourage such cartoonists in the name of freedom of expression.
Some of these foreigners have married into the tribes of Kunar, Nuristan, North Waziristan and South Waziristan. German-born Turkish fighter Saad Abu Furqan is also known in the Pakistani tribal areas for attracting young Turks to organise Jihad against what he calls the ?crusaders? in Afghanistan. A very well known Taliban leader Ustad Dawood is working as coordinator between these foreign fighters and locals from Afghan Paktika province. Dawood speaks English and Arabic fluently.
A source who knows Ustad Dawood revealed that Al-Qaeda and Taliban are now slowly moving foreign fighters to areas round Kabul for a big attack on the Afghan capital Kabul in near future. Some of the foreign fighters have already entered Kabul as vendors and shopkeepers and provide a lot of intelligence to their commanders.
Ustad Dawood has also established contacts with his old friends in the Northern Alliance and is working with Jalaluddin Haqqani for an alliance between the Taliban, some Northern Alliance groups and the Hizb-e-Islami to jointly fight the foreign forces in Afghanistan.
An independent source said many experienced and hardened Al-Qaeda fighters were coming from Iraq to Afghanistan via Iran by road.These fighters enter the Afghan provinces of Herat and Balkh from Iran illegally.
The Nato forces are aware of this infiltration from Iran and have started bombing civilian vehicles moving close to the Iranian border indiscriminately. The bombing killed nine Afghan policemen in southwest Farah province on July 20 and seven civilians on July 17. Nato was also accused of killing more than 50 civilians in the Shindand area of Herat on July 17.
It is also learnt that many fighters from Saudi Arabia,Yemen, Egypt, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Libya, Iraq, Syria and some from India and Bangladesh prefer to stay in the warmer areas of southern Afghanistan which is a safe haven for the Taliban. The fighters from Morocco, Algeria, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and from western countries like to stay in the eastern Afghanistan provinces of Kunar, Nuristan, Paktia, Paktika, Khost and Pakistani tribal areas bordering these areas.
Sources say that fighters from African countries are not encouraged to come to Afghanistan or Pakistan as Al-Qaeda wants them to go to Darfur in Sudan or Iraq. The foreign fighters in the Pakistani tribal areas and Afghanistan are aware about the presence of some undercover agents in their ranks. Recently, they arrested two Uzbeks, three Afghans and one Pakistani for spying and executed them in North and South Waziristan when they confessed during interrogation that they were working for the CIA and ISI.
Foreign fighters avoid getting in touch with non-tribal Pakistani fighters because they suspect them of having links with Pakistani intelligence. Pakistani officials are putting pressure on the Taliban leadership not to encourage foreigners to cross the border into Afghanistan to fight US and Nato troops. The Taliban are also asking them to put down their guns and register themselves with the local political administration.
While some Taliban leaders in North Waziristan have started discouraging foreigners from crossing the border, some in South Waziristan are not ready to listen to the Pakistani government. Their defiance has created a lot of confusion and resentment in Islamabad because the Pakistan government is already under lot of pressure to use heavy force against the Taliban.
Defiant Taliban leaders are of the view that it is the right of every Muslim to join the Jihad against "crusaders" in Afghanistan and they will not ask any foreigner to leave their area or stop fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. A Taliban leader said: "We are not against all the Jews and Christians, but we are against crusaders and Zionists, who should leave Afghanistan first and then we will ask our foreign Muslim brothers to leave the area but if the Pakistani rulers want to fight with us, we are ready."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Hard man in a hard country
The Guardian (UK) July 20, 2008
Tomorrow, there will be no presidential hopefuls, no hordes of advisers and staff, no senior TV anchors, none of the razzmatazz of an American election campaign. The routine lack of routine that is life in Kabul will have been restored. President Hamid Karzai will have a moment to ponder the past few days.
On Thursday, he travelled by (American) helicopter to the east of Afghanistan to offer his condolences to families of dozens of civilians killed in an (American) air strike two weeks ago. On Friday, aides had no idea when Barack Obama would be arriving. On Saturday, the candidate was there. On Sunday, he was gone.
The complexities of the presidential diary are revealing. For the bittersweet story of Karzai is also the bittersweet story of the Western involvement with Afghanistan.
In the heady aftermath of the 2001 war, everything seemed possible and Karzai, with his hawk nose, multicoloured Uzbek cape and astrakhan hat, was, like his country, handsome, brave, rugged, exotic and romantically wreathed in gunsmoke. Convincing both at home and abroad, effective enough to be useful, malleable enough not to be a threat, he was the perfect friend in a far-flung land.
