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U.S. firm ambushed again in Afghan south, 23 dead
KABUL (Reuters) - At least 23 people were killed when Taliban insurgents ambushed a U.S. security firm convoy in southwestern Afghanistan on Friday, provincial officials said, the second attack on the firm in as many days.
Coalition says more than 10 militants killed in Afghanistan
Fri Sep 12, 6:14 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said Friday its soldiers had killed more than 10 militants in an operation to find a Taliban rebel involved in bomb attacks and helping foreign militants.
Families of slain French soldiers visit Afghanistan: military
Fri Sep 12, 5:00 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Seventeen relatives of French soldiers killed in Afghanistan arrived in the country Friday accompanied by French Defence Minister Herve Morin, the French military said.
Pakistan kills up to 100 militants near Afghan border
Thu Sep 11, 1:11 PM ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces killed up to 100 al Qaeda-linked militants in fierce clashes in a volatile tribal region near the Afghan border on Thursday, a security official said.
Australian defence minister critical of progress in Afghanistan
Fri Sep 12, 1:15 AM ET
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's defence minister has criticised the slow progress in the war in Afghanistan and warned that public support for the effort will wane unless results come soon.
Accused drug lord in U.S. called Taliban backer
By Edith Honan Thu Sep 11, 5:39 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An accused Afghan drug kingpin on trial in New York for conspiring to import more than $50 million worth of heroin was portrayed by prosecutors on Thursday as a warlord who helped the Taliban come to power.
'Another US strike' hits Pakistan
Friday, 12 September 2008 BBC News
Five civilians and seven militants have been killed in north-west Pakistan in a suspected US missile attack, local officials say.
Seven Years On, Terrorism Still Threatens Afghanistan
By M. ASHRAF HAIDARI September 11, 2008 Middle East Times
On September 11, 2001, the world woke up to a tragic day that has been recorded in recent history as a consequence of neglecting failing or failed states during the 1990s. The loss of more than 3,000
Pak-Afghan mini jirga after Eid
Friday, September 12, 2008 The Pakistan Link
* FMs also agree to meet in New York on sidelines of UN General Assembly meeting
Where the good die all too often
Tribune correspondent Kim Barker experiences firsthand Afghanistan's lawless spiral of terror and corruption: Another person killed, like too many before, working to better his country
By Kim Barker | Chicago Tribune - Sep 12 12:15 AM
KABUL, Afghanistan — Mohammad Alim Hanif knew he would be killed, but he didn't want to give up being a judge.
Former Guerrilla Says Bush Is Bungling War in Afghanistan: Book
Review by James Rupert
Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- In four months, a new U.S. president will inherit the foreign-policy train wrecks from the Bush administration's response to Sept. 11, 2001. And not just Iraq.
Does killing Afghan civilians keep us safe?
Western airstrikes target terrorists, but innocents are caught in the crossfire.
By Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann Los Angeles Times September 12, 2008
This week, as we remember the nearly 3,000 American citizens who died in the rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or in a remote field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, we also should
Bin Laden Laughs
… as his predictions of America's impending bankruptcy come true
by Justin Raimondo antiwar.com / September 12, 2008
Seven years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government is finally getting around to installing radiation scanning devices at major airports. The 9/11 Commission cited this as a major vulnerability four years ago
Helmandis Fear Taleban Noose Tightening
They suspect insurgents are close to taking full control of province, despite official claims that they are being pushed back.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By IWPR trainees in Helmand (ARR No. 300, 11-Sep-08)
The Helmand authorities and international officials appear to be struggling to keep a lid on mounting local panic over a recent Taleban offensive which is said to have taken them to the very outskirts of the provincial capital.
Welcome move on Afghan exit
Sep 12, 2008 04:30 AM Toronto Star, Canada
Just six months ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was lobbying Parliament to extend Canada's military role in Afghanistan past 2009. And, vowing Canada will never "cut and run," he has always balked at setting a firm exit date.
Canada to have Afghan role after 2011: MacKay
BILL CURRY - From Friday's Globe and Mail September 11, 2008
NEW GLASGOW, N.S. — Canada will continue to play a role in Afghanistan even after the military mission ends in 2011, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Thursday.
'No quick fix' for Afghan security forces
Scott Deveau , Canwest News Service - National Post - September 11, 2008
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - Yet another suicide bomber rammed a car full of explosives into a convoy transporting private security guards Thursday afternoon in Kandahar City, wiping out whatever slim semblance of security remained in the former Taliban stronghold.
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U.S. firm ambushed again in Afghan south, 23 dead
KABUL (Reuters) - At least 23 people were killed when Taliban insurgents ambushed a U.S. security firm convoy in southwestern Afghanistan on Friday, provincial officials said, the second attack on the firm in as many days.
