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Afghans must command foreign troops: state newspaper
July 29, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - To defeat Taliban militants, foreign troops led by NATO and the U.S. military in Afghanistan should come under the command of the Afghan government, otherwise the war will drag on
Canada to investigate deaths of two Afghan children
Tue Jul 29, 6:52 AM ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will investigate why its troops opened fire on a car in southern Afghanistan, killing two small children, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Monday.
FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, July 29
July 29, 2008
(Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1:15 p.m. British time on Tuesday:
20 killed or injured in clashes, explosions in Afghanistan
KABUL, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Twenty people were killed or injured in clashes and roadside bombings in Afghanistan's southern and eastern regions on Monday, according to a press release issued by the country's defense ministry on Tuesday.
Afghan TV journalist is detained
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul Tuesday, 29 July 2008
The authorities in Afghanistan have detained a prominent journalist after the broadcast of a documentary which was critical of members of the cabinet.
Doubts mount on Afghan surge
Taliban recruitment outpaces efforts of U.S., NATO forces
The Washington Times - World Rowan Scarborough Tuesday, July 29, 2008
While U.S. commanders and both presidential candidates are pressing the Pentagon to send more troops to Afghanistan, several military and Afghanistan analysts say a surge there will not solve and could even worsen
'Allowing Afghanistan to Help Itself Has to Be the Top Priority'
Spiegel Online, Germany Josh Ward 07/28/2008
Four days after Sen. Barack Obama called on a reluctant Germany to get more involved in Afghanistan, German commentators are still debating who has a clearer vision of Afghanistan's real needs.
5 officials fired in rape investigation
Written by www.quqnoos.com & PAN Monday, 28 July 2008
The Interior Ministry has fired five security officials in Sari Pul province as a result of the indifferent actions of the officials regarding the rape of a 12 year old girl.
Pakistan PM tries to reassure Bush on Afghanistan
By Matt Spetalnick Mon Jul 28, 7:30 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani sought on Monday to reassure U.S. President George W. Bush of his government's commitment to securing its border with Afghanistan
Pakistan feels the heat in Washington
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / July 29, 2008
KARACHI - The issue of rogue elements within Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was expected to top the agenda in the meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and US President George W Bush
Bribery rules on Afghan roads
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Nangarhar province Tuesday, 29 July 2008
On a hot summer afternoon in the chaotic border town of Torkham in eastern Afghanistan, Mohammad Younas is counting the money he needs to bribe local customs officials.
Canadian Soldiers Firing on Car in Afghanistan Kill 2 Children
The New York Times - World By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS July 29, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan opened fire on a speeding car, which they feared was about to attack their convoy, and killed a 2-year-old boy and his 4-year-old sister, officials said Monday.
Drought wreaks havoc in northern Afghanistan
Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) July 29, 2008
By Ali Hakim, IFRC communications officer in Mazar-e-Sharif, northern Afghanistan
Weapons cache in Herat uncovered
www.quqnoos.com Written by Mohamad Reza Shir Mohamadi
Monday, 28 July 2008
NDS officials in Herat uncover 2 arms and ammunitions caches
NDS Officials in Herat uncovered 2 caches of arms and ammunitions suspected of belonging to Taliban on Saturday, according to a statement issued on Sunday from the NDS.
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Afghans must command foreign troops: state newspaper
July 29, 2008
KABUL (Reuters) - To defeat Taliban militants, foreign troops led by NATO and the U.S. military in Afghanistan should come under the command of the Afghan government, otherwise the war will drag on, a government-owned newspaper said on Tuesday.
More than 71,000 foreign troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan fighting Taliban militants who have made a come back in the past two years, the bloodiest period since the militants' removal from power in 2001.
The lack of a unified command amongst the troops and failure to coordinate operations with the government has been a factor in the escalation of violence and the rebirth of the insurgents, the English-language Kabul Times newspaper said.
"If a united command is established and led by Afghan authorities, very soon we will win the war. Afghanistan is the land of the Afghans," the Kabul Times said in an editorial.
"They know better how to protect their country, how to provide a safe atmosphere in their homeland ... how to treat the friends and how to deal with the enemy," it said.
State newspapers in Afghanistan closely follow the government's views and it is likely that the Kabul Times was airing the opinion of some people in the administration.
"Without close coordination and an Afghan command, the conflict will last long," it said.
U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban government in late 2001 after it refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders responsible for September 11 attacks on the United States which killed nearly 3,000 people.
Ley al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are still at large and some 15,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan since 2006, according to figures of the United Nations and Afghan officials.
Foreign military commanders say the troops are in Afghanistan for the long haul and will withdraw once the Afghan government manages to stand on its own feet.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the Taliban's ouster, has repeatedly complained about the lack of coordination of operations with foreign forces against the militants which he says leads to civilian deaths.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin, editing by Sanjeev Miglani
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Canada to investigate deaths of two Afghan children
Tue Jul 29, 6:52 AM ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will investigate why its troops opened fire on a car in southern Afghanistan, killing two small children, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Monday.
He noted, however, that earlier probes into similar civilian deaths had always absolved the soldiers involved.
Military officials say a two-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister died when the troops blasted a car approaching their convoy in Kandahar province on Sunday. They said the driver had ignored several warnings to stop.