Seven years on, Karzai, like his country, has become a problem. Tricky, conservative, proud, prickly, his views, like those of his countrymen, are not always those of his Western interlocutors. He does not do what he is told. In short, he is a bit too Afghan. But then so, as we are discovering, is Afghanistan.
Karzai was born in 1957 in the village of Karz, in the south eastern province of Kandahar, one of eight children of the chief of the half-a-million-strong Popalzai and thus a scion of one of the most powerful tribes of Afghanistan. Educated in Kabul and in India, he was 22 when the Soviets invaded his homeland.
For the next decade, based in Pakistan, Karzai was involved in liaison for a mujahideen faction. In 1992, he was with the first group of mujahideen leaders into a liberated Kabul and then watched the West walk away and his country dissolve into anarchy and civil war.
So when a religious militia known as the Taliban established rule of law in the mid-90s from bases in his native Kandahar, Karzai, like many Afghans, supported them. Despite his apparent Westernisation, the President is, though far from an intolerant fundamentalist, a devout man. He never touches alcohol - abroad or in private - and prays five times a day. His piety is allied to a social conservatism that sees his wife, a literate medical doctor, kept out of sight. Mrs Karzai was not much in evidence yesterday.
The excesses of the Taliban, as well as their probable murder of his father and the support they received from Pakistani intelligence services, turned Karzai against them. But with nobody very interested in Afghanistan, lobbying in Western capitals went nowhere. Until 9/11 changed everything.
Just under two months after the attack, Karzai, armed with little more than a satellite phone, some CIA contact numbers, his old mujahideen networks and the loyalty owed to him as chief of the Popalzai, headed into Afghanistan. It was an extremely brave gamble and it paid off. By December 2001, with the Taliban temporarily destroyed, and the old mujahideen leaders dead or discredited, he was the obvious man to take power.
Impressive in Western capitals, Karzai is at his best in Kabul where the painfully blue sky, the snowy mountains on the horizon, the danger, the wood smoke, the hawkers, the poverty and the simple fact of being there combine with the altitude to half stun many visiting statesmen. 'He's well-read, funny and can talk about everything from 19th-century politics to poetry to pots,' says one Westerner who has dealt closely with him.
Karzai is also charismatic and, for a head of state, unpretentious. His abrupt, exuberant hand gestures give the impression of energy and decision. In interviews, he often sits on the edge of his chair, listening intently, apparently barely able to contain his desire to act.
With Karzai head of an interim government backed by billions in international aid, endorsed by a traditional loya jirga assembly of tribal leaders, embraced by half the statesman of the planet, elected President for a five-year term in an astonishing and moving poll, 2002 saw the climax of the sudden love affair between the new Afghan leader and his country and the West. And then things started going downhill.
This was not inevitable. Part of the bitterness that Karzai will have sought to hide from Obama yesterday is a consequence of the unforced nature of the failures in Afghanistan. Errors in Iraq made a very tough job virtually impossible. Errors in Afghanistan have made a delicate task that could, given intelligence, subtlety, courage and luck, have been a relatively rapid success, much, much harder.
One early error was the decision to opt for 'nation building lite'. The West did the easy bits of Afghanistan first. So Kabul, the relatively stable north, the prosperous western city of Herat all saw funds, troops and development while the tough and dangerous south east was left to rot. So in came the consultants, the private contractors but far fewer soldiers with far less expertise in post-conflict or counter-insurgency training than were needed. Instead of a massive military presence that could be downscaled to tighter, focused, special forces operations, the opposite happened. Early military expeditions in search of 'al-Qaeda/Taliban' were laughably clumsy. Development progress was painfully slow. And then everyone got distracted by Iraq.
It was 2006 before anyone woke up, despite Karzai's increasingly shrill alarm calls. In Kabul and the stable areas, the change in five years had been enormous. Anyone who had seen Taliban Afghanistan could not but be impressed by the new telephone networks, reconstruction and commercial activity. But while everyone looked away, the Taliban had regrouped, al-Qaeda had found a new safe haven in Pakistan, drugs production had exploded and in Kandahar's hospitals small children were still dying of malnutrition. The militants, with the complicity of opium and heroin smugglers, had filled the vacuum the West and the pitifully weak Afghan government had left.
When the British went into southern Helmand as part of a massive new Western deployment, they got a much nastier reception than anticipated and rows broke out between London and Kabul over political and military strategy. Relations between Karzai and British policy-makers became venomous. The Westerners were depicted as arrogant, blundering neo-imperialists. Karzai was dismissed as 'the mayor of Kabul', an insult based partly in frustration at the President's seeming inability to impose his will in the provinces. Certainly, his air of decisiveness and energy hides a failure to energise or control even his close associates.
