Afghanistan News October 15, 2008


Serving you since 1998
Home	News	News Archives	News by E-Mail	Links	More	About Us	Contact Us
October 2008 : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

October 15, 2008

Seventy Taliban said killed in Afghanistan
Wed Oct 15, 6:09 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - About 70 Taliban fighters were killed in an overnight air strike by foreign forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand near the Pakistan border, the provincial governor's spokesman said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan Relatively Unscathed by World Financial Crisis
By Steve Herman Voice of America 15 October 2008
Afghanistan's booming economy is relatively immune, so far - to the financial turmoil swirling around the world. But the country's bankers worry that the global meltdown could make it even harder for them

ANALYSIS-Saudi Arabia hosts Taliban talks to bolster Pakistan
By Andrew Hammond
RIYADH, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is mediating between Taliban and Afghan officials to prevent its ally Pakistan from sliding into Islamist violence and to wean the Taliban away from al Qaeda, diplomats said on Wednesday. They said Saudi Arabia is worried that Islamist forces including the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies are succeeding in destabilising

Seventy Taliban said killed in Afghanistan
Wed Oct 15, 6:09 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - About 70 Taliban fighters were killed in an overnight air strike by foreign forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand near the Pakistan border, the provincial governor's spokesman said on Wednesday.

Hekmatyar offers peace-deal conditions
Written by www.quqnoos.com Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Rebel commander says Islamic troops could replace soldiers from the West
ONE OF the country’s most senior rebel commanders, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has announced that he is prepared to negotiate a peace-deal with the government.

Jalali, Ghani possible contenders for 2009 election
Pajhwok 10/14/2008
NEW YORK-Former Interior Minister, Ali Jalali, and Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani, are the two major possible contenders against Hamid Karzai, in the next year's presidential elections, a Congressional report has said.

MPs fear winter food disaster
www.quqnoos.com Written by Qadeem Weyar Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Food has not reached areas that will be blocked by snow in weeks, MPs say

AFGHANISTAN: Crossed wires in military-humanitarian relations
KABUL, 15 October 2008 (IRIN) - Differing accounts of a reported attack on a food aid convoy in Afghanistan have, whatever actually happened, highlighted the delicate relations between NATO-led military

Some Afghans live under Taliban rule – and prefer it
The Christian Science Monitor By Anand Gopal 10/14/2008
In provinces just south of Kabul, the insurgents have a shadow government that polices roads and runs courts.

NATO troops to retreat if Afghan civilians at risk
By Hamid Shalizi
KABUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) - NATO has ordered its troops in Afghanistan to pull back from firefights with the Taliban rather than call in air strikes that might kill civilians, Afghan and NATO officials said on Tuesday.

Pakistani intelligence agents re-arrest American
By HABIB KHAN Associated Press October 15, 2008
KHAR, Pakistan - Pakistani intelligence agents re-arrested an American detained in the country's volatile border region and were questioning the man, police said Wednesday.

A mad scramble over Afghanistan
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online October 15, 2008
An impression is being created that there is a "rift" between the United States and Britain regarding the reconciliation track involving the Taliban. The plain truth is that the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are in this murky game together.

Pakistani crack-down 'fails to affect Afghan security
www.quqnoos.com Written by Qadeem Weyar Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Military strikes in Paksitani tribal areas fail to improve security, official says
LARGE scale military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas have yet to have a positive impact on security inside Afghanistan, the president’s spokesman says.

Pakistan's risky militia strategy
By Haroon Rashid BBC Urdu service, Islamabad Wednesday, 15 October 2008
After years of failure, the people in charge of running the "war on terror" in Pakistan's tribal areas are using militias as a new card.

Back to Top
Seventy Taliban said killed in Afghanistan
Wed Oct 15, 6:09 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - About 70 Taliban fighters were killed in an overnight air strike by foreign forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand near the Pakistan border, the provincial governor's spokesman said on Wednesday.

The attack took place late on Tuesday in Helmand's Baram Cha district. Violence in Afghanistan is running at its highest rate since the U.S.-led invasion to wrest control from the militant Islamist Taliban movement in 2001.

"Most of these Taliban (killed) are foreign fighters who entered Afghanistan to destabilize the country," the Helmand governor's spokesman Dawood Ahmadi told Reuters in Kandahar.

NATO and the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan said they had no immediate information about the air strike.

Provincial authorities said earlier on Wednesday that another 22 Taliban insurgents and six Afghan policemen were killed in overnight clashes in the south.

Dozens of Taliban fighters attacked Lashkar Gah in Helmand, about 550 km (340 miles) southwest of the capital Kabul. Eighteen insurgents were killed during a four-hour gun battle, said provincial police chief Asadullah Sherzad.

In another incident, gunmen killed six Afghan policemen at their checkpost in the same district, Ahmadi said.

NATO-led Afghan troops also killed four Taliban fighters in the Andar district of Ghazni province on Tuesday, said senior provincial police officer General Naorooz.

Overall levels of violence have surged despite a slight drop in militant activity during Ramadan last month.

The United Nations says more than 3,800 people, a third of them civilians, were killed in the first seven months of this year.

(Reporting by Ismail Sameen and Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
Back to Top

Back to Top
Afghanistan Relatively Unscathed by World Financial Crisis
By Steve Herman Voice of America 15 October 2008
Afghanistan's booming economy is relatively immune, so far - to the financial turmoil swirling around the world. But the country's bankers worry that the global meltdown could make it even harder for them to meet the pent-up demand for loans. VOA Correspondent Steve Herman in Kabul reports on how some there are reacting to the international monetary crisis.

In Kabul, there are no panicky shouts from floor traders. There is no stock exchange, nor any organized commodities market. The ideal place to measure the economic pulse of one of the world's poorest countries is on the banks of the dried-up Kabul River.

Here vendors hawk fruit, carpets, socks and just about everything else the majority of Afghans require for daily life. Their shouts compete with the pleas of beggars also trying to draw the attention of passersby.