Farah provincial police chief Khalilullah Rahmani said 15 of the dead were Taliban militants killed in the fighting that broke out following the ambush.
Rahmani said U.S. Protection and Investigations, a firm involved in escorting supplies for coalition forces, also suffered casualties but he had no details.
"The Taliban militants attacked the convoy with heavy machineguns; four vehicles were set on fire," said a provincial official who asked not to be named.
He said four Afghan guards and four civilians had been killed in the ambush that took place when the convoy was passing through Bakwa district in Farah province.
Another convoy of the security firm was attacked on Thursday in Kandahar city and two people were killed.
Separately, the U.S military said coalition forces had killed more than 10 militants and detained two during operations in eastern Afghanistan that also targeted the network of veteran Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani.
U.S. forces have focused on Haqqani's network this week, firing missiles from drones into a house and a religious school founded by him in Pakistan's tribal region just across the border, killing 23 people, mostly his relatives.
On Thursday, two members of Haqqani's team were picked up in Afghanistan's Khost province, including one suspected of coordinating roadside attacks on coalition and Afghan forces, the U.S. military said in a statement
Haqqani, who was backed by the United States during the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is considered close to Osama bin Laden.
U.S. forces also targeted a Taliban commander in Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, and 10 militants were killed in the fighting, the military said.
"Coalition forces were engaged with small-arms fire from multiple groups of armed militants as they entered a compound. The force returned fire, killing the militants," the statement said.
Violence has hit its worst level in Afghanistan since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001. More than 2,700 people including some 1,100 civilians have been killed so far this year, aid agencies say.
(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; writing by Sanjeev Miglani; editing by Roger Crabb)
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Coalition says more than 10 militants killed in Afghanistan
Fri Sep 12, 6:14 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said Friday its soldiers had killed more than 10 militants in an operation to find a Taliban rebel involved in bomb attacks and helping foreign militants.
The announcement came as a US defence official confirmed that two soldiers killed in attacks on Thursday were from the United States, which has about 33,000 soldiers in the fight against extremists in Afghanistan.
Soldiers searching for the wanted Taliban subcommander came under fire Thursday when they entered a compound in Kapisa, northeast of Kabul, the coalition said in a statement.
"The force returned fire, killing the militants," it said, adding that more than 10 were killed.
The statement did not say if the targeted man, also accused of helping foreign fighters in Afghanistan, was among the dead.
Troops in the eastern border province of Khost meanwhile arrested two men it said were with the Taliban's Haqqani network, the statement said.
The network, which spans the Afghan and Pakistan border, is headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a renowned fighter in the resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The US military says one of his sons, Siraj, also has increasing influence.
A US missile strike inside Pakistan on September 8 was apparently targeted at the pair but failed to kill them although four mid-level Al-Qaeda operatives were killed, a Pakistani security official and a militant source said.
In the west of Afghanistan meanwhile, the airport in the city of Herat was closed after a rocket attack in the early morning, police said.
A man claiming to be from a group associated with the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to AFP. He said six rockets had been fired at the airport, one of the busiest in Afghanistan.
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Families of slain French soldiers visit Afghanistan: military
Fri Sep 12, 5:00 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Seventeen relatives of French soldiers killed in Afghanistan arrived in the country Friday accompanied by French Defence Minister Herve Morin, the French military said.
The relatives, invited by President Nicolas Sarkozy to go to Afghanistan as part of the mourning process, arrived by military flight, a French military officer said.
Details of their programme would not be released until after they had left the country later Friday.
They had also asked that no pictures be taken during the trip.
Seven families on the visit lost a loved one during an August 18 ambush east of Kabul, an attack which killed 10 French soldiers, and the group also included parents of soldiers killed in 2006 and 2007.
The ambush was the deadliest ground attack on international troops since they arrived in Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the hardline Taliban regime and the heaviest toll for the French military in 25 years.
Of the 10 troops killed, one of them was stabbed to death, while 21 were also wounded in an attack that has shocked France and sparked debate about French involvement in war-torn Afghanistan.
French deputies are due to vote September 22 on whether to maintain French troops in Afghanistan, where they are one of the largest contingents from about 40 countries in the insurgency-wracked country.
Morin said on France 2 television Thursday that it was "inconceivable" that France would pull its soldiers out of the country.
"It is inconceivable that France, a member of the United Nations Security Council, the fifth power of the world, would contemplate a retreat," he said.
The operation was a long-term one, he said, and had to be carried out with the aim of strengthening Afghan institutions.
France has lost a total of 24 soldiers in Afghanistan, where its troops are serving in a NATO-led force.
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Pakistan kills up to 100 militants near Afghan border
Thu Sep 11, 1:11 PM ET
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces killed up to 100 al Qaeda-linked militants in fierce clashes in a volatile tribal region near the Afghan border on Thursday, a security official said.
