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Afghanistan might be tougher job than Iraq: Obama
Wed Jul 23, 8:48 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Afghanistan might end up being tougher to subdue than Iraq, days after visiting both war zones.
Germany's Merkel To Tell Obama No More Troops For Afghanistan
BERLIN (AFP)--German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she would resist any pressure to send more troops to Afghanistan during talks Thursday with U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
Taliban arrest in Pakistan raises Western hopes
By Simon Cameron-Moore Wed Jul 23, 3:14 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's security forces made a rare arrest of a senior Afghan Taliban commander near the southwestern city of Quetta on Saturday, Pakistani security officials and coalition forces in Afghanistan told Reuters.
British soldier wounded in Afghan ambush dies
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 23, 6:17 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A British soldier died after being wounded in an ambush in southern Afghanistan, while U.S.-led coalition troops killed several militants near the capital, officials said Wednesday.
More U.S. troops may help but not solve Afghanistan
By Andrew Gray - Analysis Wed Jul 23, 3:57 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain and President George W. Bush all agree on one thing -- more U.S. troops should go to Afghanistan. But would they make much difference?
Afghanistan's Police Force Needs 2,300 More Trainers, U.S. Says
By Ed Johnson
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan needs an additional 2,300 international personnel to train its police force, the U.S. commander in charge of instructing the nation's security forces said.
Senior Taliban leader killed in Afghanistan
Tue Jul 22, 2:03 PM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - A senior Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan surrendered to Pakistani authorities and British forces killed another leader, dealing a "shattering blow" to the militant group's leadership, the British army said on Tuesday.
Civilian risks cut down on airstrikes in Afghanistan
By Thom Shanker The International Herald Tribune Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Dawn was breaking over Afghanistan one day this month as U.S. Air Force surveillance planes locked in on a top-ranking insurgent commander as he traveled in secret around Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban.
A Wake-Up Call From Afghanistan
Increased Fighting Draws More Attention to the Strain Posed by the Iraq War
By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 23, 2008
ST. CHARLES, Mo., July 22 -- For Kurt Zwilling, the nine days since his soldier son was killed in an assault on a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan have been like living in a faded photograph. He stood near his son's coffin yesterday and told mourners
Plot to divide the Taliban foiled
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / July 23, 2008
KARACHI - Along with the Taliban's ongoing progress in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has strengthened its position in Pakistan's tribal areas, reinforced by a steady stream of new recruits from other countries and an expansion of its networks among local tribes.
'Special Report' Panel on Barack Obama's Trip to Afghanistan and Iraq
FOXNews Tuesday, July 22, 2008
This is a rush transcript of "Special Report With Brit Hume" from July 21, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
AFGHANISTAN: Insurgency, insecurity threaten health progress
KABUL, 23 July 2008 (IRIN) - Up to 100,000 people have been deprived of access to basic health services in different parts of Afghanistan over the past four months, due largely to worsening insecurity, with attacks on health workers and health
AFGHANISTAN: New campaign to tackle stigma and misconceptions
KABUL, 23 July 2008 (IRIN) - The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, and Constella Futures, a US-based research organisation, have been awarded contracts to implement Afghanistan's first major HIV/AIDS projects in four cities,
Sky-high wheat prices have Afghan farmers crowing it's better than opium
Tue Jul 22, 6:02 PM By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press
ZAKER SHARIF, Afghanistan - It's being heralded as a first by old Afghan farmers who swear they've never seen such a windfall.
Bin Laden driver 'knew 9/11 aim'
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 09:54 UK BBC News
Osama Bin Laden's former driver was so close to al-Qaeda's leaders he knew the target of the fourth hijacked plane on 11 September, prosecutors have alleged.
Civilian Risks Curbing Strikes in Afghan War
The New York Times - Home By THOM SHANKER July 23, 2008
Dawn was breaking over Afghanistan one day this month as Air Force surveillance planes locked in on a top-ranking insurgent commander as he traveled in secret around Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban.
Afghan president orders investigation of gang rapes
Jul 23, 2008, 10:26 GMT Monsters and Critics.com
Kabul - Afghan President Hamed Karzai ordered an investigation into the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl in northern Sar-e-Pul province, a statement said Wednesday.
Better Indo-Pak ties vital for US interest in Afghan: Obama
Sridhar Krishnaswami Press Trust of India
Washington, July 23 (PTI) Better diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan are vital for the US to succeed in its war against Taliban militants in Afghanistan, Presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama has said.
Thieves in National Army uniform stopped
Written by www.quqnoos.com Tuesday, 22 July 2008
4 thieves in National Army uniforms stopped during robbery, 1 caught, 3 escape
Four thieves using the uniform and vehicles of Rangers of National Army to commit armed robbery were stopped by police last night (Monday).
6 mine workers killed by armed men in Badakhshan
Written by www.quqnoos.com Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Unidentified armed men have attacked and killed 6 mine workers in Badakhshan on Monday
Governor’s spokesman shot dead in Pakita
Written by www.quqnoos.com & PAN Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Unidentified gunmen have shot dead Yar Ghamai Khan, spokesperson of Paktia governor in his home on Monday
Pasadena retiree fights malnutrition in Afghanistan -- with soybeans
The former Nestle nutritionist started a nonprofit that gives free seed to thousands of farmers and offers to pay for the harvest.
By William Lobdell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 21, 2008
Far from his Pasadena home, nutritionist Steven Kwon stood before Afghan government officials and agronomists in Kabul three years ago, extolling the virtues of protein-rich soybeans as a way to curb the rampant malnutrition in the war-torn nation.
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Afghanistan might be tougher job than Iraq: Obama
Wed Jul 23, 8:48 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Afghanistan might end up being tougher to subdue than Iraq, days after visiting both war zones.
The White House hopeful told Time magazine in an interview that his two trips had confirmed in his mind many of his earlier thoughts about future US policy towards the two countries.
"I think in Afghanistan, looking at the landscape and the extraordinary poverty involved, makes you realise what a daunting task our efforts there are going to be," Obama told Time.
"It redoubles my belief, or deepens my belief, that if we're going to get that done we're going to have put in more resources," he said in the interview posted on the magazine's website.
"Both issues (Iraq and Afghanistan) are very difficult. Both situations are very difficult, but it is not clear to me that in the long term Afghanistan isn't a tougher job than Iraq is."
The Illinois senator has laid out a plan to start withdrawals of combat troops from Iraq as soon as taking office, and would hope to get most US soldiers out of the country within 16 months.
He wants to divert at least two combat brigades to Afghanistan, amid worsening insurgent violence and security problems.
Obama is in the middle of a gruelling tour of Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories and Europe, meant to assuage fears among some voters about whether he is ready to be president.
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Germany's Merkel To Tell Obama No More Troops For Afghanistan
BERLIN (AFP)--German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she would resist any pressure to send more troops to Afghanistan during talks Thursday with U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
In a 100-minute-long press conference Wednesday before the summer holidays, Merkel fielded question after question about Obama as anticipation mounted for his arrival in Berlin.
When asked about Obama's recent comments that he would press European North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners for more troops for Afghanistan, Merkel said Germany had no plans to go beyond pledges made last month for the NATO-led ISAF mission.
"I can give Barack Obama the good news that we will be boosting the mandate to include 1,000 more troops for the ISAF mission. We also just took over the command of the quick reaction force (in northern Afghanistan)," she said.
"Thus I will make clear that we are not shirking our responsibilities for engagement but I will also make the limits very clear, just as I have done with the current president."
She said developments on the ground would require fresh assessments periodically.
"I will also say to Mr Obama that there has to be a balance between military engagement but also political expectations of the Afghan government" including the training of the Afghan security forces, she said.
Germany has faced growing pressure to bolster its presence in Afghanistan and redeploy troops from the relatively calm north of the country to the south where U.S.-led forces are battling tenacious Taliban insurgents.
In response to the calls, Berlin announced plans last month to boost its contingent in northern Afghanistan later this year by up to 1,000 soldiers to 4, 500 troops.
But the mission is highly unpopular in Germany and any move to expand the deployment further would likely provoke a voter backlash.
Obama is due to hold a major transatlantic speech at an open-air rally in the heart of Berlin in the early evening after talks with Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Activists say up to 500,000 people could attend the event but Berlin authorities say they expect a small crowd "in the tens of thousands range".
The Illinois senator is wildly popular here. A recent poll showed that 72% of Germans would cast a ballot for Obama if they could vote in the U.S. presidential election, versus just 11% for his Republican opponent John McCain.
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Taliban arrest in Pakistan raises Western hopes
By Simon Cameron-Moore Wed Jul 23, 3:14 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's security forces made a rare arrest of a senior Afghan Taliban commander near the southwestern city of Quetta on Saturday, Pakistani security officials and coalition forces in Afghanistan told Reuters.
A statement issued by British forces in Afghanistan late on Tuesday said Mullah Rahim, operational commander of Taliban forces in Helmand, had surrendered to "authorities in Pakistan."
Western officials in the past have suspected the Pakistani security services of turning a blind eye to the presence of Taliban leaders in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
Recent unpublicized arrests in Quetta, however, raised hopes of a sea-change in Pakistan, a senior Western official said.
"We've seen signs of change ... yes, and arrests," said an official in Islamabad earlier this week.
Pakistan had still to confirm Rahim's capture, but Pakistani security officials, who had requested anonymity, had told Reuters on Monday that a suspect believed to have been the Taliban commander in Helmand, had been caught over the weekend.
They said the man had been caught during a raid on a house in Kharotabad area of Quetta.
"We conducted a raid three days ago based on very credible information that some important Taliban figures were hiding with an Afghan family there," a senior intelligence official said.
Western allies suffering mounting casualties among troops in Afghanistan have put Pakistan under pressure to act against Taliban taking sanctuary on its territory.
The intensity of the pressure and more frequent U.S. drone aircraft missile attacks on militant targets in Pakistani tribal areas have led to frenzied speculation in Pakistani media that Western forces in Afghanistan could soon take unilateral action.