An unemployed young man on a family errand, Shafiq Ullah, freshly returned from an extended stay in Iran, walks past the merchants sitting in the dirt and pops into a fabric shop. The global credit crunch, bank liquidity and gyrating stock prices on the world's bourses are the farthest thing from his mind.

Ullah says what is affecting the economy of this country is the insurgency, endemic unemployment and official corruption, not what is happening on Wall Street.

About 100 meters downriver, at the Sarai Shahzada money exchange market, the national currency, the Afghani, is holding steady at about 50 to the dollar.

Veteran currency dealer Haji Abdul Wali Ahmadzai agrees that, so far, the global financial crisis is not causing trouble for Afghanistan's economy. But he is hearing predictions that it will soon have an impact.

Ahmadzai adds that, as a money changer, what he has noticed is that the Pakistani rupee has quickly depreciated 30 percent against the U.S. dollar. He says that is making life difficult for the many Afghans on the Pakistani side of the border or those doing business there.

For many higher up the socio-economic ladder, the past seven years have been a boon after the decidedly anti-capitalistic Taliban were chased out of power.

Since then, Afghanistan has been enjoying double-digit percentage growth. The economy has doubled in size in the past five years with construction projects dotting major cities, although illicit opium remains the top export.

The president of the state-owned Pashtany Bank, Hayat Dayani, says despite all of the domestic turmoil, Afghans remain bullish.

"We hope this will continue for another five to 10 years, at least," Dayani said. "The way the things look like, still with this much of insecurity and, also, the blasts which are happening in Afghanistan, still the Afghans are those who are investing."

Afghanistan's 16 commercial banks have total assets of only about $1.5 billion. That is woefully inadequate to meet the tremendous demand for credit.

Dayani at Pashtany Bank vows that with whatever money domestic banks have, they are not going to make the same mistakes committed by American bankers who made loans to unworthy borrowers.

"We will not give to anyone credit that easy the way it was in America," Dayani noted. "Suppose someone wants 100,000 [dollars] U.S. We have to get from him at least 200,000 as a guarantee, as a collateral. Only then we can provide him credit. So it means that credit, what the bank is providing, is 100 percent safe."

The vast majority of Afghans, being rural and poor, will never see the inside of a bank and are more likely to engage in bartering than borrowing.

Two-thirds of the country's gross domestic product sill comes from foreign aid. But currency dealer Ahmadzai says few of those billions of dollars in aid trickle down to his customers on the bank of central Kabul's dusty and dry river bed.

He notes there is no investment in the dominant agriculture sector. No big factories are being built to employ people. All those dollars, he complains, are in the hands of a few people. He says it is like a hungry man seeing bread advertised on television; he desires the food but it is impossible to reach through the TV screen to get it.

That is a scenario the global economy, no matter which way it goes, is unlikely to change for the average Afghan.
Back to Top

Back to Top
ANALYSIS-Saudi Arabia hosts Taliban talks to bolster Pakistan
By Andrew Hammond
RIYADH, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is mediating between Taliban and Afghan officials to prevent its ally Pakistan from sliding into Islamist violence and to wean the Taliban away from al Qaeda, diplomats said on Wednesday. They said Saudi Arabia is worried that Islamist forces including the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies are succeeding in destabilising neighbouring Pakistan, a crucial U.S. and Saudi ally where the Islamist militant groups are also present.

Taliban and Afghan officials attended an iftar, or breaking of the fast during the holy month of Ramadan, in the holy city of Mecca last month in the presence of King Abdullah.

Both Afghan parties have denied the meeting amounted to reconciliation talks, but Riyadh-based diplomats and a well-placed Saudi analyst said Riyadh was hoping to break the Taliban's link to al Qaeda for fear of Pakistan's future.

"They want to help because Pakistan is frightening. They fear what could happen in Pakistan. This (mediation) is to stabilise Pakistan," said one diplomat privy to details of the Mecca talks who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Saudi mediation effort followed U.S. and British statements encouraging dialogue with the Taliban.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States would be prepared to reconcile with the Taliban if the Afghan government pursued talks to end the conflict in Afghanistan.

Britain's military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, and the top U.N. official in the country have said the war in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily, and that talks with the Taliban will be crucial to ending the conflict.

The sources said Saudi external intelligence chief Prince Muqrin and his predecessor Prince Turki al-Faisal were involved in arranging the mediation, which is at an early stage.

Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries to recognise Afghanistan's Taliban government before it was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks which were carried out by the Taliban's al Qaeda allies.

Another diplomat said the Saudi idea was to entice the Taliban away from hardline elements wedded to the alliance with al Qaeda, whose ideology backs suicide bombings in a war against Western-allied Muslim leaders deemed infidels.

Al Qaeda, led by Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, launched a campaign to topple the Saudi royals in 2003, which security forces brought under control. The violence challenged the ideological underpinnings of Al Saud rule, which is based on legitimacy provided by the Saudi clerical establishment.

Jamal Khashoggi, editor of Saudi al-Watan newspaper, and a confidant of Turki al-Faisal, said the Afghans met Saudi leaders, intelligence officials and religious scholars, including influential Egyptian cleric Yousef al-Qaradawi.

"The problem is not the presence of the Taliban, it's the tactics of al Qaeda and that's what could destroy Pakistan if that sort of dogma takes root," Khashoggi said, adding this was the first such Saudi contact with the Taliban since 2001.

"I don't think whoever started this project wants it to be just a one-shot thing," he said. "It's in the Saudi national interest, the situation in Pakistan is getting really bad." (Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
Back to Top

Back to Top
Hekmatyar offers peace-deal conditions
Written by www.quqnoos.com Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Rebel commander says Islamic troops could replace soldiers from the West
ONE OF the country’s most senior rebel commanders, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has announced that he is prepared to negotiate a peace-deal with the government.

Hekmatyar said in a statement on Tuesday that his party, Hezb-e-Islami (HIA), was ready to talk to the Afghan government about the possibility of withdrawing foreign troops from the country.