'It's bewildering,' said one former diplomat in Kabul. 'You'd expect him to be charging around firing off memos, harassing subordinates ... but that isn't his style. The exercise of power itself doesn't seem to interest him - or perhaps he is just not very good at it.'
Yet Karzai's defenders point out that no central government in Afghanistan has ever done anything other than rule through co-opted local power-brokers. 'This is not Sweden,' said one aide. Relations have not recovered.
Karzai is infuriated by foreigners' blithe assumption that they 'understand the Afghan' better than he and by misspent aid money. He is genuinely outraged and wounded by the continued civilian casualties caused by hamfisted military strikes. Angry and bellicose sallies against Pakistan, which he blames for much of the violence in his country, are symptomatic of a deep frustration with the failure of the international community to grasp the regional nature of the conflict as much as traditional Afghan anti-Pakistani sentiment.
Among the international community, there is frustration about a lack of progress on justice, accountability and women's rights, principles which do not necessarily always agree with Karzai's conservative views.
With security deteriorating, contact between the 'internationals' and the Afghans, whether President or pauper, is now minimal. Westerners increasingly move in heavily armed convoys, live behind blast walls and ship in their supplies from abroad. Once welcomed, they are becoming just the latest in the series of powers over the centuries that have hoped to shape Afghanistan, if not in their image, then as they would like.
As the gulf widens, the unpleasant realisation is growing, perhaps none too soon, that Afghanistan is not just exotic and quaint but is very, very different and that Westerners here, American presidential hopefuls included, are a very, very long way from home.
The Karzai lowdown
Born in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, on 24 December 1957, the hereditary kahn (chief) of the Popalzai. His father was an MP and supported King Zahir Shah. Gained an MA in political science at Shimla in India. In 1999 he married Dr Zeenat Quraishi. They have a son, Mirwais.
Best of times Already President of the Afghan Transitional Administration, Karzai won 55.4 per cent of the vote in the 2004 Afghan presidential election. He was officially sworn in as the first elected President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 7 December 2004.
Worst of times Karzai's father Abdul Ahad Karzai was assassinated by, it's thought, the Taliban while organising resistance from his base in Quetta, Pakistan, in August 1999. Karzai himself survived an assassination attempt in December 2001.
What he says 'It was terrorism that brutalised the whole of Afghanistan. They tried to give it names and justifications, and those names and justifications were ethnic or political, but it was clearly a terrorist movement, backed by outsiders, to take Afghanistan and to create a different kind of warlord.'
What others say 'He is a strong and courageous advocate for the freedom and independence of his country and people.' George Rupp, president of the International Rescue Committee.
Back to Top
Back to Top
6 civilians killed in Afghan attack on fuel truck
Mon Jul 21, 1:38 AM ET Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan - A provincial official says an insurgent attack on a fuel truck has killed six civilians in eastern Afghanistan.
The official, Abdul Wakil Atak, says the truck was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by insurgents in Laghman province on Sunday. Atak is a spokesman for the provincial governor.
Atak said Monday that two people were killed inside the truck and that four others died in a minibus that was caught in the blast.
Insurgents regularly attack supply convoys for the U.S.-led coalition and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Obama pledges to focus on Afghanistan
Financial Times, UK By Andrew Ward in Washington and Aunohita Mojumdar in,Kabul July 21 2008
Barack Obama yesterday warned that the situation in Afghanistan was "precarious and urgent" and said the country would be the central focus of the US "war on terror" if he became president.
The presumptive Democratic candidate was speaking in Afghanistan at the start of a week-long international tour designed to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
Mr Obama is expected in Iraq today but his decision to spend the first two days of his trip in Afghanistan shows how the country has returned to the centre of the US political debate as violence climbs.
"We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent, and I believe this has to be the central focus, the central front, in the battle against terrorism," he told CBS News.
Coalition deaths in Afghanistan have exceeded US fatalities in Iraq for the past two months, culminating in the death of nine soldiers last week in the deadliest insurgent attack for three years.
The deteriorating situation has left Mr Obama and John McCain, his Republican rival, scrambling to refocus attention on a conflict once dubbed the "forgotten war".
Both candidates pledged last week to send two or three additional combat brigades - between 7,000 and 10,000 troops - to Afghanistan if elected.
But while there is growing consensus on the need for reinforcements, the candidates are sharply at odds over what lessons should be drawn from the resurgence by al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
For Mr Obama, it underscores his argument that the US must extricate itself from an unnecessary war in Iraq and refocus on the original battleground in the "war on terror".