Deployment of more NATO troops near the Pakistan border has prompted fears they could be ordered across on "hot pursuit" or covert missions to eliminate "high value targets."
Pakistan opposes any such action that would violate its sovereignty and risk escalating the conflict in ethnic Pashtun lands straddling the frontier.
PATCHY RECORD
The British statement said that hours after Rahim's arrest in Pakistan British forces killed another senior Taliban leader, the third in as many weeks.
Abdul Razaq, alias Mullah Sheikh, was killed along with three fighters in a missile strike after midnight on Sunday at Musa Qala, a town in Helmand that has changed hands several times.
Similar successes have been trumpeted in the past, and Taliban sources told Reuters on Wednesday that Rahim had already been replaced by Mullah Nayeem as commander in Helmand.
Last December, the Afghan Defense Ministry said Mullah Rahim Akhond, the Taliban's governor for Helmand, and Mullah Mateen Akhond, district governor in Musa Qala, had been caught.
Various reasons have been put forward for Pakistan's inaction against Taliban in and around Quetta since the Islamist militia was driven from power by U.S. backed forces in late 2001.
Pakistan has said it has been given no actionable information by Afghanistan or NATO and maintained that top leaders, including Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar, were in Afghanistan.
Some analysts say Pakistan fears a violent backlash from the Taliban and their sympathizers if they actively hunt down leaders of a movement that had been supported by the Pakistani military from the mid-1990s until late 2001.
Other Pakistani, Afghan and American analysts say Pakistani intelligence is playing a double-game to keep alive Taliban assets to use as leverage to re-assert influence in Kabul once Western forces pull out of Afghanistan.
Pakistan has actively hunted al Qaeda fighters in tribal areas, and been sucked into a conflict among the Pakistani Taliban based in the region. But Pakistan's record in combating Afghan Taliban has been patchy.
In February, Mullah Mansour Dadullah, a commander who had been dismissed by Mullah Omar, was caught in Baluchistan.
In March last year, Pakistani security forces in Quetta arrested Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a former Taliban defense minister and third most senior member of its leadership council.
Akhund's arrest was disclosed to Reuters by several security officials, though it was never confirmed by Pakistani authorities.
(With additional reporting by Gul Yousafzai and Saeed Ali Achakzai and Mirwais Afghan; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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British soldier wounded in Afghan ambush dies
By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 23, 6:17 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - A British soldier died after being wounded in an ambush in southern Afghanistan, while U.S.-led coalition troops killed several militants near the capital, officials said Wednesday.
The militants attacked a British patrol in Kajaki district of Helmand province Tuesday, the British Ministry of Defense said. The soldier was initially wounded and later died, and two other troops were injured, it said.
More than 2,600 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.
Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June.
The growing Taliban-led insurgency is primarily concentrated in the south and east, but significant fighting is occurring in the west and central parts of the country.
In central Wardak province, U.S.-led coalition forces killed "several militants" while hunting for a Taliban leader said to have been behind an attack that killed three American troops and their interpreter last month.
Coalition forces were searching compounds in Saydabad district in Wardak on Tuesday when militants attacked with grenades, machine guns and small-arms. The troops fired back and called in an airstrike.
The coalition statement did not say whether the Taliban commander was among the dead.
Militants had attacked a coalition convoy on June 26 in Saydabad, killing the Afghan interpreter and three troops.
Militants also killed a district police chief in the eastern Nangarhar province Wednesday after striking his convoy with a roadside bomb, said Sayed Mohammad, a provincial official.
Separately, a civilian vehicle struck a mine in Khost province in Afghanistan's east Tuesday, killing four people and wounding three, provincial police official Yaqub Khan said. The dead included a 2-year-old and a woman.
In the southern Helmand province, Afghan troops killed five insurgents in a clash, provincial police chief Mohammed Hussein Andiwal said. A policeman and two Afghan soldiers were wounded in the encounter Tuesday, he said.
Separately, police clashed with Taliban fighters in neighboring Uruzgan province early Wednesday, killing three militants, said Uruzgan's police chief, Juma Gul Himat.
___
Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
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More U.S. troops may help but not solve Afghanistan
By Andrew Gray - Analysis Wed Jul 23, 3:57 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain and President George W. Bush all agree on one thing -- more U.S. troops should go to Afghanistan. But would they make much difference?
Many experts believe a boost in combat troops would help check worsening insurgent violence. Some are not convinced more troops are the answer and all believe that the problems facing Afghanistan require much more than military solutions.
A big increase in the number of Afghan soldiers and police, many more foreign trainers to teach them, plus renewed efforts to tackle corruption and the opium trade are among the prescriptions offered by analysts to stabilize the country.
"I think troop numbers are one of several key factors," said Seth Jones, an Afghanistan specialist at the Rand Corporation research group.
Obama, who visited Afghanistan over the weekend, has promised to send at least two brigades -- probably around 7,000 troops. The Democratic senator from Illinois has pledged to send them quickly as he would make Afghanistan a priority ahead of Iraq.
McCain has said commanders should get the three brigades they have requested. But the Republican Arizona senator backs Bush's policy that Iraq has priority, so the stretched U.S. military could take longer to get his additional forces to Afghanistan.
Bush has pledged an unspecified number of extra troops for Afghanistan who would likely arrive only after he has left office -- although Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week he wanted to forces there "sooner rather than later."
The increased political attention to Afghanistan reflects widespread Western concern over rising violence, which is at its highest levels since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
With more international troops dying in May and June in Afghanistan than in Iraq, where violence is declining, American public attention has turned back to what was sometimes termed the "forgotten war."
'COMPELLING' ARGUMENT
Sean Kay of Ohio Wesleyan University said the 53,000-strong NATO-led force in Afghanistan clearly needed reinforcements.
"The argument is still very compelling that a substantial increase in NATO forces will make a very big difference there," said Kay, a NATO expert.
Taliban and other fighters have been able to return to areas they abandoned in southern and eastern Afghanistan -- the heartlands of the insurgency -- because there are not enough troops to keep those places secure, analysts say.
"You've got to provide security in the southern and eastern parts and that's just not happening," Kay said.
In addition to the NATO force, there are some 19,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan performing a range of other missions from counterterrorism to police training plus 63,000 Afghan soldiers and 79,000 Afghan police officers, U.S. officials say.
That makes a total of some 214,000 foreign and Afghan security personnel.
But questions have been raised about the effectiveness of many of those forces. The police, in particular, are frequently accused of incompetence and corruption while some NATO nations do not allow their troops to take part in combat missions.
In Iraq, the United States has around 147,000 troops. There are also some 170,000 Iraqi troops and 365,000 Iraqi police officers.
DRAFT FOR AFGHANISTAN?
The precise number of troops that may be required to turn the tide in Afghanistan is the subject of some debate.
Jones said he was not convinced many of the figures being thrown around now were based on much rigorous analysis.
Gen. Dan McNeill, a previous commander of the NATO force, has said more than 300,000 security personnel would be required to fight an insurgency in a nation of Afghanistan's size and population, according to formulas used in the U.S. Army's counterinsurgency manual.
John Nagl, a leading U.S. counterinsurgency expert, said about 150,000 more personnel were needed to fight the insurgency. But he said a large number of those should be Afghans and suggested Afghanistan should institute a draft.
"It was good enough for the United States up until 1973," said Nagl, an author and former U.S. Army battalion commander now at the Center for a New American Security think tank.
"How can it not be good enough for the fifth poorest country in the world which is afflicted by a difficult insurgency?"
Many counterinsurgency experts argue that working with local forces is the key to defeating any insurgency.
Carter Malkasian, an analyst at the CNA research group who has advised the U.S. military, said the United States could learn from its success in co-opting local tribesmen to serve as security force members in Iraq's western Anbar province.
"An easy and cost-effective measure fighting insurgency is at our fingertips, something that is cheaper for us than putting more men into the country or having to sacrifice more of our men -- not that we won't have to do that as well," he said.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
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Afghanistan's Police Force Needs 2,300 More Trainers, U.S. Says
By Ed Johnson
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan needs an additional 2,300 international personnel to train its police force, the U.S. commander in charge of instructing the nation's security forces said.
``The Afghan police are several years behind the Afghan army in terms of capability and in terms of trust of the Afghan people,'' Major General Robert Cone told reporters in Washington yesterday.
While the nation has 79,000 police officers, many are unable to operate independently, Cone said in a video news conference from Afghanistan. He called on coalition partners to help meet the shortfall in instructors.
A Pentagon-funded report last month said Afghan police officers were often corrupt and that it would take at least a decade to build an acceptable force. The United Nations has said President Hamid Karzai's government is beset by a corrupt justice system that is hampering the fight against the Taliban.
``People understand that in the end game for Afghanistan, police and the rule of law and the security that they provide is an essential component,'' said Cone, according to a U.S. government transcript.
The major focus is on training police officers at a district level, with an emphasis on ``things like values, constitutional responsibilities, rule of law,'' he said.
The eight-week program has been completed in 20 districts, said Cone, adding it is a ``long, slow process.''
`Corrupt, Incompetent'
Afghan police have been ``corrupt, incompetent, under- resourced and often loyal to local commanders rather than to the central government,'' the National Defense Research Institute, a center run by the Washington-based RAND Corporation, said in a report last month for the Pentagon.
Training officers was a low priority for the U.S. until 2005, according to the report.
Police are failing to win the trust of the local population as officers demand bribes, loot shops and compete for posts on opium smuggling routes where they can extort the most money, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said last year.
Karzai's government is supported by about 70,000 soldiers from more than 40 countries battling an insurgency by supporters of the Taliban. The regime was ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition after it refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Abdul Rasaq, a Taliban commander in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, was killed with three of his fighters in a July 20 missile strike north of Musa Qala, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the U.K. Ministry of Defence. Mullah Rahim, another senior Taliban leader, gave himself up to authorities in Pakistan hours earlier, the ministry said in a statement, according to AFP.