MacKay said Canadian soldiers were working in "tough, trying and intense circumstances" and often had to deal with attacks from Taliban militants hiding among civilians.
"When these tragic circumstances arise, we always take the important time to investigate what took place. There are rules of engagement followed by Canadian, followed by NATO soldiers," he told reporters in Ottawa.
"In each circumstance where this type of very unfortunate tragedy occurs, Canadians have been found to have followed those rules of engagement," he said.
Canada has 2,500 soldiers based in Kandahar on a mission that is due to end in 2011. So far 88 have died.
Speaking earlier in the day, MacKay said Canada would send an extra 200 troops to Afghanistan to maintain and operate unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles and helicopters.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Frank McGurty)
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FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, July 29
July 29, 2008
(Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1:15 p.m. British time on Tuesday:
PAKTIA - A lawmaker survived a roadside bomb blast on Monday but three of his body guards were killed and three more wounded when the device hit their convoy in the southeastern province of Paktia, a provincial official said.
KANDAHAR - Afghan soldiers backed by international air support killed and wounded more than 10 insurgents when the militants engaged them with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machinegun fire on Monday in the southern province of Kandahar, the Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
HELMAND - Afghan soldiers killed and wounded five insurgents during clashes in Marja district in the southern province of Helmand on Monday, the Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
HELMAND - A roadside bomb killed two Afghan soldiers near Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
GHAZNI - U.S.-led coalition forces killed several militants in air and ground assaults targeting a Taliban leader in the southern Gairo district of Ghazni province on Tuesday, the U.S. military said in a statement.
HELMAND - A British soldier was shot dead while on foot patrol in the southern Nad Ali district of Helmand province on Monday, the British Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
KUNAR - A Taliban bomb maker was killed with four others in a house while making a device in the eastern Chaoki district of Kunar province on Monday, a government official said.
TAKHAR - An explosion on a road killed one civilian on Monday in the northern province of Takhar, an official said, adding the target of the blast was not clear.
PUL-I-KHUMRI - A blast near a government building wounded two civilians in northern Pul-i-Khumri city on Monday, police said.
(Compiled by Hamid Shalizi and Jonathon Burch; Editing by Paul Tait)
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20 killed or injured in clashes, explosions in Afghanistan
KABUL, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Twenty people were killed or injured in clashes and roadside bombings in Afghanistan's southern and eastern regions on Monday, according to a press release issued by the country's defense ministry on Tuesday.
Fifteen militants were killed or injured in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces on Monday, said the press release, adding "Afghan troops backed by the international troops came in contact with militants in Pashmol district of Kandahar province Monday during which 10 rebels were killed or wounded."
It also said that the international troops carried out air strikes forcing militants to flee the area.
There were no casualties on Afghan and international troops, the press release noted.
Moreover, five more insurgents were killed or wounded in Marja district of Helmand province in firefight with government forces, it said.
The press release added that a mine planted by insurgents on a road leading to Helmand's provincial capital Lashkargah went off and killing two soldiers with Afghan national army.
A similar incident in Afghanistan's eastern Laghman province on the same day claimed the lives of three persons including a police officer, according to a local official.
"A mine planted by militants in Qarghai district exploded Monday afternoon killing a police officer Gharibullah and two civilians," Asil Ahmad the district chief of Qarghai told Xinhua.
Attacks on international troops are on the rise during past weeks when the Taliban militants continue to demonstrate their strength through suicide and roadside bombings.
Escalating insurgency and violent incidents have left around 2,500 people dead with over 700 civilians since January this year in Afghanistan.
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Afghan TV journalist is detained
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul Tuesday, 29 July 2008
The authorities in Afghanistan have detained a prominent journalist after the broadcast of a documentary which was critical of members of the cabinet.
Mohammad Nasir Fayyaz was detained, released and has now contacted the BBC to say he is in detention again.
Mr Fayyaz is the presenter of an investigative programme called The Truth, which recently strongly criticised two government ministries.
Officials say they are "working hard" to secure his release.
Investigative reporting
In a recent edition of The Truth, Mr Fayyaz criticised two cabinet members - including the water and energy minister - of under-performing in their jobs.
His programme featured a performance graph which showed how well various government ministries were functioning.
Many people in government are not used to such critical analysis - Afghanistan does not have a tradition of investigative reporting - and it is thought that is why the journalist has been detained.
Mr Fayyaz also appears to have upset some members of the government.
Water and Energy Minister Ismail Khan recently accused Mr Fayyaz of corruptly asking him to ensure power was provided to his residence 24 hours a day - a request which Mr Khan said was refused.
Mr Fayyaz has denied the minister's allegations.
The journalist was initially arrested by intelligence officials on Monday, but now appears to have been detained again after giving an interview to the BBC.
He said that he is currently being held by intelligence officials in a locked bathroom.
Afghan intelligence officials have refused to comment on his case.
However a spokesman for the ministry of information and culture, Hameed Nasery Wardak, told the BBC that officials are working hard to release him.
''We are trying to free him and I am 95% sure that he will be released very soon,'' Mr Wardak said.
Meanwhile, Fawzia Koofi, a member of parliament from north-eastern Afghanistan, has strongly criticised the detention.
''When people voted in the elections, they did so because they believed in democracy and freedom of speech," she said.