He said he also wanted to talk about forming a national government comprised of all the country’s parties and factions, a sign that the commander of the country’s second largest rebel group would want the Taliban to be included in any future government.

Hekmatyar said the only way out of the current downward spiral of violence was to negotiate.

He said the government should not exclude Hezb-e-Islami and the Taliban as the international community had done during the Bonn Conference.

In recent week, there have been renewed calls for a political solution to the on-going insurgency in Afghanistan, which has claimed thousands of lives since the US-led invasion in 2001.

In late September, some 15 Afghans representing the government and former Taliban officials attended meetings in Saudi Arabia chaired by King Abdullah to discuss the possibility of negotiations between the Afghan government and its enemies.

A peace-deal would see a cessation to all hostilities, Hekmatyar said.

Foreign troops from the West could be replaced with soldiers from Islamic countries, the rebel commander, who is frequently accused of supporting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, said.

Hekmatyar’s comments are the most positive calls for a peaceful solution to the conflict in seven years.

But the Taliban continue to demand a complete withdrawal of foreign troops from the country before sitting down at the negotiating table.

In April 2002, the US Central Intelligence Agency tried and failed to kill Hekmatyar with an unmanned predator drone.

Four years later, he was wrongly reported as captured before he allegedly took credit for Al-Qaeda leader Osma bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora during the US-led invasion of 2001.

In 2003, the US government blacklisted HIA a "terrorist" organisation and the UN put its leader’s name on a list of people accused of supporting the Taliban.
Back to Top

Back to Top
Jalali, Ghani possible contenders for 2009 election
Pajhwok 10/14/2008
NEW YORK-Former Interior Minister, Ali Jalali, and Finance Minister, Ashraf Ghani, are the two major possible contenders against Hamid Karzai, in the next year's presidential elections, a Congressional report has said.

Both Jalali and Ghani former Cabinet colleagues of Karzai who left his administration due to difference -- are two formidable candidates against the Afghan President, said the 75-page report of Afghan Security by the Congressional Research Service prepared for US lawmakers.

Karzai has already announced that he is seeking reelection. However, neither Jalali nor Ghani have officially announced their candidature. While Jalali, who now teaches at a US University, is known for his tough administration, Ghani is considered to be a Pashtun hardliner.

The Congressional report said the two-round election virtually assures victory by a Pashtun. And both Jalali and Ghani are Pashtun.

The former Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah (a Tajik) might run as "Northern Alliance candidate." Others in this faction, Qanooni and Rabbani, reportedly lean against a run, it said.

Other aspirants include Dostam; Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqqeq; Ramazan Bashardost (another Hazara); Sabit, and Pashtun monarchist figures Pir Gaylani and Hedayat Arsala Amin, the report said.

Rumors have abated that the US Ambassador to the UN, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, might himself run, although some say this issue is still open. Khalilzad has himself denied that he is in contention.

The Congressional report said Karzai reportedly has an estimated 63 percent approval rating, This suggests that he draws support not only from Pashtuns, but from other sections of the country as well.
Back to Top

Back to Top
MPs fear winter food disaster
www.quqnoos.com Written by Qadeem Weyar Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Food has not reached areas that will be blocked by snow in weeks, MPs say

MEMBERS of Parliament have expressed their deep concern about the fast approaching winter and the possibility that it will trigger a humanitarian disaster.

MPs called members of the emergency committee before Parliament on Tuesday to answer questions about the preparations the government has made for a winter that last year killed hundreds of people and hundreds of thousands of animals.

Some MPs said roads to remote districts will be blocked by snow within weeks and that food supplies have not yet reached these areas.

Afghanistan needs about 2.5 million tonnes of wheat to feed the country, the head of the natural disaster and emergency response department said.

But Afghanistan only has 200,000 tonnes of wheat this year, the department's chief, Abdul Matin Edrak, said.

This year, the government will spend almost double the amount of money on clearing roads of snow than it did last year, Edrak said.

MPs warned that the most vulnerable will be in desperate need of basic food supplies this winter and condemned corrupt officials who they accuse of siphoning off up to 80% of all food aid.

The emergency committee says more than six million people in Afghanistan live below the poverty line, a figure greatly at odds with a recent report released by the central statistic bureau which claims that 42% of the country lives in extreme poverty - on less than $10 a day.

Droughts have destroyed farmers crops this year and the government has already pledged to deliver 125,000 tonnes of food to the worst affected areas.
Back to Top

Back to Top
AFGHANISTAN: Crossed wires in military-humanitarian relations
KABUL, 15 October 2008 (IRIN) - Differing accounts of a reported attack on a food aid convoy in Afghanistan have, whatever actually happened, highlighted the delicate relations between NATO-led military forces and humanitarian actors in the conflict.

"Insurgents attacked a World Food Programme [WFP] convoy in Jawand District, Badghis [Province], this morning. Escorting ISAF [NATO-led International Security Assistance Force] forces defended the convoy," said a statement issued by ISAF on 11 October. The insurgents attacked the convoy of trucks contracted by WFP with the aim of disrupting food aid deliveries, ISAF said. [http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/pressreleases/2008/10-october/pr081011-523.html]

WFP, however, rejected the ISAF account: "The WFP convoy in Badghis was not attacked," Susannah Nicol from WFP's information office in Kabul told IRIN.

So far in 2008, 22 attacks have been reported on WFP food convoys which have resulted in the loss of 822 tonnes of food, according to WFP.

"When insurgents attacked, ISAF forces returned fire and advanced on the insurgent position. Arriving at the scene of the attack, the ISAF soldiers found two insurgents dead, about six motorcycles destroyed and some abandoned rocket-propelled grenades," the ISAF statement said.

Clarifying the incident, a spokesperson told IRIN that ISAF forces that repelled the insurgents' alleged attack in Badghis Province happened to be in the area and only acted "routinely", an ISAF spokesman in Kabul told IRIN.

WFP's Nicol added that the organisation had not requested a security escort from ISAF and that no ISAF escort had been with the convoy. Dozens of WFP food aid convoys have also been attacked mostly in the volatile southern provinces over the past two years.