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Senior Taliban leader killed in Afghanistan
Tue Jul 22, 2:03 PM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - A senior Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan surrendered to Pakistani authorities and British forces killed another leader, dealing a "shattering blow" to the militant group's leadership, the British army said on Tuesday.
Mullah Rahim, the top commander for southern Helmand province, gave himself up after British forces had killed two other Taliban leaders in little over three weeks.
Hours after his surrender, another senior Taliban commander, Abdul Rasaq, also known as "Mullah Sheikh," was killed in a British missile strike 15 km (9 miles) north of the town of Musa Qala in Helmand on Monday morning, the British army said in a statement. Three other insurgents also died.
Rasaq headed Taliban actions around Musa Qala and was active in the insurgency for a number of years, it said.
"The Taliban's senior leadership structure has suffered a shattering blow," British army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Robin Matthews said in the statement.
Musa Qala town holds a symbolic importance after Taliban fighters forced British troops out of the dusty opium-trading centre in late 2006. The Taliban then seized it in February last year making it the only town of any size held by the rebels.
Afghan, British and U.S. forces took back Musa Qala in an offensive in December but Taliban insurgents are still active around the town.
Elsewhere, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces backed by airpower killed or wounded more than 30 Taliban insurgents in fighting in the west of Afghanistan, a senior police official said on Tuesday.
Fighting broke out in the Bala Boluk district of Farah province on Tuesday, regional police chief Ikramuddin Yawar said.
"The toll might be more than 30 because the operation is ongoing," Yawar told Reuters.
SUICIDE ATTACK
A U.S.-led convoy was hit by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades on Tuesday morning in Bala Boluk, a U.S. military spokesman said.
Air strikes were called in but no munitions were dropped. The U.S. military could not confirm if any Taliban were killed dead. International forces do not usually give casualty figures for insurgents.
In the capital, Kabul, a Taliban suicide bomber wounded five civilians when he blew himself up as he was challenged by police on Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said.
Taliban militants have launched some 100 suicide attacks so far this year, mostly targeting Afghan and international security forces but as many as 80 percent of their victims are civilians, security experts say.
The bomber struck in the morning in the Gozargah area of the capital, next to the walls of the historic tomb of Babur, the 16th century founder of India's Mughal dynasty. Only a leg of the bomber remained, lying on the ground, Reuters witnesses said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Yousuf Azimy and Sharafuddin Sharafyar; Writing by Jon Hemming and Jonathon Burch; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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Civilian risks cut down on airstrikes in Afghanistan
By Thom Shanker The International Herald Tribune Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Dawn was breaking over Afghanistan one day this month as U.S. Air Force surveillance planes locked in on a top-ranking insurgent commander as he traveled in secret around Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban.
But as attack aircraft were summoned overhead to strike, according to a recounting of the mission by air force commanders, the Taliban leader entered a building. Intelligence specialists scrambled to determine whether civilians were inside. Weapons experts calculated what bomb could destroy the structure with the least damage.
It had taken the U.S. military many days to identify, track and target the senior Taliban officer. But the risk of civilian deaths was deemed too high. Air force commanders, working with military lawyers, aborted the mission. The Taliban leader escaped.
"We miss the opportunity, but the beauty of what we do is, we will get them eventually," said Lieutenant General Gary North, commander of U.S. and allied air forces in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
"We will continue to track them. Eventually, we will get to the point where we can achieve - within the constraints of which we operate, which by the way the enemy does not operate under - and we will get them."
In interviews at the air operations headquarters in Southwest Asia, U.S. and allied commanders said that even as orders for air attacks in Afghanistan had increased significantly this year, their ability to strike top insurgent leaders from the air was severely restricted by rules intended to minimize civilian casualties.
The rules that govern dropping bombs and firing missiles are far more restrictive now in Afghanistan than in Iraq, senior Pentagon and military officials say.
The rules of engagement were reviewed and tightened in 2007 after a spate of civilian casualties, under General Dan McNeill, then the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, and reviewed and revised again in April, officials said.
U.S. commanders acknowledge that civilian casualties undermine support for the NATO-led stability mission exactly at a time when the Taliban is experiencing a potent resurgence across the country. They say Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, routinely complain about civilian deaths in meetings with Americans.
Military officers also acknowledge that their control over airstrikes is reduced when crews scramble to help NATO contingents under attack.
But air commanders say they have a commitment to support ground forces in trouble. Only last weekend, nine Afghan police officers were killed in western Afghanistan when Afghan and U.S. forces called in airstrikes on the officers, thinking they were militants.
According to the United Nations, 698 civilians were killed in the first six months this year, compared with 430 in the same period last year. The UN report said nearly two-thirds of the deaths this year resulted from actions by the Taliban and other insurgents. The remainder were attributed to actions by Afghan government, U.S. or allied forces.
But in interviews at the air base, U.S. and allied commanders expressed frustration about the obstacles they faced. They described what they said were missed opportunities and told how Taliban leaders, who live and operate among the population, have learned to exploit the restrictions.
"There are frustrations, without a doubt," said a British officer, Air Commodore Simon Dobb, director of the combined air operations center. "But we understand what Clausewitz said, that war is an extension of policy. We are acutely aware of the sensitivities toward collateral damage," the military term for civilians killed or injured.
A reporter for The New York Times was given access to the Combined Air and Space Operations Center under a written agreement that neither the name of the base nor its location be published, in deference to the host nation's concerns.
Over recent weeks, a wave of deadly Taliban attacks illustrated just how thinly U.S. and NATO troops were stretched across Afghanistan, prompting Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to pledge to find additional forces for the mission.
In the meantime, orders for airstrikes in Afghanistan have increased in recent months, as U.S. and allied warplanes attack Taliban hide-outs and swoop in to assist allied and Afghan forces under fire.
According to statistics compiled by the air operations center, during the first six months of this year, 1,853 munitions were dropped by air over Afghanistan - more than twice the 754 dropped in Iraq during the same period.
In June alone, 646 bombs and missiles were used in Afghanistan, the second highest monthly total since the end of major combat operations in 2002.
Air force lawyers vet all the airstrikes approved by the operational air commanders. Senior Pentagon officials said the more-stringent rules of engagement now in effect for Afghanistan specified the acceptable levels of risk to civilians for a priority attack. They said these more-stringent rules required a significantly lower risk of civilian casualties than was acceptable in Iraq.
Missions in Afghanistan that are judged vital but highly risky to civilians may now require approval by the overall regional commander and, in some instances, even by the defense secretary himself, according to Pentagon and military officials.
"In their deliberate targeting, the Air Force has all but eliminated civilian casualties in Afghanistan," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch. "They have very effective collateral damage mitigation procedures."
The greater risk of civilian casualties, Garlasco said, comes in unplanned targeting, when U.S. and allied troops come under attack unexpectedly and call for airstrikes for urgent help.
NATO soldier killed
A NATO soldier died after being ambushed in southern Afghanistan, while U.S.-led coalition troops killed several militants near the capital, officials said Wednesday, The Associated Press and Reuters reported from Kabul.
The militants fired on a NATO patrol in Kajaki district of Helmand Province on Tuesday, a statement from the alliance said. The soldier was initially wounded and later died, it said. NATO did not release the nationality of the dead soldier. Most of the troops in Kajaki are British.
More than 2,600 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.
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A Wake-Up Call From Afghanistan
Increased Fighting Draws More Attention to the Strain Posed by the Iraq War
By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 23, 2008
ST. CHARLES, Mo., July 22 -- For Kurt Zwilling, the nine days since his soldier son was killed in an assault on a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan have been like living in a faded photograph. He stood near his son's coffin yesterday and told mourners, "You know, right now the world looks a little bit off. The colors are not as bright."
Cpl. Gunnar W. Zwilling, 20, was one of nine U.S. soldiers to die in a predawn attack that highlighted a dangerous new phase in an Afghan conflict that has received far less attention than the battle for Iraq.
Some call it the forgotten war, but it seems about to be remembered.
When insurgents mustered superior numbers and overpowered U.S. and Afghan forces in remote Konar province on July 13, more U.S. soldiers died than were killed by enemy action in all of Iraq during the first three weeks in July.
A pattern began to emerge about three months ago: Since May 1, 52 American troops have been killed in action in Afghanistan, compared with 43 in a quieting Iraq.
The growing casualties and the resurgence of the Taliban and its anti-American allies have prompted vows by President Bush and his aspiring successors to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
Bush said recently that he intends to send three more brigades, or about 10,000 soldiers, to a rugged land where about 32,000 U.S. troops are now stationed. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) agreed last week that more troops are needed, while Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has long favored sending at least two more combat brigades, partly by shifting forces from Iraq.
"I can't put a number on it, but there are going to be more. We're short of NATO troops. We're short of American troops. We're short 3,000 trainers of the Afghan army," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "If we're going to come out of there successful, we've got to have more troops."
At a time when the Iraq war remains deeply unpopular, the shifting dynamic is likely to test the country's willingness to support the commitment of more troops and money to a lesser-known war in a distant theater.
Opinion polls and a random sampling in this Missouri River town suggest cautious support, particularly if the mission is sharply focused and is conducted with the help of U.S. allies.
"Seems like the Taliban's built back up and it's becoming a problem again," said Ray Lesley, a carpenter stocking up at One Stop Beer, Bait and Bullets. "Finish the job, increase the troops or otherwise withdraw. There's no point in sacrificing lives if you don't accomplish your job."
Debbie Stanger, visiting from neighboring Illinois, said she wants to see American leaders "focus more on what they need to get at," adding: "It seems a lot of killing is going on and they need to focus on getting the bad guys."
A narrow majority of respondents in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll said the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting -- far more than say the same about Iraq.
Fifty-one percent said the United States must win in Afghanistan to succeed in the broader terrorism fight, yet just 44 percent said military action there has been successful, down from 70 percent in 2002.