"Our government shouldn't be arresting reporters. If some ministers think that this reporter said something which was not based on truth and against the norms of journalism, than they should have launched a compliant against him."
Colleagues at the TV station where Mr Fayyaz worked have called for his immediate release.
"This man has done nothing wrong except do his job. He does not deserve to be in detention," one told the BBC.
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Doubts mount on Afghan surge
Taliban recruitment outpaces efforts of U.S., NATO forces
The Washington Times - World Rowan Scarborough Tuesday, July 29, 2008
While U.S. commanders and both presidential candidates are pressing the Pentagon to send more troops to Afghanistan, several military and Afghanistan analysts say a surge there will not solve and could even worsen the problems of a country famous for resisting foreign interference.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters recently that commanders in Afghanistan want an additional three combat brigades, or about 10,000 troops.
But given U.S. commitments in Iraq, he said, a decision on an increase of that size - nearly a 30 percent boost - would be left to the next administration in early 2009.
More forces are being pushed as politicians ask what went wrong in a campaign that ousted the Taliban in two months in late 2001 using a few hundred commandos, CIA operatives and waves of air strikes. More than six years later, violence is up and a resurgent Taliban seems to have a limitless supply of suicidal fighters.
A confident Gen. James Jones came to the Pentagon pressroom in March 2006 to express optimism about the war in Afghanistan.
"My take on the situation in Afghanistan is that the Taliban and al Qaeda are not in a position where they can restart an insurgency of any size and major scope," said Gen. Jones, who was the NATO commander.
The United States had 23,000 troops in Afghanistan on that day.
The Pentagon had talked about reducing troops in the war's first few years. But today, more than 30,000 U.S. service members are fighting in the one-time Taliban stronghold, fighting alongside another 22,000 troops from NATO allies. A major project at the Defense Department is to scour Army and Marine units to determine whether any can be freed up and sent to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan specialists say more U.S. combat forces are not the answer for the medium and long term.
Barnett Rubin, a director of studies at the Center for International Cooperation at New York University, called a troop surge in Afghanistan "a stopgap measure" that is unlikely to work without addressing the issue of Taliban recruitment in Pakistan and the failure of the Afghan government to provide security and development.
"Unless you can address Pakistan and governance in Afghanistan, more troops won't help," Mr. Rubin said.
The Taliban and its allies have come close to assassinating President Hamid Karzai. They recently bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul and have retaken villages and towns in the south.
To underscore their newfound prowess, the Taliban staged a sophisticated attack on a U.S. temporary base in Wanat in the south, killing nine U.S. service members. Afterward, U.S. commanders ordered the post abandoned.
Adm. Michael G. Mullen, Joint Chiefs chairman, says there are too few U.S. and European troops to hold ground that is captured. But his moves are limited until President Bush lowers force levels in Iraq from the current 146,000 troops.
Why did the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorate?
The No. 1 reason cited by Pentagon officials and military specialists is the vast tribal region of Pakistan - a generally ungoverned expanse of 3 million people where the ousted Taliban and al Qaeda operatives are relatively free to recruit, train and infiltrate neighboring Afghanistan.
"We're seeing a greater number of insurgents and foreign fighters flowing across the border with Pakistan, unmolested and unhindered," an exasperated Adm. Mullen told reporters recently. "This movement needs to stop."
Taliban and drug dealer suspects arrested by Afghan police are held in Helmand Province. More than six years after the start of the U.S. campaign, violence has increased and the Taliban has resurged. (Getty Images)
'IRREGULAR WARFARE': U.S. soldiers are fighting the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, but some say conventional forces are not the answer. (Mary F. Calvert/The Washington Times)
He added, "I talked with all our leaders there, and they all indicated that, you know, they need more troops."
However, two veterans of the Afghanistan war said more conventional forces are part of the problem.
An Army Green Beret who spent time in Afghanistan training Afghans said too many conventional forces already are being sent there.
"The war in Afghanistan is irregular warfare," said the officer, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press. "This requires unconventional forces. As soon as conventional forces greatly outnumber Special Forces in theater, resources are diverted to conventional forces that have the greater need per capita."
A former senior commander in Afghanistan said U.S. policy went wrong when it veered away from the original plan of using special operations forces, CIA operatives and economic aid to empower anti-Taliban Afghans to fight the enemy themselves.
"They are the ones who know where they are coming over from Pakistan," said the former commander, who asked not to be named because he now works for a U.S. defense firm that does business in the Middle East.
He said that before the October 2001 invasion, U.S. Central Command conducted a study of why foreign invaders failed in Afghanistan. The answer: They poured in too many troops, creating ample targets for hit-and-run insurgents.
"If I were doing it, I would go back to the way we were doing it originally," the former commander said. "I think we have way too many troops."
Pentagon officials declined to comment about the long-term risks of increasing the foreign military presence in Afghanistan. "We feel this is best asked of and answered by the democratically elected government of Afghanistan," said Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman.
The total foreign troop commitment in Afghanistan has gone from several hundred at the war's start to 10,000 in 2003 to 52,000 today, more than half of them American.
Critics of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism also caution that a long-term troop surge in Afghanistan could backfire.
Richard Holbrooke, a top State Department official and ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, said he supported an infusion of troops into southern and eastern Afghanistan to deal with the immediate Taliban threat.