The use of armed escorts, particularly of international forces, should be used as a "last resort" - when there is no other way to urgently deliver life-saving relief, according to Ingrid Macdonald, protection and advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Kabul.

"We are extremely concerned that the routine use of armed escorts may be undermining the perception of impartiality and therefore, the security of humanitarian actors," Macdonald told IRIN.

The ISAF spokesperson said it routinely "offers" escort services to humanitarian convoys. But Macdonald said: "Given ISAF's active role in Afghanistan's conflict, if they are being used as regular escorts for humanitarian convoys it is extremely worrying for the entire humanitarian community - ISAF is one of the primary targets of the armed opposition."

Macdonald urged donors to support humanitarians with the infrastructure for safe access and to provide non-militarised air support for humanitarian operations.

The latest incident comes amid an intense debate within the broader humanitarian community about the relationship between aid agencies and the military. Aid experts say mixing humanitarian operations with the military undermines their impartiality and makes them a target.
Back to Top

Back to Top
Some Afghans live under Taliban rule – and prefer it
The Christian Science Monitor By Anand Gopal 10/14/2008
In provinces just south of Kabul, the insurgents have a shadow government that polices roads and runs courts.

Porak, Afghanistan - After a gang of thieves had continually terrorized an Afghan neighborhood near here months ago, locals decided they'd had enough. "We complained several times to the government and even showed them where the thieves lived," says Ahmad, who goes by one name.

But the bandits continued to operate freely. So the villagers turned to the Taliban.

The militants' parallel government here in Logar Province – less than 40 miles from Kabul, the capital – tried and convicted the men, tarred their faces, paraded them around, and threatened to chop off their hands if they were caught stealing in the future. The thieves never bothered the locals again.

In several provinces close to Kabul, the government's presence is vanishing or already nonexistent, residents say. In its place, a more effective – and brutal – Taliban shadow government is spreading and winning local support.

"The police are just for show," one local says. "The Taliban are the real power here."

Widespread disillusionment with rampant crime, corrupt government, and lack of jobs has fueled the Taliban's rise to de facto power – though mainly in areas dominated by fellow ethnic Pashtuns. Still, the existence of Taliban power structures so close to Kabul shows the extent to which the Afghan government has lost control of the country.

"This is a major problem for them," says Habibullah Rafeh, a political analyst with the Afghanistan Academy of Sciences. "Even though the Taliban can't capture Kabul militarily because of the strength of the international forces there, the government can't stop them from operating freely just outside of the city."

When President Hamid Karzai's government first took power in 2001, "authorities gave every family in Logar two kilos of food," says a local resident who works with an international nongovernmental organization and identifies himself as Abdel Qabir. "When that ran out each family received $200 assistance. But that, too, ran out, and people had no money and there were criminals everywhere.

"So people turned to the Taliban," Mr. Qabir continues. "They may not provide jobs, but at least they share the same culture and brought security."

Villagers say that almost every household in Logar Province has Taliban fighters. By day the area is quiet – most people stay indoors behind large mud walls or tend to their fields. A tiny roadside market sells dried fruits and soft drinks, and the shops often go unattended for hours.

As nightfall approaches, Taliban fighters slowly emerge from the houses and surrounding hillsides, some lugging rocket-propelled grenade launchers over their shoulders, ready to begin a night's work. The guerrillas set up checkpoints along Logar Province's central highway, stopping trucks and taxis to check IDs.

A few miles away sits a police checkpoint, but the police say they don't dare enter the Taliban-controlled areas. Yet many villagers say they don't need the police, since crime has almost vanished.

The foreign troop presence in Logar and neighboring provinces remains limited, too. NATO forces tend to only patrol some areas and focus their efforts on specific operations, usually at night.

The Taliban now have a strong presence in all seven of Logar's districts, including outright control of four of them, locals say. "In these districts the Taliban patrol openly in the daytime and there is no government presence at all," says Qabir.

In neighboring Ghazni Province, the Taliban is in full control of 13 of the 18 districts, according to locals. Similarly, in Wardak, which neighbors Kabul, the insurgents have control of six of eight districts. None of the six districts in either province dominated by ethnic Hazaras, however, are run by the Taliban.

In areas under their control, the Taliban has set up their own government, complete with police chiefs, judges, and even education committees.

An Islamic scholar heads the judicial committee of each district under Taliban control and usually appoints two judges to try cases using a strict interpretation of sharia law, according to locals and Taliban members. "We prefer these courts to the government courts," says Fazel Wali of Ghazni city, an NGO worker. Taliban courts have a reputation of working much faster than government ones, which often take months to decide cases and are saddled with corruption, he says.

The Taliban's parallel government is also involved in local education. Employees with Coordination for Afghan Relief, an Afghan NGO that works in Ghazni city and trains teachers, say Taliban authorities recently gave them a letter detailing the "allowed curriculum" in local schools.

Abdul Hakim, a Taliban "Emir of Education and Culture" in Ghazni Province, says his group checks all schoolbooks to ensure that they adhere to their version of sharia law. "We want to ensure that our youth are trained in Islamic education," he explains. "First, they should learn sharia law and religious studies. Then comes science and other subjects.... But we don't burn or close down schools if they are in accord with Islam."

However, locals say that the number of schools in Taliban-controlled territory is dwindling fast. Of the 1,100 schools operating three years ago in Ghazni, only 100 are left, according to the Ministry of Education. Almost no girls' schools remain, except nearly a dozen in the government-controlled provincial center.

The group also brings its austere interpretation of Islam to the areas they control, banning nonreligious music and flashy wedding parties. In Logar, guards at Taliban checkpoints regularly stop vehicles and beat drivers playing music.

The government police often refuse to enter Taliban territory. In Logar Province, when the Taliban set ablaze the homes of suspected government sympathizers during the middle of the night a few months ago, the locals called the police, desperate. "But the police actually told us to wait until morning, since they don't like to come out at night," recalls one resident. The houses burned to the ground.