"I'd say you have to get 'em. That's where the terrorists are hidden," said Mike Burns, a labor union executive who remains worried about the high costs of twin wars. "That's a NATO mission, too."
Zwilling, a 173rd Airborne paratrooper, had been in Afghanistan longer than a year and was due to return to his base in Italy this week. He had already bought a plane ticket to Cancun to celebrate.
When he learned of the mission to build a remote outpost for arriving troops, he fretted in a phone call and e-mails to his father that American troops and their Afghan partners would be outgunned. He predicted "a bloodbath," according to his uncle Gary Zwilling, a Vietnam veteran.
"I don't want to say 'frightened.' I want to say 'hesitant,' because he wasn't afraid of anything. They knew there was going to be major trouble," Zwilling said as friends filed into a funeral home here.
"I just wish we could finish this. I want this to stop. You don't have to keep sending young boys off to die," said Zwilling. He describes himself as "conservative and pro-military" and considers his nephew's death avoidable. "I know mistakes are made. War is not a science. But they've got to keep from making the mistakes."
His own view is that more U.S. troops should go to Afghanistan and, if necessary, neighboring Pakistan, to chase enemy insurgents: "Follow them in there and take care of it."
Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.), recently back from Afghanistan, senses a "realization" among his constituents that Afghanistan is "a festering place, and more and more is where we need to focus our attention."
"People are weary of war in general and the high human and financial costs," Carnahan said. "But I think people more and more see the distinction, because that's where the 9/11 attacks were organized from."
Kurt Zwilling spoke not of greater causes but of his lost son at Wednesday's memorial service, where Gunnar was remembered by one aunt as "dark-eyed little hell-raiser" and blessed by another who said the angels "now have better music and are better armed."
As his surviving son, Alex, an airman serving in Iraq, draped a uniformed arm over his shoulders, Zwilling told of the last time he saw Gunnar, home on leave.
"He just said to me, 'I would like to tell you something, Dad.' He said, 'If something happens to me, I want you all to go on. I want you to live a happy, long life.' And he looked at me and he said, 'You remember this.'
"He said, 'My last thoughts before I die will be of you.'
"And he kissed me. He hugged me and he turned around and walked onto the plane."
Zwilling said he felt "honored, honored," to be father of Gunnar, who was awarded the Bronze Star yesterday. Long after life for so many others has moved on, he said, the family will be left "to pick up the pieces of our shattered hearts and the unquenchable thirst for the love of our lives."
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling in Washington contributed to this report.
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Plot to divide the Taliban foiled
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / July 23, 2008
KARACHI - Along with the Taliban's ongoing progress in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has strengthened its position in Pakistan's tribal areas, reinforced by a steady stream of new recruits from other countries and an expansion of its networks among local tribes.
The situation reached a point where the Pakistani security agencies, in connivance with the Saudi establishment, felt they had to act. They hatched a plot to establish a proxy network in a newly formed Taliban group that rivals the anti-state al-Qaeda franchise of Baitullah Mehsud's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban.
Al-Qaeda was wise to the ploy, though, and the proxies were last Friday wiped out before they could even gain a toehold.
A senior Pakistani militant affiliated with al-Qaeda's setup told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, "Pakistan and the Saudi establishment tried to create a conspiracy, taking advantage of some tribal feuds between Taliban commanders coming from [tribal] Wazir and Mehsud backgrounds, and planted their proxy network to hijack the whole Taliban movement.
"But on Friday there was a clash in Mohmand Agency in which Taliban commanders close to Baitullah Mehsud terminated the leadership [of the proxies], including Shah Khalid, the local leader of the pro-government Taliban. The move to hijack the Taliban movement vanished into smoke," the militant said.
At least 15 people, including Khalid, the chief of a militant outfit known as the "Shah group", and his deputy, Qari Abdullah, were killed in the fighting. (State-run PTV, however, reported that Khalid had been killed after surrendering to militants loyal to Mehsud.)
Khalid's group had previously been involved only in fighting United States-led forces in Afghanistan and was not interested in local Pakistani affairs. But it recently became a part of a newly formed group headed by North Waziristan's Wazir tribal commander, Gul Bahadur, to rival al-Qaeda's franchise - Mehsud's network.
The roots of the group's formation were originally the result of ethnic differences between the Wazir tribe and the Mehsud tribe, but Pakistani security agencies took full advantage of the situation and encouraged known Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) contacts in the Taliban, such as Haji Nazir from South Waziristan and Haji Namdar from the Khyber Agency, beside Khalid from Mohmand Agency, to be a part of this new Shah group.
Mehsud is now on the offensive, all too aware of the establishment's schemes to undermine him and al-Qaeda.
Since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Pakistan has tried to drive al-Qaeda from the seat of the ideological throne of the Afghan resistance against Western armies by encouraging local Afghan commanders to structure the resistance on tribal lines.
In the broader picture, Pakistan envisaged this would improve the chances of reconciliation between the tribal movement and the Western armies, and the tribals would eventually be tolerated as the rulers of Afghanistan. Pakistan's connections would in the process remain intact in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda would be alienated.
Tribal tribulations
The story of the current infighting in the Taliban starts in the labyrinth of the regional war theater with the emergence of one Aminullah Peshawari, a well-respected Salafi academic whose influence spread from the Pakistani city of Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), the tribal areas of Mohmand and Bajaur to the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan.
Aminullah was a known anti-establishment figure and used to meet Osama bin Laden, but he was neither a militant nor operated any militant group. He was a credible anti-American voice in the region.
After the US invasion of Afghanistan and the defeat of the Taliban, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation started operations in Pakistan against al-Qaeda's sympathizers. The Pakistani security apparatus was aware that it had to play its cards very cleverly in its newfound role as a partner in the "war on terror". Pakistani officials thus approached Aminullah and warned him of possible arrest and of being sent to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The noose was tightened so much that the respected Salafi academic was left with no choice but to blindly follow the footsteps of the Pakistani security agencies, which were desperate that he announce his support for the Laskhar-i-Taiba's commander in Mohmand Agency, Shah Khalid.
Previously, Khalid's group had been banned from operating inside Afghanistan because of his closeness with the Pakistani security agencies. Aminullah's support allowed Khalid to operate in the region freely. Both Aminullah and Khalid were now on the payroll of the ISI and Saudi intelligence.
Aminullah moved around with armed guards and a string of four-wheel drive vehicles in the city of Peshawar. The same protocol was given to Khalid. These sort of allowances and the money helped their networks thrive and they boasted of several successful operations in Afghanistan.
This month, North Waziristan's Gul Bahadur made public his differences with Baitullah Mehsud and summoned a meeting at which he (Gul) was appointed as the chief of Pakistani Taliban. Khalid emerged as one of Gul's main followers.
Other local Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders, however, suspected that Khalid had links to the state apparatus. A respected Taliban deputy commander in Nooristan province in Afghanistan and Kunar province's Mufti Yousuf advised Khalid to submit to the local discipline of the Taliban instead of operating a separate jihadi network. The advice went unheeded. As a result, tension mounted between Khalid and Omar Khalid, alias Abdul Wali, the regional commander installed by the Taliban.
As for Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan, Baitullah Mehsud, the al-Qaeda franchise, did not want to challenge him as he is a grandson of the legendary anti-British resistance fighter, Faqir of Ipi, and they were not sure he was an ISI proxy.
However, Baitullah Mehsud suspected a few ISI-backed Taliban commanders in the Pakistani tribal areas would aim to take advantage of his and Gul Bahadur's differences, and Shah Khalid was one of them, in addition to Haji Nazeer of South Waziristan and Haji Namdar of Khyber Agency.
So the decision was taken to confront the pure proxies of the ISI, Khalid being the first. He was advised by Omar Khalid to leave the area at once. Khalid agreed, and one of his comrades, Haji Namdar from Khyber Agency, provided him with a base in the agency. But last Tuesday, one of Khalid's men killed a deputy of Omar Khalid's group.
This situation in the most important strategic backyard of the Taliban, which guarantees them access to Nooristan and Kunar provinces across the border, was of major concern to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who also wanted to clarify just who the ISI's contacts were.
Mullah Omar assigned two of the Taliban's most respected regional commanders to intervene. They were Ustad Yasir of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and Pakistan's Khyber Agency, and Qari Ziaur Rahman of the Afghan provinces of Nooristan and Kunar and the Pakistani agencies of Mohmand and Bajaur.
These commanders arrived in Mohmand Agency on Friday, but on that day the Taliban's local commander had already begun fighting Khalid, conclusively beating him and capturing his network's arsenal and assets.
As a follow up, Mullah Omar's delegates, including Ustad Yasir and Qari Ziaur Rahman, issued a strict warning that such intra-Taliban bloodletting was not acceptable and that in the future all fighters would work under one umbrella with no stand-alone activities tolerated. This is a clear message to the rivals of Baitullah.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani government has tried to play the killing of Khalid and his fellow jihadis to its advantage. The bodies were taken to Peshawar in a procession arranged by various Salafi organizations. The highest political figure of a Salafi political party to have received direct patronage from Riyadh, Allama Sajid Mir, attended prayers in Peshawar and held a press conference in which he maintained that the majority of the Taliban were deviants, terminology generally used by the Saudi religious apparatus against al-Qaeda.
The Pakistani national press played up the incident under banner headlines of discord among the supporters of the Afghan battle against coalition forces.
Baitullah Mehsud hit back by announcing a deadline for NWFP's secular and liberal government, which signed a peace deal with the Taliban, to resign within five days or face the consequences. But at the same time the Taliban resumed operations in NWFP - a clear aggressive gesture against the state's writ.
The Taliban and al-Qaeda have come out of this sideshow in the tribal areas as strong as ever, and more recruits keep pouring in.
The Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan is viewed by global militants as a part of the promised battles of Khurasan (ancient Khurasan comprising mostly Afghanistan, the Pakistani tribal areas and parts of Iran), hinted at in the Prophet Mohammad's sayings concerning the End of Time battles.