"But I would not like to see us take over this war," Mr. Holbrooke said, because it would retard the development of Afghanistan's own security forces and spark a hostile reaction among ordinary Afghans.
"We run the real risk of triggering a xenophobic reaction from a people that has resisted outside forces dating back to Alexander the Great."
A British soldier gives lessons to Afghan police officers in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan. NATO allies provide 22,000 troops, fighting alongside more than 30,000 U.S. service members in the one-time Taliban stronghold. (Getty Images)
cDavid R. Sands and Barbara Slavin contributed to this article.
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'Allowing Afghanistan to Help Itself Has to Be the Top Priority'
Spiegel Online, Germany Josh Ward 07/28/2008
Four days after Sen. Barack Obama called on a reluctant Germany to get more involved in Afghanistan, German commentators are still debating who has a clearer vision of Afghanistan's real needs.
The estimated 200,000 people who gathered in Berlin last Thursday to hear US presidential candidate Barack Obama speak (more...)are a testament to both his personal popularity in Germany and the country's hope that US voters will embrace his promise of change when they go to the polls in November.
When it comes to the touchy subject of NATO obligations and Afghanistan, however, Germans were hoping Obama's speech would tread lightly (more...). "Obama should only ask of us what we are able to deliver," Niels Annen, a member of Germany's federal parliament within the left wing of the SPD, told SPIEGEL ONLINE three days before Obama spoke.
In the end, though, Obama did not steer clear of the topic, saying: "This is the moment when we must renew our resolve in Afghanistan. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda."
Obama's call puts German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in an uncomfortable position on both the issue of how much commitment Germany is willing to provide and what type of commitment that should be. Germany plans to increase its mandate in Afghanistan by an additional 1,000 soldiers. If parliament approves the measure in an autumn vote, the total number of German soldiers there will jump by nearly 1,000 to 4,500.
What Germany has particularly come under criticism for, though, is how its soldiers are put to use. German soldiers are currently restricted to peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts in the relatively safe northern part of the country, while the US and other allies are calling on them to bring the troops south and allow them to share the load in combat against Taliban and al-Qaida forces seeking to topple the already wobbly regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Nevertheless, the Germans see their bricks in the north to be just as important -- if not more so -- than the bullets in the south. In response to Obama's call, Ulrich Wilhelm, a spokesman for Merkel's government, told reporters Friday that the government saw "no deficiencies in terms of the army's or Germany's involvement in Afghanistan," adding that the government was doing all it could within its means. And to underline the country's commitment, Steinmeier made a surprise four-day visit (more) to Afghanistan on Friday, less than a day after speaking with Obama in Berlin. While there, Steinmeier has visited German forces rebuilding water supply systems and organizing various cultural projects and met with Karzai in Kabul.
German commentators don't agree on who has it right -- Obama or the current German government:
Right-leaning Die Welt writes:
"Do those (German) politicians, who get all excited about (Barack Obama), really believe that a country as big as Afghanistan can be kept peaceful with only 54,000 ISAF soldiers? German and international security experts have been pointing out for years that 360,000 troops would be needed in the Hindu Kush just to bring the level of commitment there up to that in Kosovo. The conclusion is simple: Whoever wants to defeat the Taliban must be prepared to undertake completely different efforts."
"After conceding that the government in Afghanistan will crumble if it does receive the help of more troops, some people -- such as Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler -- will say in the same breath that Germany has something even better to offer than military assistance. That very well may be the case. But the fact is that, when it comes to war, what is most urgently needed is military support. And we also shouldn't forget that the US is also providing the lion's share of civilian assistance in Afghanistan, too. It's not Europe, and it's not Germany."
Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"Very few (of the 200,000 Germans who came to see Obama speak in Berlin last Thursday) are likely to have been happy about (his) saying that he would like to see more German soldiers in Afghanistan. And even fewer of the Obama fans probably realize what the Democratic politician has to gain from an increased commitment of allied soldiers: If NATO sends more troops to the Hindu Kush, the US will be able to save a lot of money for its military. And, as Obama gave away on the weekend, he would want to use the billions the US could save in this way to lower taxes and to provide his countrymen with some relief from the steep increases in gas prices."
"This makes one thing for sure: Even Obama views foreign affairs and interactions with the allies primarily from the vantage point of domestic politics. Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have tried to explain to Obama that Afghanistan can only be pacified for the long term by means of civilian reconstruction. The population is only going to actively oppose the forces fighting against reform once they are sure that their living conditions can be improved in the long run. The Taliban know that too, which is why they are doing whatever they can to block or destroy any success on the part of reconstruction workers.
"That is why the reconstruction efforts must be protected by military means. But the top priority has to be putting Afghanistan in a position to help itself. It's still unclear whether Obama understands things this way, too."
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5 officials fired in rape investigation
Written by www.quqnoos.com & PAN Monday, 28 July 2008
The Interior Ministry has fired five security officials in Sari Pul province as a result of the indifferent actions of the officials regarding the rape of a 12 year old girl.
Five gunmen recently attacked a house in Sari Pul at night, and, after beating up the members of the family that lived there, raped their 12 year old daughter.
The spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Zamarai Bashari, told reporters during a press conference on Saturday that Abdul Khaliq Samimi, the security commandant, Abdul Wahab, head of the investigation and head of the struggle against youth crimes, and another security official in Sari Pul, were among those who were fired.