For Mr McCain, it highlights the importance of having a resolute and experienced leader in the Oval Office who can turn around Afghanistan just as the "surge" strategy has reduced violence in Iraq.
David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said at the weekend the diverging levels of violence in the two war zones could signal a shift in focus by al-Qaeda back to its original home in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He said there were signs that foreign fighters recruited by al-Qaeda to do battle in Iraq were being diverted to the largely ungoverned areas in Pakistan from which fighters can cross into Afghanistan. Attacks by militant groups against the US-led coalition in Afghanistan have risen by 40 per cent this year, compared with 2007, according to the US military.
The worsening outlook in Afghanistan is increasing pressure on the US to accelerate its troop drawdown in Iraq to free up more forces for Afghanistan. The administration agreed on Friday to set a "time horizon" for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, marking a break from its refusal to consider timelines for ending the war.
In a radio address over the weekend, Mr McCain mocked his opponent for reiterating his plans to withdraw from Iraq even before departing for his fact-finding mission. "Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy," he said.
Mr Obama visited two US military bases and met President Hamid Karzai during his two-day stop in Afghanistan, accompanied by his Senate colleagues Jack Reed, a Democrat, and Chuck Hagel, a moderate Republican and fierce critic of the war in Iraq. Both travelling companions have been mentioned as potential running mates for Mr Obama.
Before leaving Washington, Mr Obama stressed that he was travelling to Afghanistan and Iraq as a senator before switching back to campaign mode during his planned visits to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the UK later this week.
"I'm more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking," he said. "And I think it is very important to recognise that I'm going over there as a US senator. We have one president at a time."
Few details of his meeting with Mr Karzai were provided. The latter's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said the pair agreed on a wide range of issues. Mr Obama has previously criticised Mr Karzai and his government for failing to "get out of the bunker" to clamp down on insurgents.
His visit came amid mounting public anger in Afghanistan about recent civilian deaths in US and coalition military operations. Four Afghan police and five civilians were killed in air strikes yesterday, described as a case of "mistaken identity". In another incident, Nato troops opened mortar fire in the southern province of Paktika, killing four civilians. The past two weeks have seen some of the worst "friendly-fire" incidents of the war against Afghan civilians, with one air strike resulting in the death of 50 people in Nangarhar.
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S. and NATO strikes exact heavy toll in Afghanistan
International Herald Tribune, France By Carlotta Gall July 20, 2008
KABUL-U.S. and NATO missile strikes continued to exact a heavy toll in Afghanistan, with at least 13 Afghans killed in two incidents over the weekend that Afghan officials said were mistakes.
One NATO soldier was also killed in the eastern province of Khost. Although NATO did not give the nationality of the soldier, U.S. forces are deployed in Khost.
Nine Afghan policemen were killed and five others wounded in a case of friendly fire in western Afghanistan when a joint convoy of Afghan and U.S. forces called in airstrikes on a group they thought to be militants. Separately, at least four people were killed when two mortars fired by the NATO-led force in Afghanistan went astray.
The U.S. military announced it was beginning an investigation into the first incident. The joint Afghan and U.S. force came under attack in the province of Farah from an unknown force while conducting nighttime operations in Ana Dara District, a statement issued from Bagram Air Base said. Coalition forces returned fire and then called in airstrikes on the group firing at them.
The presidential spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said the strikes had been a case of friendly fire. Among those wounded was the police chief of the district, the deputy provincial governor said, according to Reuters.
A NATO statement said that at least four civilians had been accidentally killed, and four other civilians wounded, in mortar strikes by the NATO-led force, ISAF, in the eastern province of Paktika.
The incident took place Saturday night at Barmal, on the border with Pakistan in an area where militants frequently cross from Pakistan's tribal regions.
The wounded civilians were brought to a NATO base and were evacuated by helicopter to a medical facility, the alliance said. "ISAF deeply regrets this accident, and an investigation as to the exact circumstances of this tragic event is now under way," NATO said in its statement.
The latest casualties came as Senator Barack Obama was on his first visit to Afghanistan with a congressional delegation.
The British humanitarian organization, Oxfam, used the opportunity to warn against the growing human cost of the war in Afghanistan.
"The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, with an alarming increase in civilian casualties," Oxfam said. "All parties to the conflict must do everything possible to avoid causing harm to civilians."
"Unless the next American president, whether it is Senator Obama or Senator McCain, builds on the existing commitments to help lift the Afghan people out of extreme poverty and protect civilians, it will be impossible for the country to achieve lasting peace," it said.