It is believed the militants of Khurasan will eventually win this battle and then go to the Middle East (the Land of Two Rivers is said to be Iraq and Syria) to support the armies of the promised Mehdi to fight against the anti-Christ in Palestine. Based on this theory, jihadi websites are calling on Muslims to support the Afghan jihad instead of going to Iraq.
But the revival of al-Qaeda in the Pakistan region will provide a new lifeline for the Iraqi resistance as newly trained fighters from Afghanistan can go to Iraq when fighting slows in the winter months in Afghanistan.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
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'Special Report' Panel on Barack Obama's Trip to Afghanistan and Iraq
FOXNews Tuesday, July 22, 2008
This is a rush transcript of "Special Report With Brit Hume" from July 21, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan, and I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And you can't choose to lose a war in Iraq, in my view, in order to win in Afghanistan. Of course we have problems in Afghanistan, and as we succeed in Iraq there will be troops available to go to Afghanistan.
BIRT HUME, HOST: So you see the debate joined between John McCain and Barack Obama, Obama finding his experience in Afghanistan reinforcing, apparently his view that Afghanistan must be the point of focus and not Iraq, McCain saying you can't lose one to win the other.
Some thoughts on this news from Fred Barnes, the executive editor of The Weekly Standard; Jeff Birnbaum, columnist of The Washington Post, and the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer — FOX News contributors all.
While we have been on the air here, Obama has said in an interview with ABC News that he does not change his view of the surge, that it was wise for him to oppose it. He is not, apparently, disputing that the surge has succeeded militarily.
So what about all of this, what about the trip, Fred?
FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, there are two things to say about it. One is this business about the surge.
To start with, Barack Obama has acknowledged the gains that have been made there militarily and otherwise, although he said that there needs to be more done politically, which everybody would agree with. But somehow the surge is not the cause of that, and he would vote against it? That just doesn't make any sense.
I think he's going to have trouble if he maintains that position. Obviously, the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy that has been put in place by General Petraeus is the cause of the military gains and, ultimately, the political gains. That's one plus one equals two.
So I don't think he can maintain that, anymore than he can maintain this idea of turning what is basically a Democratic talking point that Afghanistan is more important than Iraq into a piece of high strategic policy. That's crazy.
Look, in the remote Afghanistan, in the mountains of Pakistan, if you could pick a place in the world where you would like to have Al-Qaeda stuck, that's it. And yet he says this is more important than Iraq, a country that is on the verge of becoming a stable Arab democracy in the heart of the Middle East, an oil rich country? That's crazy.
That's the first part. The second part in this trip so far, in making himself look like a world leader, he's done pretty well. It looks good, but what he says is ultimately going to get him into trouble.
JEFF BIRNBAUM, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: I don't know. I think that he has a remarkable convergence here on policy. Prime Minister Maliki appears to be moving in Obama's direction, or Obama in Maliki's direction last week.
Clearly, there are time frames that Maliki and President Bush are coming close to, goals of getting troops out, and Maliki told Der Spiegel, the German magazine, that he likes the idea of 16 months, with some changes, I think is how the translation read.
HUME: Some room for changes.
BIRNBAUM: Some room for changes, that's right.
So I think this was a very special gift to the Obama visit and the Obama campaign. We haven't heard from Maliki himself, even though Obama and Maliki did speak just today, I think.
HUME: Then the Iraqi government was saying today through some spokesman that the year 2010 looked like a reasonable-that's not inconsistent with what Obama said.
BIRNBAUM: Not inconsistent-very close.
HUME: So where does that leave McCain, and where does that leave policy, Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: It really hurts McCain and it really helps Obama. This was a stroke of luck or design.
Maliki's playing a really interesting game. He basically cast his vote in favor of Obama. And you have to ask yourself why. I think it's because he thinks that the war strategically is won. The threat to Iraq as a stable state and his government's existence is over. It was in question, in jeopardy two years ago and the surge has worked.
Even though there will be other attacks —
HUME: Isn't it the case, too, Charles, that Maliki has consistently overrated the ability of his military to do things, and it had been an issue between him and the Bush administration in the past? They have had to bring him along.
KRAUTHAMMER: That is true. He overestimates his strength, which I think is an error.
But, look, I'm trying to understand how he looks at it. He thinks he is stronger than perhaps he is, let's just assume that. But he thinks he is going to be in power, and the threats to the existence of his state are essentially over.
So now he is asking who do I want to be on the other side negotiating with me a status of forces agreement, a McCain or an Obama? A McCain who sees an American presence as equivalent of what we have in Japan or Korea or Germany, which means America stay. It uses its influence. It has freedom of action and projects its power by staying in the area, staying in Iraq.
Now, he probably would prefer an America that is not that important, involved, active in his country. And that's what he gets out of Obama.
Obama wants to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. He does not understand as McCain does that there is a great strategic advantage in having an alliance, a relationship with Iraq in which, for example, you might have American air bases deterring Iran, being a listening post, and relieving our need to use our naval assets in the region and using them elsewhere.
So he looks at this in a larger perspective. And Maliki, as an Iraqi nationalist, wants to have a president who wants less. And that's why I think he is endorsing Obama.
BIRNBAUM: I don't think Obama is ruling out some sort of military presence, though much smaller, in Iraq.
(CROSSTALK)
BIRNBAUM: But if you have the prime minister of the country defining victory basically, how do you have us defining victory a different way? I think it's a difficult question.
BARNES: I couldn't agree with you more. Maliki has given gift.
But, on the other hand, look at some of the things that Obama is saying. That's what — I was criticizing something completely different from that. Clearly he did, and that's why I say politically and just appearing. And by appearances, Obama has gone away so far.
He was invited in to see Maliki. He sits in the head of state seat right by Maliki where Bush would sit. He's just a candidate.
KRAUTHAMMER: He had a good day.
BARNES: He did.
HUME: Saturday was the carrot, today was the stick, or was it? Secretary Rice is warning the Iranians to get serious about nuclear concessions. We'll talk about carrots and sticks in Iran, and all that, next.
HUME: Well, we were going to discuss the goings on with Iran over the weekend, but during the break we decided we ought to talk about two things-one, what Barack Obama said this evening about the surge, and also what The New York Times and John McCain had to do with each other over an article by McCain submitted to The Times.
First, Barack Obama comments. He was asked by ABC News tonight, and I quote from the text of the interview "If you had it to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?" Obama- "No, because keep in mind that question-"
"You wouldn't?"
"Keep in mind these type of hypotheticals. It's very difficult to know. Hindsight is 20/20." Later, "But I think that what I'm absolutely convinced of is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one I just disagreed with."
Barack Obama on why he would still vote against the surge and believed it was the right thing to do.
What about that, Charles?
KRAUTHAMMER: That's 100 percent gibberish. I have heard it try to fill airspace, but that is a failure at filling airspace, and all of us have tried that at times.
That sentence doesn't start anywhere and doesn't end anywhere. There's no actual answer, because, in fact, he made a mistake on the surge. That is not an opinion, it is a fact that the surge has worked. Everybody has agreed it has worked, and he was against it.
HUME: He said at the time he gave the reasons that it wouldn't solve the political problems, that it was straining our military.
BARNES: It would increase sectarian violence rather than quell it.
HUME: What he says now is the reason was further strains on the military, and it didn't solve the political problems. What he said at the time, though, was that it wouldn't work militarily.
BARNES: It wouldn't work militarily, and would make things worse, that sectarian violence would get worse.
Look, there is a perfectly good answer here that I think he could give. Why didn't he just say-look, I voted against it, and I still have qualms about it, but, you know, it has worked. Violence is gone. There is great movement on the political side.
There needs to be more political unification, but I'm glad to see it. And in fact, what I think has happened in Iraq means that my plan for removing almost all American troops and at least all combat in 16 months works-
HUME: Don't you think David Axelrod, the Obama campaign manager, should call Fred Barnes?
BARNES: I know, but for some reason Barack Obama can never admit that he is wrong. He quits public financing, and he says he going to the real public financing.
HUME: I know.
Now, The New York Times has sent back for revisions a proposed John McCain op-ed piece contribution that comes after one that was published by Barack Obama in which Barack Obama set forth his policy on Iraq. In doing so, The Times said what, Jeff?
BIRNBAUM: The Times said that they would very much like to publish a response, but what was sent in needs to be rewritten because it needs to be, essentially, less an attack on Obama and more about McCain's proposals in Iraq that includes actual-"timetables" is the word that's included there — and a how-
HUME: For a withdrawal?
BIRNBAUM: For a withdrawal, and how victory can be achieved there.
In effect, The New York Times is asking McCain to respond to Obama's position on Iraq on Obama's terms, and present something that he, McCain, opposes, which is timetables, which is a very surprising response.
May it's just maybe loosely written. It's not unusual at all to ask for revisions of op-ed pieces. But the use of "timetables," the word by The New York Time's response, I think is a gift to the McCain campaign, because they can say the liberal New York Times is shutting the door on a legitimate response from us.
KRAUTHAMMER: Look, if a paper offers space to a presidential candidate, and there are only two left, it should offer equal space to the other, and it shouldn't be dictating what's written.
Everybody knows when you see an op-ed written by a senator or a presidential candidate, he didn't actually write it. It's the staff, and Obama has a staff, apparently, of 400 working on foreign policy. He's got his own state department that he lugs around with him wherever he goes.
So this is a committee report, and it's his position, you know, massaged and edited, and McCain deserves the right to have a response in the way he wants to. It's absurd to demand that it be along Democratic guidelines.
HUME: So this will go down as the day that Maliki gave Obama a gift and the editors of The New York Times gave McCain a gift.
BARNES: The Maliki's gift's better, though.
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AFGHANISTAN: Insurgency, insecurity threaten health progress
KABUL, 23 July 2008 (IRIN) - Up to 100,000 people have been deprived of access to basic health services in different parts of Afghanistan over the past four months, due largely to worsening insecurity, with attacks on health workers and health centres, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said.