"Eighty to 100 militants were killed in Bajaur today. Most of them are foreigners," the official said on condition of anonymity, referring to the tribal region.
(Reporting by Kamran Haider; writing by Zeeshan Haider)
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Australian defence minister critical of progress in Afghanistan
Fri Sep 12, 1:15 AM ET
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's defence minister has criticised the slow progress in the war in Afghanistan and warned that public support for the effort will wane unless results come soon.
Joel Fitzgibbon, who has repeatedly called for the international force fighting Taliban militants in the struggling Asian nation to be boosted, said he was growing more concerned about the situation.
"The progress in Afghanistan is all too slow," Fitzgibbon told public television late Thursday.
The minister said he was "quite shocked" at the lack of coordination in planning and the command chain in Afghanistan, where a US-led coalition is working alongside a NATO-led international force to restore security.
"We have too few troops in Afghanistan," he said.
"We're not doing enough on economic capacity building, we're not doing enough to train the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police.
"We certainly are not doing enough on Pakistan and those difficulties we have in the north-west border regions.
"So we've got a long way to go -- we are committed to the project because it is important to Australia's national security. But we need to do much better and I'll keep pushing for NATO to do much better."
Fitzgibbon said the conflict, which has bipartisan political support here, would lose favour with the Australian public unless sacrifices appeared to be making a difference. So far, six Australian soldiers have been killed.
"If we don't make better progress -- and that's what I'm pushing for -- then we will start to lose that support and that's what's been happening in other nation states," Fitzgibbon said.
International troops have been in Afghanistan since late 2001, after a US-led invasion following the September 11 attacks on the United States toppled the hardline Taliban regime for harbouring Al-Qaeda.
Taliban militants, many of whom fled to neighbouring Pakistan, have stepped up attacks in recent years.
Last week, nine Australian soldiers were injured in a Taliban ambush in southern Uruzgan province -- the force's worst casualty toll in combat since the Vietnam war.
Australia has about 1,000 troops among the 70,000-strong international force in the country helping the Afghan government to fight the rebels.
Fitzgibbon has repeatedly rejected increasing Australian troops in Afghanistan, saying other countries must take on their share of the burden.
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Accused drug lord in U.S. called Taliban backer
By Edith Honan Thu Sep 11, 5:39 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An accused Afghan drug kingpin on trial in New York for conspiring to import more than $50 million worth of heroin was portrayed by prosecutors on Thursday as a warlord who helped the Taliban come to power.
But defense lawyers countered that Bashir Noorzai, 47, was an Afghan patriot who agreed to cooperate with the United States in the hopes of ensuring the country's stability only to be duped by U.S. authorities who arrested him.
"He brought (his) enormous power to the United States and said, 'It's yours,"' his lawyer Ivan Fisher told jurors in opening arguments at Manhattan federal court. "The government decided instead to arrest him and prosecute him."
Noorzai was arrested in April 2005 after U.S. President George W. Bush identified him as one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers.
Prosecutors allege Noorzai gave the Taliban explosives and weapons in return for protection of his opium crops.
They said Noorzai controlled fields where poppies were grown and harvested to make opium, and his organization used laboratories in Afghanistan and Pakistan to process the opium into heroin and arranged for it to be transported to the United States and Europe.
Fisher said Noorzai did not know he was being investigated when he flew to New York voluntarily in 2005 and submitted to questioning by agents over 11 days in a Manhattan hotel room.
During those meetings, Noorzai provided agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI with critical information about Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, Fisher said.
U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001 for failing to turn over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Omar has been wanted by the United States.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anirudh Bansal said Noorzai led an international trafficking organization since 1990 and was a leader of the million-member Noorzai tribe in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, which became a Taliban stronghold. "In return, the Taliban made Bashir Noorzai a very powerful man in Afghanistan," Bansal said.
U.S. officials in Washington have linked Noorzai to bin Laden and al Qaeda, saying in return for helping finance the group it helped him move his drugs abroad.
Around 92 per cent of the world's heroin comes from poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Mohammad Zargham)
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'Another US strike' hits Pakistan
Friday, 12 September 2008 BBC News
Five civilians and seven militants have been killed in north-west Pakistan in a suspected US missile attack, local officials say.
Missiles hit two buildings near Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border.
It has emerged that President Bush recently authorised US raids against militants in Pakistan without prior approval from Islamabad.
There is growing concern in Pakistan over unilateral US military action.
Early reports said all, or nearly all, of the dead were Taleban fighters killed by one missile.
But later reports from the scene said missiles hit two buildings - in one three women and two children were killed, and in the other seven Taleban militants died.
The missiles were fired from a drone - an unmanned US plane - local people said.
Military spokesman Maj Murad Khan confirmed "a missile attack at around 5.30 in the morning" and said the government had been informed.