There days ago, President Karzai ordered an investigation into the rape issue, and had instructed the Minister of Interior Affairs and the National Security Deputy to personally follow the issue, arrest the criminals, punish them severely.
Mr. Bashari added that the fired officials are suspected of not informing the media or the Interior Ministry about the rape immediately after it happened, a behavior by security officials which he said is all to common in every province where rape occurs.
Mr. Bashari added that if the suspected officials in Sari Pul are found to be criminals, they will be punished according to the law.
Mr. Bashari said two people have been arrested for the incident, and the Interior Ministry is doing the utmost possible to find and arrest the three others assailants.
He said the Attorney's Office and the High Court will make the final decision about the suspects that are in custody.
The 12 year old victim, who refused to give her name, and who was crying when interviewed, told Pajhowk news agency over the phone: "Five militants raped me, my father is crippled, and he is not able to go to the government to follow the case. " Her father added that they have been going to the security commandant's office of Sari Pul (the same commandment who was recently fired) for one month, but no one had listened to them.
The girl added: "If no one cares about us, our whole family will burn ourselves."
35 year old Ali Khan, the girl's uncle, also claimed that after five gunmen had raped his 14 year old sister-in-law, he had gone to the security commandant office many times, but the police has only arrested one man for this crime.
Aziza Jalos, head of Sari Pul women's issues, said the 14 year old Bashira, who is a sixth grade student of Kowhar Shad school, was raped when she went to an area where Bayat Foundation was distributing aid.
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Pakistan PM tries to reassure Bush on Afghanistan
By Matt Spetalnick Mon Jul 28, 7:30 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani sought on Monday to reassure U.S. President George W. Bush of his government's commitment to securing its border with Afghanistan, where Taliban and al Qaeda militants pose a growing threat.
Gilani, on his first official visit to the United States, held talks with Bush hours after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed six people, possibly including an al Qaeda chemical and biological weapons expert, in a Pakistani tribal region.
The attack underscored U.S.-Pakistani tensions that Gilani's visit was intended to ease as his fragile coalition tries to find its footing since defeating allies of President Pervez Musharraf, former army chief and Washington's close ally, in a February election.
Alarmed by rising casualties among Western forces in Afghanistan, the United States wants Pakistan's new government, which has turned increasingly to dialogue with militants, to do more to stop them from launching cross-border attacks.
"We talked about the need for us to make sure that the Afghan border is secure as best as possible," Bush told reporters after the White House talks. "Pakistan has made a very strong commitment to that."
Gilani insisted his government was "committed to fight against those extremists and terrorists who are destroying and making the world not safe."
But he stopped short of making any concrete public promises about exactly how Pakistan would deal with militants in its border areas.
BREATHING SPACE FOR MILITANTS?
Asked about the missile attack in a CNN interview, Gilani said: "There should be more cooperation on the intelligence side, so that when there is credible and actionable information given to us, we will hit (it) ourselves."
Gilani put Pakistan's main spy agency under civilian control on Saturday. The Inter Services Intelligence Agency has often been blamed by neighboring India and Afghanistan for masterminding attacks in their countries.
In response to Gilani's request, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: "Our intelligence agencies work with each other on a regular basis and I expect that to continue."
Washington has acquiesced to the new Pakistani government's strategy of using tribal elders to try to persuade Islamist guerrillas to stop fighting. But U.S. officials also fear it gives militants breathing space to increase the flow of fighters across the border to fuel the Afghan insurgency.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, is widely believed to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The war in Afghanistan, and by extension Pakistan's level of cooperation in the border areas, has become a hot issue in the U.S. presidential election campaign.
Sensitivities also run high in Pakistan, where there is deep concern about U.S. attacks on militants in its territory.
White House officials declined comment on the target of Monday's strike, which a senior Pakistani security official said could have been Abu Khabab al-Masri, an Egyptian chemist regarded as one of al Qaeda's top bomb makers.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Gilani on the White House driveway, Bush voiced support for Pakistan's transition to democracy and twice asserted Washington's support for Pakistani sovereignty.
Bush also gave Gilani an offer of $115 million in food aid over the next two years. That was high on the Pakistani leader's agenda as he seeks to curb disenchantment at home with his coalition led by the party of slain two-time Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Pakistanis are reeling from soaring oil and food prices, and many people see the spread of Taliban influence across the country's northwest as a consequence of supporting the U.S.-led fight against Islamic militancy.
(Editing by Chris Wilson)
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Pakistan feels the heat in Washington
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Online / July 29, 2008
KARACHI - The issue of rogue elements within Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was expected to top the agenda in the meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and US President George W Bush in Washington on Monday.
But any hopes that Pakistan's political leadership will clip the wings of the premier agency involved in regional counter-intelligence operations on three fronts - Afghanistan, Iran and India - are bound to be dashed.
This is illustrated by the decision on Saturday by the newly elected government in Islamabad to place the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau under the control of the civilian Ministry of Interior, removing them from under the umbrella of the military. But just 24 hours later, under intense pressure from military headquarters in Rawalpindi, the government reversed the decision, saying it was a "misunderstanding".
Asif Zardari, co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, the leading party in the ruling coalition, had argued in favor of the transfer, saying it would mean that countries would no longer be able to say that Pakistan's intelligence agencies were beyond government control.