Mozafaradeen Wardak, chief of police in Wardak Province, denies the allegations and says that, while the insurgents may have control in places like Logar and Ghazni, the police still regularly patrol.

Independent political analyst Waheed Muzhda says the Taliban's advance from the south toward Kabul resembles their progression when they first took power 12 years ago. In both cases, he says, they won support by bringing law and order.

"We have no TV. We can't listen to music. We don't have parties," says Abdul Halim of Ghazni Province, who, like others in the area, is a Taliban supporter. "But at least we have security and justice."
Back to Top

Back to Top
NATO troops to retreat if Afghan civilians at risk
By Hamid Shalizi
KABUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) - NATO has ordered its troops in Afghanistan to pull back from firefights with the Taliban rather than call in air strikes that might kill civilians, Afghan and NATO officials said on Tuesday.

Violence in Afghanistan this year is worse than at any time since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the militant Islamist Taliban in 2001 and fears are growing the West is losing both the military campaign and the support of ordinary Afghans.

The insurgents have intensified their campaign and extended it to previously peaceful areas, capitalising on resentment at the presence of foreign forces who many feel use air power indiscriminately, endangering civilians.

NATO defence ministers endorsed the restriction at a summit in Budapest last week after three U.S. air strikes killed more than 100 Afghan civilians in the three months.

"All agreed that civilian casualties earn a bad name for both the Afghan government and the presence of international troops in Afghanistan," Defence Minister Abdul Raheem Wardak told a news conference in Kabul after returning from the NATO summit.

If there is a risk to civilians, troops have now been ordered to withdraw if they can, rather than order bombings that would earn a short-term victory but boost Taliban opponents in the longer term.

That should lead to a drop in the number of air strikes, which are up sharply from last year, said a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

ISAF chief U.S. General David McKiernan has also told his officers that as far as possible all operations should be conducted alongside Afghan forces, an ISAF spokesman said.

Raids by foreign forces on homes and mosques are a major source of resentment against the more than 60,000 ISAF and U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan.

"There will be no uninvited entry into an Afghan house or a mosque without having the lead from the Afghan army unless there is a clear danger that comes from that house," said ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Richard Blanchette.

MORE FOREIGN FIGHTERS

With no end in sight to the war, the United States military is conducting a wide-ranging review of its Afghan strategy.

Without radical improvements in the way the military operates, coupled with better rule by President Hamid Karzai's administration and a real effort to tackle rampant corruption, NATO could face defeat in Afghanistan, analysts say.

Defence Minister Wardak acknowledged that this year was the most violent in Afghanistan since 2001 and blamed a flow of foreign fighters now no longer able to operate in Iraq.

Foreign militants were better equipped and trained than their local Afghan Taliban allies, he said, accounting for the increase in violence.

NATO has blamed foreign fighters and growing instability in neighbouring Pakistan for a 40 percent increase in Taliban attacks this year.

Recent Pakistani army operations against Taliban militants on the eastern side of the border have not had an impact on violence in Afghanistan, a presidential spokesman said.

"We hope that it is a serious and honest operation against terrorism, not only on their soil but also to prevent cross border attacks," Humayun Hamidzada told reporters. (Additional reporting by Jonathon Burch and Jon Hemming; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Sean Maguire and David Fox)
Back to Top

Back to Top
Pakistani intelligence agents re-arrest American
By HABIB KHAN Associated Press October 15, 2008
KHAR, Pakistan - Pakistani intelligence agents re-arrested an American detained in the country's volatile border region and were questioning the man, police said Wednesday.

The man — identified by Pakistani police as Juddi Kenan — was carrying a laptop computer when he was arrested Monday at a checkpoint in the northwestern district of Mohmand, near where Pakistani security forces have battled Islamic militants for two months.

District police chief Waqif Khan said the 20-year-old was released from custody Tuesday but was picked up hours later at his home in the nearby city of Peshawar.

"He is now in the custody of intelligence agencies, who are required to quiz him again for further satisfaction," he said.

Peshawar is the main city and lies outside the tribal zone, where special permission is needed to visit.

Khan said the man had dual American-Pakistani citizenship. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Islamabad confirmed an American had been arrested in Mohmand, but could not say whether the man had dual citizenship.

Pakistan is battling a growing militant threat in the northwest, where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters have established bases and plan attacks on American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Security forces killed four suspected militants overnight in the area, the latest casualties in a major military offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters there, said Jamil Khan, the no 2. government representative in the area.

Khan said the main Bajur town of Khar is under curfew and that fresh troops were flowing in along with tanks and artillery.

In other violence, militants fired rockets late Tuesday at a security post near Darra Adam Khel, another area of the northwest, killing two paramilitary troops and wounding three, said Rashid Khan, a local government official.

The United Nations said Tuesday almost 190,000 people had fled the fighting in Bajur, either across the border to Afghanistan or to other towns in northwest Pakistan.
___

Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan contributed to this report from Peshawar.
Back to Top

Back to Top
A mad scramble over Afghanistan
By M K Bhadrakumar Asia Times Online October 15, 2008
An impression is being created that there is a "rift" between the United States and Britain regarding the reconciliation track involving the Taliban. The plain truth is that the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are in this murky game together.

The essence of the game is to make the "war on terror" in Afghanistan more efficient and cost-effective. Surely, it is official American thinking that there has to be some form of reconciliation with the Taliban. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted as much last week. He said, "There has to be ultimately, and I'll underscore ultimately, reconciliation as part of the political outcome to this [war]. That's ultimately the exit strategy for all of us." (Emphasis added)

When you repeat a word thrice in five seconds, it does register. Gates suggested he wasn't hinting at all about an "exit strategy". Indeed, at an informal meeting of the defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) last week in Budapest, Hungary, the alliance visualized a long haul in Afghanistan.