The new figure is in addition to the over 300,000 people who last year lost access to primary health facilities, mostly in the volatile south and southeast.
"Currently some 400,000 people in the country do not have access to basic health services because of attacks on health personnel and health centres, and also due to lack of security for health workers," Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the MoPH, told IRIN in Kabul on 23 July.
About 32 health centres were torched, destroyed and/or closed down due to insecurity in 2007. Over the past four months 19 health facilities have been shut down or attacked, MoPH said.
Over 50 health centres inactive
"At present more than 50 health centres are inactive; some were torched or destroyed, others remain shut because of direct threats to health workers," Fahim said.
Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Every hour at least two Afghan women die from obstetric complications and lack of health services. At least 125 infants die in every 1,000 live births, and one in every five children die from mostly preventable diseases before their fifth birthday, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the MoPH reported in 2008.
These figures may not look good, but they still reflect marked progress in a country where until 2002 only 9 percent of the population had access to health services and 165 infants were dying in every 1,000 live births, according to MoPH.
After over two decades of conflict, Afghanistan began rebuilding its health sector almost from scratch in 2002, with donor funding and technical support.
"The Infant mortality rate has reduced by 26 percent and now 80,000 fewer infants are dying each year compared to during Taliban rule," the World Bank said in a statement on 20 July.
Hard-won achievements at risk
But intensifying armed conflict and continued attacks on health workers have not only made further progress difficult, but also put the nation's hard-won health achievements at serious risk.
"Our progress in reducing maternal and infant mortality has been threatened," Fahim said, adding that three polio cases had been reported in the largely inaccessible southern provinces in 2008.
The Afghanistan National Development Strategy [http://www.ands.gov.af/] envisions that maternal and infant morality rates go down by 75 percent by 2020, and 90 percent of the country's estimated 26.6 million people should have access to basic health services by 2010.
"We call on the Taliban to respect the neutrality of health services and stop attacking health workers and health centres," Abdullah Fahim said.
"We also call on the government to improve security and ensure the safety and protection of health workers," he added.
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AFGHANISTAN: New campaign to tackle stigma and misconceptions
KABUL, 23 July 2008 (IRIN) - The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, and Constella Futures, a US-based research organisation, have been awarded contracts to implement Afghanistan's first major HIV/AIDS projects in four cities, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) told IRIN/PlusNews.
The two projects, costing about US$3 million, are designed to improve advocacy and communication on HIV/AIDS, help tackle widespread stigma, identify policy gaps and provide recommendations for timely interventions to prevent the spread of the virus.
"The Johns Hopkins University will conduct three integrated, biological and behavioural surveys until 2010, which will enable us to draw up appropriate policy and effectively design and implement preventive measures," said Saif-ur-Rehman, director of the national HIV/AIDS control programme in the capital, Kabul.
Afghanistan launched its national HIV/AIDS programme in 2003 and has since received $23 million funding from various international donors. The health ministry, which runs the national HIV/AIDS control programme, has reported that thousands of people may be living with HIV/AIDS, but only 436 positive cases have been recorded over the past three years.
Tackling stigma
More than half the estimated population of 26.6 million are younger than 23 years, but fewer than 20 people per day visit Afghanistan's six HIV/AIDS testing centres, and most of those are people who wish to travel abroad and require health certificates, Rehman said.
The very high level of stigma associated with HIV/AIDS in this conservative society means Afghans do not voluntarily visit test centres, health officials conceded. No HIV-positive person has ever publicly disclosed his status.
During a parliamentary debate over the HIV/AIDS programme budget and activities in March 2008, several MPs in the lower house of the National Assembly reportedly labelled people living with HIV/AIDS as "criminals and adulterers who deserve death".
"Some conservative MPs, and even government officials, believe that people with HIV/AIDS should not be given health services ... they say, 'let these sinners die'," said one official who did not wish to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
However, the MoPH said it was working hard to build up support for the country's HIV/AIDS control efforts among decision-makers and political leaders. "We try to spread the message that people living with HIV/AIDS are not criminals and should not be discriminated against," Rehman said.
A common misperception
"There is a common misperception that HIV/AIDS results solely from illegitimate sexual relationships," said Rehman.
Yet HIV prevalence among injecting drug users is three percent compared to zero percent among sex workers, according to MoPH statistics.
A survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2005 showed there were 920,000 drug users, including injecting drug users, in Afghanistan, which produced over 90 percent of the illicit drugs consumed worldwide in 2007.
Opium cultivation and heroin production has rapidly increased over the past three years, and so has the number of domestic drug users. Health experts have warned that this is the group most vulnerable to HIV infection.
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Sky-high wheat prices have Afghan farmers crowing it's better than opium
Tue Jul 22, 6:02 PM By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press
ZAKER SHARIF, Afghanistan - It's being heralded as a first by old Afghan farmers who swear they've never seen such a windfall.
They are reporting record profits from a crop that does not kill anyone, does not fund insurgents and does not place them at risk of having their farm destroyed by the state.
In short, this crop is everything that the opium poppy is not.
Raz Mohammad strokes his gargantuan grey beard and sings the praises of his miracle crop: wheat.
He says he cannot recall a time when the staple grain competed with the opiate flower as a money-maker - until this year.
"I am 70 years old," says the lifelong farmer. "I have never seen this, wheat at this price."
While the country's poorest consumers are suffering from the global spike in grain prices, the inflationary trend is being heralded as a possible solution to Afghanistan's poppy-growing addiction.
Several farmers interviewed near Kandahar city all described record profits from this year's wheat harvest.
Mohammad says he's even received jealous phone calls from relatives who grow poppies in neighbouring Helmand province, calls that would have been unimaginable a year ago.
"They say, 'We missed our chance this year'," Mohammad says.
"They say, 'Next year, we will also grow wheat. We will not grow opium'."
Statistics provided by the United Nations World Food Program indicate that farmers received up to 40 times more income for poppy over wheat in 2003.
Such towering profits in such a destitute country help explain why Afghanistan produces 90 per cent of the world's heroin, and why poppies account for a staggering half of the national economy.
But at a tribal meeting in a town lined with ancient mud-walled compounds, turban-clad elders crouch around a battered old calculator and determine that they've now made more from cereals.
Another farmer, Sher Muhammad, says he's selling wheat at five times last year's price.
Statistics from Kandahar's Department of Agriculture indicate that wheat in Kandahar province sells for almost triple last year's rate and now goes for about 60 Canadian cents a kilogram.
Kandahar's director of agriculture concedes it would be a stretch to call wheat more lucrative than the crop that produces two of the world's most devastating drugs: opium and heroin.
Abdul Hai Nemati estimates that a small half-acre plot of land would yield 500 kilos of wheat worth $285 this year. The same-sized farm would produce 12 kilos of poppy resin worth $571.
But he notes that the poppy holds drawbacks that can wipe out its cash advantage.
It is far more complicated to cultivate, and hiring outside help cuts into a farmer's profits. And although the percentage of farms destroyed by authorities is miniscule, the risk of eradication is always there.
"Poppies are expensive - which is why people grow them," Nemati said. "But there are also a lot of risks."
A United Nations official warned against any triumphalism in the fight against the dreaded poppy.
She notes a somber reason for the high cost of wheat: it's been a disastrous year for production and there are shortages.
Drought and locust plagues have driven down output by 36 per cent this year, says Susana Rico, Afghan director for the UN World Food Program. For farmers with poor irrigation, the drop has been twice as bad.
Last year, the country produced 90 per cent of its food needs, Rico said. The total this year is only 66 per cent. Malnutrition is a chronic problem in this country and now it's even worse than usual, she said.
"It's a horrible year for Afghanistan," Rico said.
"A few people are making a lot more money, particularly those who have irrigated land. For those who rely on rain-fed production, the output has been devastatingly low."
But the work of one Canadian agency might explain why so many farmers in Zaker Sharif are smiling.
The government-funded Development Works group has made irrigation one of its key projects in the Dand district, on the footsteps of Kandahar city.
It has built a bakery, a pharmacy and a local market as part of an intense economic-development effort focused on a small area that has seen relative peace.
Earlier this year, the group hired 500 local workers to clear out 65 kilometres worth of canals that had been clogged and ruined by decades of war and neglect.
The results were almost instantaneous.
Within weeks, patches of land that had been dusty and parched were sprouting patches of green.
Development Works director Drew Gilmour says it cost only $65,000 to double the amount of arable land in the area to 3,000 hectares. Thousands of farmers and their families are now benefitting.
With improved farming practices, he says, the poppy trade can be defeated elsewhere in Afghanistan.
"Opium is a vulnerable industry," Gilmour said.
"Take away the illegality, take away the immorality, the fact is that farmers are not making money from it.
"There are many other industries - grapes, pomegranates, saffron, even wheat, lowly wheat - that can make them more money."
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Bin Laden driver 'knew 9/11 aim'
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 09:54 UK BBC News
Osama Bin Laden's former driver was so close to al-Qaeda's leaders he knew the target of the fourth hijacked plane on 11 September, prosecutors have alleged.
They were speaking as the first war crimes trial got under way at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay.
Yemeni national Salim Hamdan is accused of conspiracy and supporting terrorism, and faces life in prison if convicted.
He has pleaded not guilty and his defence team say he worked for wages, not to wage war, on America.
Mr Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001, is the first prisoner to be tried by the US for war crimes since World War II.
Prosecutors told the six-member jury at the military tribunal in Guantanamo that Mr Hamdan was aware of the impending attacks on the US in September 2001.
Navy Lt Cdr Timothy Stone said Mr Hamdan had heard Bin Laden say that the fourth plane was aiming for "the dome", an apparent reference to the Capitol building in Washington DC.
"Virtually no-one knew the intended target but the accused knew," he said.
The plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field as passengers overpowered the hijackers.
"You will not see evidence from the government that the accused ever fired a shot," Lt Cdr Stone told the tribunal.
"But what you will see is testimony regarding the accused's role in al-Qaeda, how he came to be a member of al-Qaeda and how he helped, facilitated and provided material support for that organisation."