A senior strategic analyst associated with a Pakistani strategic think-tank told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity that the security agencies were concerned over the foreign links of some cabinet members, prominent among them being Rahman Malik, the advisor to the Ministry of Interior.
In an article on Gilani's visit on Sunday, the Washington Post noted that the US administration's patience with Pakistan's inability to end cross-border infiltration into Afghanistan was running out. The newspaper said the premier and his aides "should expect a testy reception on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue", meaning the White House and the US Congress. "I'm not sure they're ready for what they're walking into," a senior administration official told the Post.
A senior Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online, "Washington appreciates that intelligence operations are not a clean business. Sometimes there is a need to engage the miscreants and terrorists, and in the course intelligence agencies do turn a blind eye to their activities and give them rope, but ultimately they are taken to task.
"The same game happened with commander Nek Mohammad [1] of South Waziristan and with Abdullah Mehsud [2]. There was a time when the security agencies engaged them, and of course they were active in that period, but then at a suitable time they were eliminated. This is the standard modus operandi which all professional intelligence services use," the security official said.
Pakistani security officials had said the decision on the ISI had aimed to remove it from the "war on terror" business and empower another institution, the Frontier Corps, with a new intelligence wing established to coordinate directly with the American security apparatus.
Under a plan the US government has already devised, about 100 US officials would train Frontier Corps officials and supervise their functions and the corps intelligence in each corps headquarters would look after counter-intelligence issues.
Apart from intelligence matters, one of the purposes of trying to place the ISI under the control of the Ministry of Interior was to get control of its massive financial resources and covert business operations.
"The military would never tolerate any move which would compromise its position on security issues, especially when the country faces threats from all over the region. This episode started by the Pakistan People's Party government is the beginning of a rift between the establishment and the government," commented one observer.
Welcome to Washington
When Gilani begins his first official visit to the United States at the White House on Monday, the welcome is likely to be a little more heated than he might wish, reports Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service.
Pakistan, which is beset by both a thriving Taliban insurgency and its worst inflation in about 30 years, has become a serious source of frustration and anxiety to top US policymakers who have become increasingly direct in blaming Islamabad for the deteriorating situation in neighboring Afghanistan.
"No question ... that some extremists are coming out of parts of Pakistan into Afghanistan," Gilani's White House host, Bush, told reporters this month after Afghan President Hamid Karzai charged that Islamabad's intelligence agency was aiding the insurgency.
"That's troubling to us, troubling to Afghanistan, and it should be troubling to Pakistan," he noted, adding that Washington would investigate Karzai's allegations.
Top US military officials, including both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, and the head of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, have also publicly expressed growing frustration with Pakistan. According to a London Times report, Mullen reportedly warned privately during a visit to Islamabad this month that Washington would take unilateral military action if Pakistan did not move more aggressively to stanch the flow of fighters across the border into Afghanistan.
Nor is it just the incumbent policymakers who are complaining. Both major presidential candidates, Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain, have echoed Bush's complaints as concern about Afghanistan has gained prominence in the election campaign.
In a major policy address on the eve of his current trip to Afghanistan and other overseas destinations, Obama took an even more hawkish position than those of both the administration and McCain, reiterating a controversial threat he first made early this year that Washington would not "tolerate a terrorist sanctuary" inside Pakistan.
"We must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets if we have them in our sights," he declared, suggesting that such targets might include indigenous Pakistani Taliban leaders, such as Baitullah Mehsud, as well as al-Qaeda chiefs who are believed to be sheltered by their Taliban hosts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
Such threats and complaints have put Gilani in an extremely difficult position.
His government, which was already weakened by the withdrawal of former premier Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N) from the ruling coalition two months ago, now faces a growing economic crisis due to skyrocketing food and fuel prices and shortages in water and electricity that have spurred protests and even outbreaks of violence in some of Pakistan's biggest urban areas.
Despite a brief offensive late last month by the paramilitary Frontiers Corps and police, the Pakistani Taliban forces appear to have tightened their siege of Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). This growing influence and control of the Pakistani Taliban and its allies both within FATA and beyond has contributed to the sense in Washington that the new government has no strategy for dealing with the insurgency.
"The Taliban is moving forward in a very calculated way," Pervez Hoodbhoy, a prominent Pakistani commentator, told an audience at the Middle East Institute in Washington this month.
He warned that the insurgency's ambitions to replace secular and tribal law with sharia, or Islamic law, extended far beyond the Pashtun-dominated regions of the country. Although much of Pakistan's "establishment is in denial", he said the Taliban's latest moves should be seen as a "stepping stone to the rest of Pakistan".
Even if his government were inclined to take on the Taliban, however, it is not clear that Gilani could get the support or cooperation of the powerful Pakistani military which, under General Ashfaz Kiani as with his predecessors, has reportedly shown little interest in pursuing the kind of aggressive counter-insurgency strategy that Washington believes is necessary.
US officials have grown increasingly disenchanted with Kiani, whose replacement of President Pervez Musharraf last autumn had fueled hopes that he could persuade the army that it faced a greater threat from the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies than from India.
But, to date, Kiani has followed in Musharraf's footsteps by quietly negotiating ceasefires with the militants while building up the military's conventional forces.