The organization also urged the U.S. government to stop spending assistance funds on expensive foreign contractors and instead find more creative and sustainable ways to assist the people directly, especially in rural development.
Meanwhile, a group of American lawyers who are in Kabul to work on cases of Afghans detained in the American base at Bagram called on the U.S. government to end the legal "black hole" in which hundreds of detainees are held.
The lawyers from the International Justice Network raised the case of Jawed Ahmad, an Afghan journalist detained for nearly nine months at Bagram along with some 650 other Afghan detainees. None of the detainees has been charged and none is allowed lawyers, according to Tina Foster, the director of the organization, and Barbara Olshansky, a human rights professor from Stanford University.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Road mine in Helmand kills 3 children
Written by www.quqnoos.com & foreign news disk Sunday, 20 July 2008 15:52
A mini-bus in Helmand province hits road mine killing 3 children and wounding 4 others
(Xinhua) -- One mini-bus carrying locals from villages to the Greshk district, capital of south Afghanistan's Helmand province, hit roadside mines early Sunday morning, leaving three children dead and four others wounded, an official said.
Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, the provincial police chief told Xinhua that the mini-bus loaded with civilians was struck by roadside mines planted by "the enemy of Afghanistan" en route to a main bazaar of Greshk district.
"Two adults and two more children under 10 years-old were injured," he added.
In another incident happened in the same district Saturday night, police engaged with Taliban insurgents who attempted an assault on the district checkpoints.
"Three Taliban rebels were killed and two others were injured in exchanging fire," Andiwal said. "There was no casualties on police.
Security in a number of southern and eastern provinces in Afghanistan, including Helmand, has been deteriorating in the last 6 months despite the presence of international troops.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Coalition forces clash with Farah police
Written by www.quqnoos.com & Foreign disck Sunday, 20 July 2008
Lack of communication results in coalition forces fighting local police in Farah
An Afghan official says foreign troops called in airstrikes during an apparently mistaken clash with Afghan police, killing nine police officers and wounding five in the country's west.
Younus Rasuli, the deputy governor of Farah province, said a convoy of foreign forces — possibly NATO or those from the U.S.-led coalition — showed up at Anar Derah district, near the Iranian border.
He says the foreign troops had not informed local Afghan officials they were coming, and the police thought they were enemy fighters.
Rasuli says the two sides fought from around midnight till 4 a.m. Sunday, and the foreign forces used airstrikes during the battle.
Both NATO and U.S. coalition officials said they were looking into the reports.
In another incident in the Barmal district of Paktika, an ISAF unit on a fire mission accidentally killed four civilians, with an unconfirmed further three deaths.
Four civilians were also wounded and are now under treatment by ISAF forces according to an ISAF statement.
The incident was caused by ISAF firing two mortar rounds, which landed nearly 1 kilometre away from the intended target.
Shortly afterwards wounded civilians presented themselves for treatment at an ISAF base, and a helicopter medical evacuation mission was immediately launched to assist.
In a written statement, ISAF has said that it deeply regrets this accident, and an investigation as to the exact circumstances of this tragic event is now underway.
Quqnoos.com was not able to obtain any official response from the Paktika provincial government about this incident at the time of this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Stronger steps needed to pressurise Pakistan: Obama
PakTribune.Com - Afghanistan News Monday July 21, 2008
KABUL-Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Sunday the United States, Nato and Afghanistan must do more to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and he urged stronger steps to prod Pakistan into eliminating cross-border terrorist training camps. "Our message to the Afghan government is this: We want a strong partnership based on `more for more` -- more resources from the United States and Nato, and more action from the Afghan government to improve the lives of the Afghan people," Obama and Sens Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, and Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said in a written statement after departing Afghanistan.
Separately, in a broadcast interview, Obama suggested the US link continued military aid to Pakistan to the government`s willingness to combat terrorists in a lawless region astride its border with Afghanistan.
"I think that the US government provides an awful lot of aid to Pakistan, provides a lot of military support to Pakistan. And to send a clear message to Pakistan that this is important, to them as well as to us," he said. "I think that message has not been sent."
Security problems in Afghanistan cannot be solved, he said, "without engaging the Pakistan government". Obama made his comments while on campaign-season trip to two war zones, in addition to the Middle East and Europe. The Illinois senator is due to accept his party`s presidential nomination next month, and his campaign has turned the journey into a high-profile debut on the international stage.
He departed Afghanistan shortly after the interview, which aired on CBS` "Face the Nation", although details of his trips to Iraq were withheld for security reasons. Obama, Hagel and Reed have called for an end to the US combat role in Iraq. In their statement, they emphasized that Afghanistan is "the central front in the war on terrorism.