Taliban reconciliation

Any reconciliation with the Taliban would essentially be in the nature of picking up the threads from October 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar promised at the 11th hour in those fateful days from his hideout in Kandahar via Pakistani intermediaries - that, yes, he would verifiably sequester his movement from al-Qaeda and ask Osama bin Laden to leave Afghan soil, provided the US acceded to his longstanding request to accord recognition to his regime in Kabul rather than engage it selectively. The US administration ignored the cleric's offer and instead pressed ahead with the plan to launch a "war on terror".

What we may expect in the period ahead is a deal whereby the "good" Taliban profess disengagement from al-Qaeda, which the US and its allies will graciously accept, and, in turn, the "good" Taliban won't insist on the withdrawal of Western forces as a pre-condition. The Saudis will ably lubricate such a deal.

The sheer "unaffordability" of an open-ended war in Afghanistan will influence thinking in Washington if the crisis in the US economy deepens. But we are still some way from that threshold. The war should be "affordable" if the new head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus, can somehow make it more "efficient", which is what he did in Iraq. Presently, American politicians only speak about robustly conducting the war.

They are nowhere near framing the fundamental issue: How central is the Afghan war to the global struggle against terrorism? The answer is crystal clear. Afghanistan has very little to do with the basic national interests of the United States. Political violence in Afghanistan is primarily rooted in local issues, and "warlordism" is an ancient trait. That is to say, the Taliban can be made part of the solution.

Ultimately, the objectives of nation-building and legitimate governance in an environment of overall security that allows economic activities and development can only be realized by accommodating native priorities and interests. Washington has been far too prescriptive, creating a US-style presidential system in Kabul and then controlling it.

But such a regime will never command respect among Afghans. Deploying more NATO troops or creating an Afghan army is not the answer. The international community has prudently chosen not to challenge the legitimacy of the Hamid Karzai regime, but there is a crisis of leadership. Inter-Afghan dialogue is urgently needed. The Afghans must be allowed to regenerate their traditional methods of contestation of power in their cultural context and to negotiate their cohabitation in their tribal context.

Again, the US has been proven wrong in believing that imperialism could trump nationalism. On the contrary, prolonged foreign occupation has triggered a backlash. The war should never have escalated beyond what it ought to have been - a low-intensity fratricidal strife, which has been a recurring feature of Afghan history. In other words, a solution to the conflict has to be primarily inter-Afghan, leading to a broad-based government free of foreign influence, where the international community can be a facilitator and guarantor.

Russia lashes out

But what clouds judgment is the geopolitics of the war. The war provided a context for the establishment of a US military presence in Central Asia; NATO's first-ever "out of area" operation; a turf which overlooks the two South Asian nuclear weapon states of India and Pakistan, Iran and China's restive Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; a useful toehold on a potential transportation route for Caspian energy bypassing Russia and Iran, etc. The situation around Iran; the US's "Great Central Asia" policy and containment strategy towards Russia; NATO's expansion - these have become added factors. Surely, geopolitical considerations lie embedded even within the current attempt to revive the Saudi mediatory role.

The interplay of these various geopolitical factors has made the war opaque. Major regional powers - Russia, Iran and India - do not see the US or NATO contemplating a pullout from Afghanistan in the foreseeable future. Tehran has been alleging that the US strategy in Afghanistan is essentially to perpetuate its military presence.

As a result, Russian statements regarding the US role in Afghanistan have become highly critical. Moscow seems to have assessed that the US-led war is getting nowhere and blame-game had begun. More important, Russia has began to pinpoint the US's "unilateralism" in Afghanistan.

In a major speech recently regarding European security at the World Policy Conference in Evian, France, President Dmitry Medvedev made a pointed reference, saying, "After the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the United States started a chapter of unilateral actions ..." He was making a point that the "United States' desire to consolidate its global role" is unrealizable in a multipolar world.

For the first time in the seven years of the war, the Russian foreign minister utilized the annual United Nations General Assembly forum to launch a broadside against the US, on September 27. Sergei Lavrov said:

"More and more questions are being raised as to what is going on in Afghanistan. First and foremost, what is the acceptable price for losses among civilians in the ongoing anti-terrorist operation? Who decides on criteria for determining the proportionality of the use of force?

These and other factors give reasons to believe that the anti-terrorism coalition is in the face of crisis. Looking at the core of the problem, it seems that this coalition lacks collective arrangements - ie equality among all its members in decision-making on the strategy and, especially, operational tactics. It so happens that in order to control a totally new situation as it evolved after 9/11, instead of the required genuine cooperative effort, including a joint analysis and coordination of practical steps, the mechanisms designed for a unipolar world started to be used, where all decisions were to be taken in a single center while the rest were merely to follow. The solidarity of the international community fostered on the wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow 'privatized'. "

These unusually sharp words underline the dissipation of the regional consensus over the war. Later, on September 28, at a press conference in the UN headquarters, Lavrov alleged that in a spirit of "prejudiced bias", the US was blocking the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization from helping to stabilize Afghanistan.

He also implied that the US vainly tried to block any reference to countering drug trafficking in the latest UN Security Council resolution on Afghanistan so as to deny Russia a role. He said, "Not quite full consideration is given to the assessments and the analyses of all members of the world community when making very important decisions which later tell on the situation of all."

A spat has since erupted over a UN-NATO cooperation agreement relating to the Afghan war allegedly signed "secretly" by a pliant secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and his NATO counterpart, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. on September 23 in New York. Russia has threatened to raise the matter in the UN Security Council. To quote Lavrov, "We [Russia] asked both [the UN and NATO] secretariats what this could mean and we are waiting for a reply, but we warned the UN leadership in the strictest fashion that things of this kind must be done without keeping secrets from member states and on the basis of powers and authority held by the secretariats."

Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said on Wednesday that Moscow would consider the Ban-Scheffer agreement "illegitimate", and as merely reflecting Ban's "personal opinion". As can be expected, Ban is keeping mum, while Scheffer contested the Russian allegation. Indeed, cracks are appearing in the US-Russia understanding over the anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan. A turf war is ensuing - Washington is determined to exclude Russia from Afghanistan and Moscow insisting on its legitimate role.