"It has no intention of fighting a US proxy war in the tribal territories," according to retired Brigadier F B Ali. "It also knows that the US will continue to pay it large subsidies to ensure the safeguarding of the US supply lines to Afghanistan [and the country's nuclear weapons]."
Indeed, Washington's willingness to continue paying such subsidies was very much in evidence last week when the New York Times reported that the Bush administration wanted to use US$227 million of a $300 million military aid package approved by Congress this year to help the Pakistani military buy equipment, such as helicopters and reconnaissance aircraft, useful for counter-insurgency, to upgrade some of its F-16 fighter jets instead.
While the State Department said the F-16s could be used to combat terrorism, some analysts dismissed that notion, suggesting that, by approving such a shift, Washington was effectively undermining its efforts to persuade the military that counter-insurgency should be its top priority.
For his part, Gilani is expected to appeal for more economic assistance, which his government has long argued is critical to defeating or containing the insurgents in any event. Washington has provided some $10 billion in aid to Pakistan since 2002, but almost all of it has been military assistance.
On the aid issue, he will receive a particularly a favorable reception from Democrats, including Obama, who recently endorsed a pending proposal in Congress to triple non-military aid for Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year, much of it targeted at FATA. The administration has also conceded the case for more assistance but has not yet made a specific proposal.
On the Taliban, Gilani will plead, above all, for patience and no doubt warn against any unilateral military action by the US, for which there is a growing clamor, particularly in the aftermath of the Taliban attack this month close to the border in Afghanistan in which nine US soldiers were killed.
Notes
1. Symbol of pro-Taliban resistance silenced Asia Times Online, March 15, 2005. 2. The legacy of Nek Mohammed Asia Times Online, July 20, 2004.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
(Additional reporting by Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service.)
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Bribery rules on Afghan roads
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Nangarhar province Tuesday, 29 July 2008
On a hot summer afternoon in the chaotic border town of Torkham in eastern Afghanistan, Mohammad Younas is counting the money he needs to bribe local customs officials.
Torkham, in Nangarhar province, is one of the busiest crossing points between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Every day, hundreds of trucks and cars, laden with passengers and goods, pass through.
The 35-year-old Afghan truck driver is carrying 15 tons of tomatoes he picked up in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Trials and tribulations
However, before driving towards the city of Jalalabad Younas has to wait an hour to get to the front of the queue.
One Afghan customs official checks his papers and gives him the green light, but then asks Younas to wait until his papers are "cleared".
After a few minutes of waiting, Younas pulls out 5,000 Afghanis ($108).
''You see this bribe? If I don't pay now, they will make me wait here for hours. The tomatoes will be spoiled in this hot weather."
Younas has agreed to let me ride in his truck so I can see for myself the trials and tribulations faced by the average Afghan transporter.
The tall, blue-eyed driver hands the money over to the customs official and is finally allowed to leave Torkham.
''We have better roads these days. We can play music and have more independence. But look at the level of corruption,'' he says.
Younas began work in the transport industry shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
His village, Samarkhel, was caught in the fighting between Soviet and Mujahideen forces. Like millions of other Afghans, he took refuge in Pakistan.
"I was a young boy then. We fled and lived in a refugee camp. I started as an assistant truck driver and after 16 years I learned how to drive. For all these years I have been driving mostly between Pakistan and Afghanistan."
Rude police
Younas chooses a Pashto music cassette to play as he steers his massive truck on one of Afghanistan's busiest roads. ''I am an experienced driver," he assures me.
As we barrel down the Torkham-Jalalabad highway, Younas complains about corruption and the "rude behaviour of Afghan police".
We arrive at a check post in the Daka area and a uniformed police officer asks Younas for his documents.
After a 30-minute wait, it becomes clear that the police officer wants money or else we will wait here forever.
After much bargaining, Younas doles out 600 Afghanis ($13).
"Nothing gets done without money these days. During the Taleban days, we didn't have to pay bribes," he says, visibly angry.
For about 45 minutes, Younas is quiet and the Pashto music blares as we travel in the scorching heat. I try to engage Younas, but in his frustrated state he is not interested in conversation.
As we get close to the Mohammand Dara district, a passing American convoy orders all traffic to halt and Younas finally begins talking again.
"This is a joke - the road is blocked again!"
We wait for another 30 minutes before we get the green light from the American soldier waving from his humvee.
Minutes later we arrive at another police check post. This time, the police demand a crate of tomatoes. Younas orders his assistant to give them a rotten one.
'We will all die'
Younas refuses to be photographed for fear of retribution. However, most of his fellow drivers are keen to be photographed and to have their voices heard.
Take Mohmmand Nader: "I leave Peshawar and we start paying bribes. Once we cross into our country, we start paying bribes. We have got used to it by now."
Nangarhar police spokesman Ghafoar Khan is defensive: "We have in the past sacked corrupt traffic policemen and other police officials, we have also prosecuted them. If these drivers help us with some evidence, we will sack the corrupt officials. We are very serious about this."
But drivers like Mohammad Ebrahim accuse the Afghan government of turning a blind eye to what he calls robbery.
''If we don't pay the traffic police or the customs official, they will make us wait for hours. And we can't afford to wait. Corruption is everywhere," he says while waiting outside a customs checkpoint on the outskirts of Jalalabad.