"Those who actually attacked us on 9/11 reside in the badlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have regrouped and they are getting stronger, as we saw yesterday with attacks throughout Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of a NATO soldier and several members of the Afghan police," they said.
Obama has suggested adding two or three brigades to the US deployment to Afghanistan. A brigade is roughly 3,500 troops. While he has called Iraq a distraction in the fight against terrorism, Obama also has said recently the government of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has "not gotten out of the bunker" to improve the lives of ordinary residents.
Obama, Hagel and Reed met with Karzai while in Afghanistan. Earlier, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama raised his international profile on Sunday by holding talks with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, a target in his criticism of the US-led effort to stabilise Afghanistan.
A Karzai aide said Obama, on the first leg of a foreign tour expected to include stopovers in Iraq as well as European capitals, vowed to inject "vigour" into the nearly seven-year war. After briefings from military commanders and breakfast with ordinary soldiers, Obama met for about two hours with Karzai at his presidential palace in the Afghan capital.
Obama has chided Karzai and his government for not getting "out of the bunker" and doing more to build confidence in Afghan institutions. US embassy spokesman Mark Stroh said the senator had discussed with Karzai the reconstruction effort as well as issues including corruption and governance, areas where Karzai, who is expected to seek re-election himself next year, has faced stiff criticism.
The Afghan presidency relayed only positives from Obama`s remarks. "Sen Obama conveyed that he is committed to supporting Afghanistan and to continue the war against terrorism with vigour," said Humayun Hamidzada, Karzai`s spokesman.
Both Democrats and Republicans "are friends of Afghanistan and no matter who wins the US elections, Afghanistan will have a very strong partner in the United States," Hamidzada said. Asked about Obama`s criticism of Karzai`s leadership, Hamidzada said Afghanistan was held back by the need to fight terrorism "imposed" on it from outside, an apparent reference to Pakistan, which Karzai accuses of backing the Taliban.
"Our hope is that with international support we will be able to minimise the threat of terrorism so that we can focus most of our energy on development and reconstruction," he said. In an interview broadcast on Sunday in the United States, Obama described the situation in Afghanistan as "precarious" and said the US should not wait to begin the planning that would be needed to send in more troops. Obama said "one of the biggest mistakes we made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here. We got distracted by Iraq."
Back to Top
Back to Top
Lives - Watching TV in Kabul
New York Times Magazine By KRISTIN OHLSON July 20, 2008
Last summer, I was at the end of a really lousy month in Kabul. It was my third visit in three years. One of the freelance-writing assignments that took me to Afghanistan this time had fallen through. The person I knew best there had unexpectedly left the country, canceling all our plans for trips outside the city. And though a vacationing couple had offered me use of their very nice home, with an attention-lavishing houseman, staying in an otherwise empty house was much less pleasant than I imagined.
Still, I’d made some new friends during my stay: in a place like Kabul, people of like mind and temperament form instant bonds. These friends included some remarkable Americans who grew up in Kabul during the 1960s and ’70s and had returned, after the Taliban left, to what felt like their homeland. This merry little band took me to places experienced by few foreigners. To a lake where thousands of Kabulis escaped the city’s heat and dust on weekends. To an Afghan restaurant where we danced with celebrating local college students.
While other foreigners remained cloistered in their compounds — some wistfully so, restricted by the rigid precautions of their employers — my new friends didn’t find Afghanistan intrinsically scary. They were dismayed by the increased wreckage, poverty and violence, but not afraid of the people. One night, when it seemed that every man in the city was on the dusty streets to shop the brightly lighted stalls, we had a flat tire. The tire blew out next to a stand selling watermelons, the hacked-open fruit red and glistening in the headlights. Crowds of curious men stopped to stare. I was certain we’d meet our death that night. My friends were just as certain that it was no big deal.
Later there were two terrible bombings, including one of a bus filled with young police recruits that killed at least 24 people. Some of the dead were civilians, but many were brave young men willing to defend the public order for the princely sum of about $70 per month. It was after that bombing that I decided to cut my visit short and made plans to go home.
On my last day in Kabul, my hosts’ houseman and his cousin drove me around town so that I could take care of some final details. I asked them to alert me when we approached the site of the bus bombing. I wanted to cover my eyes; I was afraid the trees in that area might bear strange fruit, body parts or pieces of clothing from the murdered policemen. I had offered to buy my houseman and his cousin a farewell lunch, but when we arrived at a kebab shop, I was in a grim mood.