The first prosecution witness, a US military officer who was present when Mr Hamdan was captured at a roadblock, said the accused was driving a car that contained two surface-to-air missiles and a piece of paper signed by the leader of the Taleban.
On cross-examination, the officer, identified as Sgt Maj "A" , said he could not be sure Mr Hamdan was the driver of the vehicle.
Legal 'black hole'
Mr Hamdan's lawyers, who unsuccessfully challenged the right of the military tribunal to try him, argued that he was a worker for Bin Laden and did not share the al-Qaeda leader's extremist views.
"He worked for wages - he didn't wage attacks on America," said Harry Schneider, one of the civilian defence lawyers. "He had a job because he had to earn a living, not because he had a jihad against America."
Mr Hamdan has acknowledged working for Bin Laden in Afghanistan from 1997 to 2001 for $200 (£99) a month, but denies being part of al-Qaeda or taking part in any attacks.
The trial judge, Navy Captain Keith Allred, ruled on Monday that some of the statements obtained by interrogators while Mr Hamdan was still in Afghanistan could not be used as evidence.
Mr Hamdan's defence lawyers have argued that the statements were tainted by what have been called "coercive techniques", and he was not advised of his right against self-incrimination.
About 270 suspects remain in detention in Guantanamo Bay.
Among the dozens of other inmates due to be tried there in the coming months are men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks.
Human rights campaigners have accused the court of operating in a legal black hole and they and the other accused will be watching the proceedings closely, correspondents say.
The verdict will require a two-thirds majority.
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Civilian Risks Curbing Strikes in Afghan War
The New York Times - Home By THOM SHANKER July 23, 2008
Dawn was breaking over Afghanistan one day this month as Air Force surveillance planes locked in on a top-ranking insurgent commander as he traveled in secret around Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban.
But as attack aircraft were summoned overhead to strike, according to a recounting of the mission by Air Force commanders, the Taliban leader entered a building. Intelligence specialists scrambled to determine whether civilians were inside. Weapons experts calculated what bomb could destroy the structure with the least damage.
It had taken the American military many days to identify, track and target the senior Taliban officer. But the risk of civilian deaths was deemed too high. Air Force commanders, working with military lawyers, aborted the mission. The Taliban leader escaped.
“We miss the opportunity, but the beauty of what we do is we will get them eventually,” said Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, commander of American and allied air forces in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. “We will continue to track them. Eventually, we will get to the point where we can achieve — within the constraints of which we operate, which by the way the enemy does not operate under — and we will get them.”
In interviews at the air operations headquarters in Southwest Asia, American and allied commanders said that even as orders for air attacks in Afghanistan had increased significantly this year, their ability to strike top insurgent leaders from the air was severely restricted by rules intended to minimize civilian casualties.
The rules that govern dropping bombs and firing missiles are far more restrictive now in Afghanistan than in Iraq, senior Pentagon and military officials say.
The rules of engagement were reviewed and tightened in 2007 after a spate of civilian casualties, under Gen. Dan K. McNeill, then the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, and reviewed and revised again in April, officials said.
American commanders acknowledge that civilian casualties undermine support for the NATO-led stability mission exactly at a time when the Taliban is experiencing a potent resurgence across the country. They say Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, routinely complain about civilian deaths in meetings with Americans.
Military officers also acknowledge that their control over airstrikes is reduced when crews scramble to help NATO contingents under attack.
But air commanders say they have a commitment to support ground forces in trouble. Only last weekend, nine Afghan police officers were killed in western Afghanistan when Afghan and United States forces called in airstrikes on the officers, thinking they were militants.
According to the United Nations, 698 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year, compared with 430 in the same period last year. The United Nations report said nearly two-thirds of the deaths this year resulted from actions by the Taliban and other insurgents. The remainder were attributed to actions by Afghan government, American or allied forces.
In interviews at the air base, American and allied commanders expressed frustration about the obstacles they faced. They described what they said were missed opportunities and told how Taliban leaders, who live and operate among the population, have learned to exploit the restrictions.
“There are frustrations, without a doubt,” said a British officer, Air Commodore Simon Dobb, director of the combined air operations center. “But we understand what Clausewitz said, that war is an extension of policy. We are acutely aware of the sensitivities toward collateral damage,” the military term for civilians killed or wounded.
A reporter for The New York Times was given access to the Combined Air and Space Operations Center under a written agreement that neither the name of the base nor its location be published, in deference to the host nation’s concerns.
Over recent weeks, a wave of deadly Taliban attacks illustrated just how thinly American and NATO troops were stretched across Afghanistan, prompting Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to pledge to find additional forces for the mission.
In the meantime, orders for airstrikes in Afghanistan have increased in recent months, as American and allied warplanes attack Taliban hide-outs and swoop in to assist allied and Afghan forces under fire.
According to statistics compiled by the air operations center, during the first six months of this year, 1,853 munitions were dropped by air over Afghanistan — more than twice the 754 dropped in Iraq during the same period.
In June alone, 646 bombs and missiles were used in Afghanistan, the second highest monthly total since the end of major combat operations in 2002.
Air Force lawyers vet all the airstrikes approved by the operational air commanders. Senior Pentagon officials said the more stringent rules of engagement now in effect for Afghanistan specified the acceptable levels of risk to civilians for a priority attack. They said these more stringent rules required a significantly lower risk of civilian casualties than was acceptable in Iraq.
Missions in Afghanistan that are judged vital but highly risky to civilians may now require approval by the overall regional commander and, in some instances, even by the defense secretary himself, according to Pentagon and military officials.
“In their deliberate targeting, the Air Force has all but eliminated civilian casualties in Afghanistan,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch. “They have very effective collateral damage mitigation procedures.”
The greater risk of civilian casualties, Mr. Garlasco said, comes in unplanned targeting, when American and allied troops come under attack unexpectedly and call for airstrikes for urgent help.
“When this immediate targeting needs to be done, an aircraft may not have the correct weapon for that target,” Mr. Garlasco said. “The aircraft may be rerouted to assist troops in a hard fight, and there is not time to do the collateral damage modeling they would want to do. In an attempt to help troops on the ground caught up in the fight, there have been situations where they have killed civilians.”
At the air operations center, targeting specialists spend hours before each mission measuring distances from the potential strike zone to the nearest house, building, mosque, school or hospital.
Vast numbers of public, religious and historic sites make up a computer database of no-strike zones. Special goggles are worn while reviewing digital images compiled from surveillance aircraft and satellites to give a detailed, three-dimensional view of the target area.
The bombs themselves are chosen carefully and sometimes modified. Some designed for air burst are instead programmed with a delayed fuse to bury themselves before exploding, thus reducing the blast range. One sort of bomb has even been loaded with less explosive, filled instead with concrete, to cause great damage where it hits but no farther.
“We explicitly guarantee extra benefits to civilians,” said Col. Gary Brown, the top military lawyer at the air operations center. Lawyers like Colonel Brown check that proposed operations conform to a complex body of military law, including the Geneva Conventions, acts of Congress and court decisions.
Although Air Force officials acknowledge that unintended civilian casualties have been inflicted, Colonel Brown also said the Taliban and Al Qaeda regularly fabricate reports of civilian deaths. He and other officers at the operations center say every mission has two dimensions: the fight itself and the information fight after that fight.
“The Taliban have a very efficient and very effective political machine,” Colonel Brown said.
Though target planners were frustrated by the inability to carry out the mission against the Taliban leader who took refuge in the building, another mission just days before, overnight on July 8, was carried out with the goal of eliminating another Taliban commander on the list of “high-value targets” — even though a last-minute change was ordered to prevent the loss of civilian life.
An array of surveillance vehicles, some remotely piloted, had tracked the Taliban leader around the clock for days, establishing what intelligence circles call “a pattern of life.”
When the Taliban leader and his followers camped for the night on the northwest outskirts of Kandahar, a team of targeting and weapons specialists at the combined air operations center went to work, scanning aerial photographs to gauge the distance to nearby structures and analyzing the blast radius of bombs and missiles aboard aircraft overhead.
It turned out that houses and other buildings were inside the blast range of those munitions, so the Air Force deployed an A-10 Thunderbolt. Its armor-piercing shells were designed for destroying Soviet tanks — but the aircraft can also strike with great accuracy without a large blast area.
The A-10 strafed the sleeping Taliban camp with cannon fire. According to later reports, buildings nearby went undamaged.
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Afghan president orders investigation of gang rapes
Jul 23, 2008, 10:26 GMT Monsters and Critics.com
Kabul - Afghan President Hamed Karzai ordered an investigation into the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl in northern Sar-e-Pul province, a statement said Wednesday.
Five armed men reportedly forced their way a house, beat the family members and raped the girl, the president's office said.
'The president called it 'villainy and crime against humanity,' and asked the interior minister and deputy head of the Afghan intelligence department to investigate and arrest those involved in the case,' the statement said.
Karzai also asked the authorities to submit a report on another similar case that occurred in the same province.
Lal Gul, chairman of the Afghan Human Rights Organization, blamed warlords based in northern provinces.
'Earlier, some armed men kidnapped a teenaged girl, raped her and kept her in custody for more than two weeks, but still the criminals are not punished,' he said.
He said those involved in kidnapping and rape of teenagers in northern provinces are powerful people armed with illegal weapons.
Local administrations are often unable or unwilling to make arrests in those kinds of crimes, he said.
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Better Indo-Pak ties vital for US interest in Afghan: Obama
Sridhar Krishnaswami Press Trust of India
Washington, July 23 (PTI) Better diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan are vital for the US to succeed in its war against Taliban militants in Afghanistan, Presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama has said.
"One of the things driven home in the Afghan war is the importance of our diplomatic efforts in Pakistan, which, by the way, may include having a conversation with India.
"We should see if we can lessen some of the tensions between those two countries," the Illinois senator said while arriving in Jordan yesterday after his trip to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama said the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is making it difficult for US troops to decisively defeat the Taliban as the militants often escape by crossing the border.