Iranian posturing

Similarly, Tehran also has raised the ante on Afghanistan. After having supported the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, in the recent period several statements highly critical of the US-led war in Afghanistan have appeared, attributed to the Iranian leadership. The latest high-profile statement was the criticism by the chairman of the Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, at a meeting with the visiting former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, where he lamented that the "occupiers" who created "insecurity" in Afghanistan and Pakistan were now "unable to rein it in".

More ominously, Tehran has invited former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who led the anti-Taliban coalition (Northern Alliance) in the 1990s to visit Iran. Receiving him in Tehran on

Sunday, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, (Majlis) Ali Larijani, told Rabbani, "The situation in Afghanistan is sorrowful and regrettable." He said the presence of foreign forces is creating "insecurity" in the loss of innocent lives and is causing rampant drug-trafficking.

In another statement in the Majlis two days earlier, Larijani condemned the US attacks on the Pakistani tribal areas in Waziristan. This was the first time an Iranian leader specifically took exception to the US military operations inside Pakistani territory. He said Iran was concerned about the extent of the devastation and the death toll in Waziristan and that the US had exceeded the limits of the Geneva Convention in fighting terrorism. "Every single day, civilians are falling victim to the US-led fight against terrorism," he said, adding the US was "destroying" Waziristan under the "pretext of fighting terrorism".

Most significantly, Tehran has broken its silence on the US-British-Saudi efforts to negotiate reconciliation with the Taliban. This has come, curiously enough, in the form of a statement by the powerful chairman of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Broujerdi. Long-time observers of the Afghan scene would recognize Broujerdi as the principal designer and architect of the Northern Alliance and a key strategist of the anti-Taliban resistance in the 1996-98 period.

Conceivably, Tehran has dropped a meaningful hint by fielding Broujerdi to speak on the Western efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. Broujerdi firmly repudiated the recent US propaganda that Tehran was mellowing toward the Taliban. Talking to a visiting French parliamentary delegation led by Socialist leader Jean-Louis Bianco on Sunday, Broujerdi underlined Tehran's continued opposition to the Taliban. He sharply criticized the European countries for adopting a conciliatory attitude towards the Taliban. He counseled them that instead they ought to extend unequivocal support to the "popular government" in Kabul led by Karzai.

Broujerdi pointed out that the West's attitude and approach toward the Taliban, which is an extremist group, will "damage regional stability and security". He said the root problem is the continued presence of foreign forces and a settlement will be possible only with their withdrawal.

Broujerdi may have signaled that Iran will challenge and counter any Western attempt to invite the Saudis to return to the Afghan chessboard and to co-opt the Taliban so as to perpetuate the US and NATO military presence. We may deduce that the scheduling of Rabbani's visit to Tehran is intended to signal that Iran still has reserves of influence with the Northern Alliance groups, despite the US estimation that these anti-Taliban groups have been scattered or bought over by Western intelligence.

Rabbani seems to have risen to the occasion. He also lent his voice condemning the continued presence of foreign forces on Afghan soil. "At first, they [Western forces] entered Afghanistan with the slogan that they would establish security and fight terrorism and drugs, but now Afghans are witnessing an escalation of terrorism and an increased production of narcotics," the inscrutable mujahideen leader told Larijani.

What was perplexing was Rabbani's remark, "The only solution to the Afghan crisis lies in the creation of unity among all national and jihadi [read mujahideen] forces in the country and the establishment of national reconciliation among all tribes without ethnic, tribal and religious prejudice." This was also the proclaimed political platform of the Northern Alliance. To be sure, Iran will oppose any ploy by US and British intelligence to resurrect the paradigm of the 1990s to put the Taliban in power so as to "pacify" Afghanistan and to create a modicum of stability necessary for the development of transportation routes for Caspian energy.

At a time when the fabulous Kashagan oil fields in Kazakhstan are expected to come on stream in 2013, when Washington hopes to reverse the tide of Russia-Turkmenistan energy cooperation, when volatility in the southern Caucasus impedes the advancement of new trans-Caspian pipelines, then, Afghanistan bounces back as the most realistic and viable evacuation route for Caspian energy bypassing Russia and Iran - provided the ground situation could be stabilized and security provided which investors and oil companies would find reassuring.

Indian dilemma

Both Russia and Iran will be keenly watching how India, which was a soul mate in the late 1990s staunchly supporting the anti-Taliban alliance, reacts to the current US-British-Saudi move. Indian leaders never tired of underscoring that there was nothing called "good Taliban" and "bad Taliban". That was up until a year ago. However, there is bound to be uneasiness in both Moscow and Tehran as to where exactly Delhi stands at the present juncture in the geopolitics of the region.

One thing is clear: a US-sponsored oil/gas pipeline via Afghanistan suits India, though that may undercut Russia and Iran in the energy sweepstakes.

From all accounts, discussions were going on between the security establishments of India and the US for the past several months regarding an Indian military involvement in Afghanistan. Washington has been pressing for a major Indian role. A two-member Indian team, which visited Kabul in early September, claimed they were on a mission sponsored by the government to make an assessment of the layout for Indian military involvement. The team apparently held discussions with top American diplomats and military officials based in Kabul.

Evidently, Delhi was clueless regarding Saudi King Abdullah's secret mediation with the Taliban. This intelligence failure had to happen. Indian diplomats have been somewhat smug about the unprecedented influence they wielded with the Kabul regime, and as happens in heady times, they began blandly assuming the durability of the present Afghan setup.

They worked shoulder-to-shoulder with their US counterparts in Kabul and American thinking inevitably began coloring Delhi's perceptions. It seems the intellectual osmosis ultimately became one-sided. Under constant US encouragement, the inebriating idea of a major military role in Afghanistan and playing the "great game" crept into the Indian calculus. Delhi seems to have incrementally lost touch with the Afghan bazaar and ground realities.