My journey with Younas on the 74-km Torkham-Jalalabad highway took three hours and 45 minutes.
We stop for lunch at a Jalalabad restaurant. Younas is soaked in sweat and visibly tired.
"Corruption in Afghanistan is like Aids - if our government doesn't punish corrupt officials, we will all die," he says, before we say our farewells.
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Canadian Soldiers Firing on Car in Afghanistan Kill 2 Children
The New York Times - World By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS July 29, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan opened fire on a speeding car, which they feared was about to attack their convoy, and killed a 2-year-old boy and his 4-year-old sister, officials said Monday.
NATO and the Canadian military issued statements that said the soldiers opened fire near the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday after the driver had ignored repeated signals to keep back.
The car came under fire after it drove within 10 yards of the convoy, the Canadian statement said.
Militants have used civilian cars loaded with explosives in suicide missions against Afghan and foreign troops.
In Ottawa, Canada’s defense minister, Peter MacKay, said the deaths of the two children were a “horrible circumstance” that resulted when a “horrible decision had to be taken.”
Mr. MacKay said soldiers lived with the possibility that whenever a car approached, it “may be a bomb coming your way.”
“With these suicide bombs that have occurred in the past with these approaches,” he said, “soldiers have sometimes a split second to make a decision on protecting their fellow soldiers and protecting themselves,” or protecting civilians in the area.
Afghan and United Nations officials have urged international troops to avoid civilian casualties, which threaten to undermine support for President Hamid Karzai and the presence of foreign forces.
NATO commanders have said they take reasonable precautions to prevent civilian deaths and have blamed militants for endangering innocents.
In Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, British officials said, a British soldier was killed Monday while patrolling in the Marjah area west of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. The death brought to 113 the number of British personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
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Drought wreaks havoc in northern Afghanistan
Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) July 29, 2008
By Ali Hakim, IFRC communications officer in Mazar-e-Sharif, northern Afghanistan
A harsh winter followed by a hot and dry spring season has multiplied the challenges and hardships of villagers in north Afghanistan.
The lack of rain and drinking water are taking a toll on precious livestock, farming lands have gradually dried up and many farmers have lost their harvest. For these reasons, many people in the Alborz district have abandoned their homes and travelled many kilometers to reach Cheshma-e-Shafa, 34 km south-west of Mazar-e-Sharif city.
Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) volunteers and its emergency mobile unit (EMU) were the first to arrive in Cheshma-e-Shafa to meet these internally displaced persons (IDPs) and respond to their needs.
Tents
When the Red Crescent personnel arrived, they found that the area was covered with hundreds of small and large tents. Though the hot weather and dusty winds were making their lives miserable, these IDPs had no choice because nothing remained in their villages.
‘It was 10.30pm when we arrived in Cheshma-e-Shafa,’ said Dr Mohammad Rafi Hakimzade, ARCS regional health officer for the northern region. ‘Yet, as soon as we made our first medical camp, there was a rush for assistance among the IDPs.’
Initially, four camps were established to cater to the massive needs of the IDPs. ‘Malnutrition, acute bloody diarrhoea and sunstroke were among the top widespread health problems,’ he added.
Volunteers
Khoda Rahm Ziyai, a community-based first aid (CBFA) trainer, and volunteer Mohammad Navid Behroz, together with 19 others, worked around the clock.
‘We noticed an obvious lack of awareness about sanitation techniques among the people. Therefore, we decided to send volunteers to the area to teach sanitation methods. We even went to the IDPs’ home villages, in Alborz district, to teach those who had remained,’ added Behroz.
Traders and the local community in Balkh province contributed food and medicines worth more than 122,000 Swiss francs to the affected people. This warm welcome allowed ARCS to speed up its assistance to the vulnerable people.
‘We get our drinking water from remote areas which take something like seven or eight hours to reach. Earlier, we used donkeys as our means of transportation but unfortunately, due to the lack of food and water, they have been lost as well,’ said 55-year-old Abdul Qader, one of the IDPs in Cheshma-e-Shafa.
Wellbeing
‘Here in Cheshma-e-Shafa, the ARCS has taken up the responsibility to protect our health and we feel that their aid is vital to our wellbeing.’
After nearly one month of a challenging operation, the government and other humanitarian agencies have begun to help the IDPs in their original locations, which has made it possible for some to return to their homes. In total, more than 2,126 patients have been treated by the ARCS EMU team, its clinic doctors and volunteers.
In response to the drought, which has spread across many parts of Afghanistan, the Afghan government and United Nations are launching an appeal for more than 413 million Swiss francs. The priorities of the appeal are food security, nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, health, agriculture and protection. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is involved in the technical committee as an observer, and the ARCS will be one of the implementing agencies.
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Weapons cache in Herat uncovered
www.quqnoos.com Written by Mohamad Reza Shir Mohamadi
Monday, 28 July 2008
NDS officials in Herat uncover 2 arms and ammunitions caches
NDS Officials in Herat uncovered 2 caches of arms and ammunitions suspected of belonging to Taliban on Saturday, according to a statement issued on Sunday from the NDS.
The arms caches were found in the Pashtoon Zarghoon and Shindand Districts of Herat Province.
The NDS news statement stated that Taliban wanted to use these weapons in terrorist attacks Herat city.
Nobody has so far been arrested to date in connection with this weapons find.
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