"A lot of what drives, it appears, motivations on the Pakistan side of the border, still has to do with their concerns and suspicions about India," he told reporters in Amman, a transcript of which was made available to PTI.
"If we don't get a handle on that border region, we are going to continue to have problems, and Al Qaida is going to -- and their networks are going to be able to continue to project beyond that region," Obama said.
"We haven't had a conversation between the Indians and the Pakistanis that has been sustained and meaningful about how they can arrive at a more sensible arrangement between the two countries. That could relieve some of the pressure and help us go after some of these forces along the border regions," the Democratic senator said. PTI
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Thieves in National Army uniform stopped
Written by www.quqnoos.com Tuesday, 22 July 2008
4 thieves in National Army uniforms stopped during robbery, 1 caught, 3 escape
Four thieves using the uniform and vehicles of Rangers of National Army to commit armed robbery were stopped by police last night (Monday).
One was captured by police and 3 others escaped.
The head of the police Criminal Branch of Parwan Province, Abdul Khalil Azizi, told Quqnoos.com that police performed this operation last night and the arrested person was injured in the incident.
The captured accused has confessed to the police that their group was involved in stopping vehicles in Hijani Area of Salang District and extracting money from people by force.
After that the thieves moved to the Tajikan area of Jabel-u-Saraj District they were engaged by police but 3 escaped and one of them was captured by police in Chrikar city in his vehicle.
Aziz said police suffered no causalities in this incident.
On the basis of information from the captured accused, the thieves stole the captured vehicle from the 209 Corps of National Army, from Darul-Aman area of Kabul city.
He said, that this vehicle which belonged to Shaheen Corps, was taken to Darul-Aman to repair its communication system.
Officials from National Defense and Shaheen Crops have yet to comment as they are awaiting a formal report.
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6 mine workers killed by armed men in Badakhshan
Written by www.quqnoos.com Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Unidentified armed men have attacked and killed 6 mine workers in Badakhshan on Monday
Armed men attacked and killed 6 mine workers in a ruby mine in Ishkashim district of Badakhshan on Monday night.
A further 2 mine workers were wounded in the attack.
Chief of the district of Ishkashim, Said Omran has stated that the reasons for the attack are unknown at this stage but investigations are continuing.
However he added that working in these ruby mines is illegal and much of the produce of these mines are smuggled abroad without any revenues going to the government.
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Governor’s spokesman shot dead in Pakita
Written by www.quqnoos.com & PAN Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Unidentified gunmen have shot dead Yar Ghamai Khan, spokesperson of Paktia governor in his home on Monday
GARDIZ (PAN): Unidentified gunmen believed to be Taliban militants shot dead Muhammad Yar Ghamai Khan spokesman of the southeastern Paktia governor in his house on Monday night, officials said Tuesday.
Paktia governor, Dr Ikram Khpalwak, told Pajhwok Afghan News that besides abducting Khan’s brother, the militants wounded a number of female and children in the house of the late gubernatorial when breaking into spokesman house in Gardez capital of the province.
Din Muhammad Darwish, the Information and Culture department director of the province, said Khan was living in Wazo village about 16 kilometers south of the Gardez city.
The relatives of Khan confronted the assailants for two hours, he added.
The wife, sister in law and nephew of Khan had been seriously wounded in the assault, he advised.
Security forces in the area had been investigating the incident. Dr Muhammad Nadir Noori, head of the public health department director, told Pajhwok Afghan News four wounded including two children and two women were brought to the hospital.
Condition of the injured was unstable, he advised.
Zabihullah Mujahid spokesman of the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack saying they killed Ghamai Khan for resisting their fighters and had “arrested” his brother.
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Pasadena retiree fights malnutrition in Afghanistan -- with soybeans
The former Nestle nutritionist started a nonprofit that gives free seed to thousands of farmers and offers to pay for the harvest.
By William Lobdell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 21, 2008
Far from his Pasadena home, nutritionist Steven Kwon stood before Afghan government officials and agronomists in Kabul three years ago, extolling the virtues of protein-rich soybeans as a way to curb the rampant malnutrition in the war-torn nation.
The tension rose as one skeptic asked whether soybeans would generate as much money as poppies that produce opium.
"The way he asked the question was very cynical," said the 60-year-old Kwon. "And all of a sudden, the other attendees seemed to realize that soybeans may not be as lucrative as the opium poppy."
As Kwon tried to come up with a response (soybeans are roughly 35% less profitable), another Afghan angrily challenged his countryman: "When our women and children are dying every day, the only thing you can think about is how large will your profits be? Do you really love your country and your people?"
With the critic shamed, Kwon and his colleagues went on to sell the group on soybeans -- a new crop for Afghanistan. In 2005, 2 tons of seed provided by Kwon's nonprofit, Nutrition & Education International, produced 10 tons of soybeans. Over the last two years, 4,400 Afghan farmers in 15 provinces planted 80 tons of seed, resulting in a harvest of 2,000 tons.
Kwon's group provides the farmers with seeds, fertilizer and training. It also guarantees to buy the harvest. This takes away most of the farmers' risk, and most keep the soybeans as food for their families.
"He literally, single-handedly has brought soybeans to the country," said Arthur Quinn, a retired Washington, D.C., attorney and international consultant who volunteered to help Kwon. Other groups providing aid to Afghanistan "haven't focused on the basic need of trying to solve malnutrition," Quinn said.
Kwon, who worked as a nutritionist for Nestle USA for 22 years, has an ambitious goal, especially for a man whose tiny organization is headquartered in a spartan, one-room office in Pasadena. He wants to produce 300,000 tons of soybeans annually in Afghanistan, a bounty he believes will all but eliminate malnutrition in that country.
"He has a big vision," e-mailed Dr. Habib Wakeelzad, a Nutrition & Education International health officer. "He has been successful in convincing high-ranking Afghan officials about the economic and health values of soybeans. Many ministers and intellectuals are supporting this program."
But before Kwon and the soybean can become the Afghan equivalents of George Washington Carver and the peanut, they must overcome barriers posed by the country's lack of infrastructure and economic base, tribal warlords and systemic corruption.
None of it seems to overly concern Kwon, a thin, bespectacled man who uses humility and kindness as diplomatic tools.
"When you show your heart and establish a heart-to-heart relationship, then we can overcome whatever established obstacles we have -- language, race, religion, culture," Kwon said. "The Afghans understand that we are there to help them, and we appreciate them and they trust us."
Kwon's supporters marvel at his energy and relentless push to put protein into the Afghan diet. Until his retirement in March, he used his evenings, weekends and vacation time to promote the soy initiative.
Kwon's success has been due to his "direct contact with the farmers and the promise of buying what they produce, as well as few bureaucratic rules which have paralyzed government programs," e-mailed Abdul Ghafoor, senior advisor to Afghanistan's minister of agriculture.
In 2003, Kwon was asked by a friend to travel to Afghanistan and lend his expertise to help solve the country's severe malnutrition problem, which causes high mortality rates especially among women and children.
Until that point, Kwon, a naturalized U.S. citizen with a wife and two grown children, didn't have a special interest in Afghanistan. In his work at Nestle, he developed infant formula and liquid meals for hospital patients and others who couldn't eat solid foods. He earned 13 patents in his career there.
But the Afghanistan story was sickeningly familiar to him. He earned a doctorate in food biochemistry and became a nutritionist because of the starvation he had witnessed as a child in war-ravaged Korea and as a Korean soldier in Vietnam.
Before leaving for Kabul, Kwon spent evenings in his garage concocting a protein-rich powder for Afghans to use as a nutritional supplement. He enlisted his children as taste-testers for the vanilla-flavored formula and leaned on Nestle vendors to donate the ingredients.
Kwon traveled to Afghanistan laden with 500 pounds of protein powder. He carried milk-based and soy-based versions and was surprised that Afghans preferred the soy product.
And that gave him an idea: A bountiful soybean harvest could reduce the country's malnutrition problems, which stemmed largely from a lack of protein. But Kwon discovered that Afghans did not grow soybeans.
Undeterred, Kwon lobbied government officials for permission to test the viability of soybean farming. After a successful harvest in 2004, the experiment was expanded to 12 of the country's 34 provinces, and the Afghan government adopted the soy initiative as a national project.
Being officially sanctioned gave Kwon access to provincial leaders and farmers and provided protection from warlords and militia. With his new clout, Kwon and his volunteers won over thousands of farmers.
Last winter, Kwon said with a trace of pride, Afghan cooks developed more than 25 recipes for the soybean. Plus, most taste-testers preferred soy-enriched naan -- the staple bread of the country -- to the wheat-only version. Kwon said even this small change in the Afghan diet would cut down dramatically on malnutrition.
Though soybeans in Afghanistan have been relatively easy to raise, funding has not. This year, 10,000 farmers signed up to plant soybeans (mostly as a secondary crop to wheat), but Kwon's organization had enough money to provide seeds for only 25% of them.
Quinn, the international consultant, said it was frustrating to see U.S. taxpayer money spent on projects that haven't worked in Afghanistan while Kwon's nonprofit has shown such promise.
Afghan officials told Kwon that they couldn't afford to fund his project. Kwon said his nonprofit was too small to attract U.S. federal funding. Nutrition & Education International, which operates with three part-time employees, has survived on $590,000 in private donations since its inception in 2003 and projects $700,000 in contributions this year.
Last year the group established four small soy-milk processing facilities in provinces with the highest infant mortality rates. But for the project to succeed nationwide, soy-processing plants would need to be built throughout Afghanistan.
Nutrition & Education International is looking to team with private companies in Afghanistan or establish partnerships with larger nonprofits.
In the meantime, Kwon shuttles between Pasadena and Kabul (he recently left for his 16th trip there), doing whatever one man can do to create a soybean industry in Afghanistan.
Kwon said his motivation is simple: "If we're unsuccessful, people will starve."
william.lobdell@latimes.com
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