The US-British-Saudi plan to accommodate the Taliban in the power structure in Kabul creates a dilemma for Indian policymakers. To do an about-turn and begin to distinguish "good" Taliban is ridiculous. It will be seen as kow-towing to the US and will be difficult to rationalize. The antipathy towards the Taliban runs deep in the Indian mindset, since no matter the actual character of the Taliban's "Islamism", a threat perception gained ground in Indian opinion regarding "Islamic terror" from Afghanistan. The Indian establishment unwittingly contributed to this by harping on the ubiquitous "foreign hand" in terrorist activities in India. A rollback of the thesis will take time.

Furthermore, India views that the Taliban as an instrument of policy for Pakistani intelligence and as detrimental to Indian regional security interests. All in all, Delhi will feel greatly relieved if the US abandons its plan to co-opt the "good" Taliban.

In the above scenario, both Tehran and Moscow will be looking forward to foreign minister-level consultations with Delhi in the coming weeks. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to visit Tehran in early November. Again, in November, in the run-up to the year-end visit by President Dmitriy Medvedev to India, Lavrov and Prime Minister Vadimir Putin will have consultations in Delhi.

The geopolitical reality, however, is that all three countries have transformed in recent years and their foreign policy priorities and orientations have also changed. They relate today to US hegemony in Afghanistan from dissimilar perspectives of national interests.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
Back to Top

Back to Top
Pakistani crack-down 'fails to affect Afghan security
www.quqnoos.com Written by Qadeem Weyar Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Military strikes in Paksitani tribal areas fail to improve security, official says
LARGE scale military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas have yet to have a positive impact on security inside Afghanistan, the president’s spokesman says.

Spokesman Humayan Hamidzada said during a press conference on Tuesday that the government hoped its neighbour was committed to tackling Pakistan-based insurgents who are blamed for this year’s spike in violence in Afghanistan.

Hamdizada said Pakistan must not only combat militants on its side of the border but must also prevent the rebel fighters from moving across the border into Afghan territory.

Terrorism is a problem shared by both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the two countries must work together to combat the threat the insurgents pose, Hamidzada said.

He added that the police were still working to securing the release of the kidnapped acting ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, who was abducted about 20 days ago in the outskirts of Paksitan’s Pesahwar city.
Back to Top

Back to Top
Pakistan's risky militia strategy
By Haroon Rashid BBC Urdu service, Islamabad Wednesday, 15 October 2008
After years of failure, the people in charge of running the "war on terror" in Pakistan's tribal areas are using militias as a new card.

But there remains a strong possibility that this strategy could make a difficult situation even worse.

Some analysts contend that it could lead to all out-war along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan has deployed 180,000 highly trained members of its security forces in the tribal areas for the last seven years - but they have been unable to control the few thousand militants who operate there.

So what are the chances that the tribal militias will be able to succeed where the security forces have failed?

Hardened militants

The militias are made up of local tribesmen.

They have no specialised anti-terrorism training and unlike the Taleban they do not possess the latest arms and communications equipment.

It seems a tall order for untrained tribal militias to fight hardened militants who have turned parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan into a guerrilla battlefield.

Pakistani analysts also query why it is necessary to spend billions of dollars - mainly from US funds - on the security forces if it is down to ordinary Pakistani citizens to take on the militants.

If those ordinary citizens have to use generators for electricity, self-drilled wells for water and tribal militias for protection, what is the use of the state?

All this is an acknowledgment of the utter failure of the state to enforce its writ in Pakistan.

But what is even more dangerous is, to cover up its failures, another doomed operation is being conducted which will lead to many more civilian casualties.

Sources say the government has given the tribal militias a free hand against the militants.

The message being conveyed is "go ahead, kill as many militants as you can, no one will ask any questions".

Warlords

It is not clear as to what help, aside from the "licence to kill", the government will provide to the militias.

Will it give them the latest weapons, and will there be financial rewards? All that remains to be seen.

And what happens to all those UN conventions which prohibit states from arming ordinary citizens?

It is easy to conclude that the current experiment is being done without serious thought to the future - or reference to the past.

There is now a strong possibility that the situation will end up producing men like Afghan warlords of old - such as Ahmed Shah Masood, Ismail Khan and Abdur Rasheed Dostum - in the tribal area.

The government might then have to raise other tribal militias to fight the first ones.

It's also argued that tribal society and culture are not compatible with the militia policy.

The "licence to kill" could well be misused by people to settle personal and tribal rivalries - with the government reduced to the role of spectator.

An interesting aspect of the Afghan war against the Soviets took place after their withdrawal from the country.

Ahmed Shah Masood and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the main commanders in Afghanistan, were at loggerheads for the overall leadership of the mujahideen.

But as the hostilities intensified, their field commanders continued to meet to "discuss matters".

These field commanders switched loyalties as the situation on the ground changed and developed.

In some cases, loyalties were not just switched from commander to commander, but to the communist government as well.

'American conspiracy'

Indeed, the issue of shifting loyalties in this region is ancient.

What guarantee is there that the militias will not eventually turn against Pakistan?

They have already stated quite emphatically that if the US interferes in this region, then they will stand united against any such aggression.

At least one US presidential candidate has insisted that the fight against militancy should be carried into Pakistan. But there is a danger that this will serve only to encourage the militias to side with the Taleban.

Raising militias in the tribal areas has been used in the past without success.

In 2003, locals marched to the beat of the drum against foreign militants and those who harboured them in Waziristan.

The results, however, were not impressive.

Uzbek militants were only chased out of the area by the pro-government Taleban commander Mullah Nazir in 2007.

After this, US drones began carrying out regular attacks against foreign militants in the tribal region.

So far only the Jamaat-e-Islami party opposes the formation of the militias, calling them an "American conspiracy".

If using US funds to get tribal leaders to move against the Taleban is indeed the main game plan, it holds potentially explosive consequences for the region.

The Taleban have sent a clear message as to their view of the tactic with the recent attack on the tribal council in the Orakzai region, as well as the beheadings of several captured militia leaders.

Whatever the proponents of raising militias do now, they will have to act with extreme caution - it is an area fraught with every kind of danger.
Back to Top

Back to News Archirves of 2008

Disclaimer: This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).