As we entered the crowded restaurant, I tightened my head scarf and braced myself for the inevitable stare. The faces in the room were the kind that always accompany dismal news reports about Afghanistan — men with turbans, men with prayer caps, men with the biscuit-shaped hat known as a pakool famously worn by the anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud. I was accustomed to all those faces turning my way whenever I appeared in places where women rarely ventured — especially places like this, in a neighborhood far from the restaurants and coffee shops and guest houses that catered to foreigners.
But as we settled ourselves at a table, only a few men glanced over. From grizzled graybeards to gleeful schoolboys, everyone had an eye on the one other woman in the room. She filled up a TV screen against the wall. She wore lots of makeup and no head scarf. Her clothes were modest by the standards of my Cleveland neighborhood but not by Kabul’s.
This woman on TV was crying. Her lover’s car had plunged to the bottom of a river, where he was shown dreamily reliving scenes from his past. Then she was laughing and dancing on a mountaintop and kissing him, because he was miraculously restored. Or something like that. The show wasn’t in English, the only language I understand. I wasn’t sure if it was a Bollywood movie or one of the Indian soap operas that are so popular in Afghanistan — and that are now under attack by conservatives who say they’re anti-Islamic. Actually, I didn’t pay that much attention at first. I was trying to be polite to my two companions, one of whom was telling me some story or other in the magnificently gestured language he’d developed for foreigners who didn’t speak Dari.
But after I ate my fill, while my companions continued to tear into the remaining mounds of rice, I began watching the woman on the television. I looked around to see all the men in the room watching her too — watching her and her sodden, silly, resuscitated beau. Watching, smiling, shaking their heads. We were all caught up together in this trifling story about romance and family squabbles, the drama of ordinary lives that rocks households but doesn’t blow buildings or buses apart.
Kristin Ohlson is the author of a memoir, “Stalking the Divine,” and author, with Deborah Rodriguez, of “Kabul Beauty School.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban attack districts in Logar and Paktia
Written by www.quqnoos.com Sunday, 20 July 2008
Taliban claim to have attacked and burnt buildings in districts in two provinces, government says damage minor
The Taliban have claimed to have captured and burnt buildings in districts in Logar and Paktia provinces.
However government sources in the two provinces say that while there was damage to buildings, no one was injured.
The Taliban spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid said on Saturday that the Taliban had captured Charkh district in Logar province and then burnt the district building.
In the process he claimed that three policemen were killed and two injured.
He also said that in the Garda Seri district in Paktia province, Taliban burnt the district building and killed 12 policemen and took another 3 hostage.
He claims that the Taliban also took weapons in this siege.
The police chief in Logar province, Ghullam Mostafa Mohseni confirmed that while Charkh district was under attack from about 11pm on Friday for about 20 minutes.
However he says that the attack only caused damage to one room in a building and no one was hurt.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Paktia provincial government, Rohullah Samon, says that during a two hour clash between Taliban and the police, 4 police officers were wounded and two vehicles were damaged.
Mr Samon also said that in a counter attack by police, some Taliban were killed although he did not indicate precise figures.
However a source that did not wish to be identified has said that the Taliban burnt the district building and also took some weapons.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Bush Failures May Force McCain, Obama to Make Like FDR in 2009
Bloomberg By Matthew Benjamin and Heidi Przybyla July 21, 2008
When George W. Bush became president in 2001, his main goals included restoring ``honor and dignity to the White House'' after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, raising school-test scores and figuring out how to spend a record budget surplus.
The next White House occupant will inherit the deepest housing recession in a generation, growing fears of bank failures, a sinking dollar, $4 gasoline and an economy bleeding jobs. He'll confront wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mounting tensions with Iran and the U.S.'s flagging international reputation.
Historians say the economic and foreign policy crises in Bush's wake will present either Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain with the biggest challenges to a new president since Herbert Hoover left office during the Great Depression.
``What a burden the next president is going to confront,'' says Robert Dallek, a presidential historian and biographer of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. ``It'll be like Franklin Roosevelt coming in, in 1933.''
The list of problems facing the nation means that campaign promises -- Obama's universal health care, middle-class tax cut and immigration overhaul, or McCain's corporate and individual tax reductions and energy-independence plan -- will likely be put on hold while the president focuses on more immediate concerns, especially the economy.
Waking Up Quickly
The next president is ``going to wake up very quickly to the fact that the economy so overwhelms everything else,'' says Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
In 2000, the last time no incumbent was running, consumer confidence was at record levels and the economy had created 1.3 million jobs in the year's first six months. In August 2000, 89 percent of Americans said the economy was doing well, according to a Los Angeles Times poll.
With the expansion then in its 10th year, the contest between Bush and Vice President Al Gore centered on topics like education, prescription-drug coverage for the elderly and --with President Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern fresh in voters' minds -- morality in the Oval Office.
The Times survey showed that, after education, the issues that concerned Americans most were Social Security and health care, as the nation debated how to use a $5.6 trillion surplus the Congressional Budget Office projected the government would generate over the next decade. During the campaign, Bush promised to return the surplus to taxpayers through broad-based tax cuts; when the nation entered a recession in 2001, he shifted gears and said the reductions would stimulate the economy.
Wiped-Out Surplus
After that recession, some $2 trillion in tax cuts and military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, the government has produced only deficits since 2002. Bush's budgets have added $1.7 trillion to the national debt. The CBO, which estimates this year's shortfall will reach $396 billion, projects the red ink will flow through at least 2011.
Today, 82 percent of Americans say the economy is doing badly, and voters consider it the most important issue, followed by the Iraq War, health care, terrorism and illegal immigration. Education ranks sixth.
``People tend to ignore the economy when it's doing well and pay a lot of attention to it when it's not,'' says Arthur Miller, a political science professor at the University of Iowa and author of a research paper on issues in the 2000 election.
Job Losses
In June, employers cut jobs for a sixth straight month and the unemployment rate stood at 5.5 percent, a four-year high. Home prices in 20 cities dropped 15.3 percent in April from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index.
Oil prices have set records due to global demand and tensions in the Middle East. That's pushed gasoline prices up 92 percent since January 2007 and increased the cost of filling the tank of a Chevrolet Suburban by $62, to $131.
Consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level since 1992. Many economists expect a recession to begin later this year and continue into the first quarter of 2009, when the next president takes office.
The top economists on both presidential campaigns agree the economy is the priority, and each seek to affix their domestic agendas to that goal.
McCain's top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, touts the Republican candidate's energy-independence plan, the ``Lexington Project,'' as one key to jumpstarting growth. Obama adviser Jason Furman says his candidate's energy, health and tax plans represent a pro-growth blueprint: ``If you can bring down the cost of health care, that can help the economy. If you bring fairness back to the tax system, that can be expansionary.''
Fannie and Freddie
An early issue facing the next president will be what to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-created mortgage-financing companies that together buy or back half the U.S.'s $12 trillion in home loans. While Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has floated a plan to shore up the two, fundamental change isn't likely under Bush, says Chris Mayer, director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia University in New York.
``Democrats in Congress are worried about giving Bush a blank check to fix this,'' he says.
The next administration will also have to deal with a host of foreign-policy issues that were largely absent in 2000.
Eight years ago, after a decade in which the country enjoyed the benefits of a ``peace dividend'' -- U.S. military cutbacks after the collapse of the Soviet Union -- the biggest concerns were forging peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the emergence of China as a strategic rival and whether the U.S. should engage in ``nation-building,'' as it was doing in places such as Bosnia and Haiti. Bush entered office pledging to pursue a ``humble'' foreign policy.
Wars and Weapons
Come January, the new president will face the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear power, and the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program.
U.S. casualties in Iraq have declined this year, taking some of the edge off public opposition to the war. Still, Bush has yet to set a timeline for withdrawing the 150,000 American troops, leaving it to his successor to decide whether to pull out and how fast.
Violence has risen in Afghanistan, and more troops may be needed. Attacks by extremists made June the deadliest month for the U.S. and its allies since the conflict began in 2001. In Iran, the U.S. is trying to convince the country to suspend uranium enrichment, and impose penalties if it doesn't. Even so, tension has increased, with Iran test-firing long-range missiles and Israel conducting a drill of its warplanes in what some military analysts saw as a rehearsal for a strike on Iran.
Road Map
And in North Korea, the U.S., China and three other nations are trying to establish a ``road map'' to outline how the Stalinist regime will abandon its nuclear weapons programs.
Obama, 46, an Illinois senator, or McCain, 71, of Arizona certainly won't be the first president to be sworn in amid simultaneous financial and foreign-policy turbulence. Kennedy began his term in 1961 nine months into a recession and with an invasion of Cuba already being planned; Ronald Reagan took office six months after the end of an economic slump and a little over a year after Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan.
The current problems may pose an even bigger challenge as anger at income inequality and ``greedy'' corporations threatens to undermine Americans' confidence in the system, says Dartmouth College political science professor Linda Fowler.
``The country is facing a crisis in capitalism,'' she says.
To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Benjamin in Washington at mbenjamin2@bloomberg.net. Heidi Przybyla in Detroit at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).