American and international troops are fighting Taleban and al-Qaeda militants close to the scene of the attack in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani army says its troops have killed at least 28 militants in the north-west of the country.
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Pakistan says that heavy fighting is continuing around the strategically important area of Loisam in the Bajaur tribal area.
House destroyed
Friday's missile attack was in the Tol Khel area on the outskirts of Miranshah, local officials and eyewitnesses told the BBC.
It is the fifth time since the beginning of this month that US forces have carried out cross border strikes, according to local people.
On Monday, at least 14 people were killed and 15 injured in a suspected US missile strike in North Waziristan, witnesses and officials said.
The attacks follow persistent US accusations that Pakistan is not doing enough to eliminate Taleban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the border region.
An unnamed senior Pentagon official told the BBC that at some point within the past two months President Bush issued a classified order to authorise US raids against militants in Pakistan
Pakistan has said it will not allow foreign forces onto its territory and that it will vigorously protect its sovereignty. It says that cross border raids are not the best way of fighting the "war against terror".
The country's Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said there was "no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border".
The upsurge in strikes has alarmed Pakistani military and government officials, who say it seriously undermines their counter-insurgency operations.
Claim disputed
Meanwhile, the Pakistani army says it killed at least 28 militants in the north-west of the country on Thursday night.
They said two army soldiers were also killed in the fighting. The killings took place in the troubled districts of Swat and Bajaur, on the Afghan border.
The militants have disputed the army's claim, saying no Taleban have been killed.
An army spokesman, Major Murad Khan, told the BBC that those killed included foreign fighters as well.
A Taleban spokesman, Maulvi Omar, told the BBC's Urdu service that no Taleban fighter had died in Thursday's fighting.
The casualty figures could not be independently verified.
Bajaur is believed to be a major al-Qaeda sanctuary, and has attracted several suspected US missile attacks from across the border in Afghanistan.
Security forces launched an operation against militants in the area in the first week of August.
Most markets and shops in the area have remained closed since then.
More than 300,000 people have since fled the area to avoid fighting.
Witnesses say those who are still in the area are faced with severe food and medicine shortages.
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Seven Years On, Terrorism Still Threatens Afghanistan
By M. ASHRAF HAIDARI September 11, 2008 Middle East Times
On September 11, 2001, the world woke up to a tragic day that has been recorded in recent history as a consequence of neglecting failing or failed states during the 1990s. The loss of more than 3,000 American lives was not just an isolated event that we sadly witnessed on the morning of 9/11 but the culmination of many such tragic events which had been unfolding before our watching eyes thousands of miles away from American shores in Afghanistan.
It is now an established fact by all accounts that had the United States and its allies helped rebuild Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from the country in 1989 and the ensuing fall of the Afghan regime in 1992, the country would not have become a no man's land -- a hotbed for global extremism and terrorism -- in the following years. However, soon after Afghans effectively delivered the last knock-out blow to the falling "Evil Empire," the United States and its Cold War allies achieved their strategic objective in Afghanistan and quit the country, leaving its impoverished people to pick up the pieces on their own.
It was clear that Afghans could hardly make it on their own after their country was utterly devastated with over two million Afghans killed, millions of others wounded and permanently disabled, and over five million Afghans made homeless and displaced throughout the world -- let alone the unspeakable suffering inflicted on every Afghan family that continues to torment them to this day.
The post-Cold War vulnerability of the Afghan people and their country became a gap quickly filled by the same extremists who had been recruited and supplied by the West to bleed and defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. Regional players such as Pakistan's army created the Taliban movement to advance its strategic interests in Afghanistan, while the Taliban pursued their medieval extremist agenda to punish an already suffering nation in the name of God. At the same time, al-Qaida took advantage of stateless Afghanistan where it established its global terrorist operations to hit hard at American targets worldwide.
Therefore, what changed the world's static attitude towards Afghanistan was indeed the tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The tragedy reminded the newly elected U.S. administration and America's allies of the job their previous governments had left half done in Afghanistan a decade earlier, which they now had to complete together to ensure global peace and security.
Since international re-engagement in Afghanistan seven years ago, the key institutions of a permanent government have been established with considerable progress made in rebuilding infrastructure, expanding access to basic healthcare, and providing education to an increasing number of Afghan girls and boys across Afghanistan. However, the country's progress is increasingly eclipsed by deteriorating security and weak governance which impede Afghanistan's longer-term stabilization and reconstruction.
Thus, the key question to ask is that if we are keenly aware of the cost of neglecting Afghanistan again, then what should be the way forward? How can we succeed in our collective efforts to secure Afghanistan and ensure international peace and security?
First of all, in a country where there are too many inter-connected and overlapping problems competing for urgent resolution, it is important to narrow down our priorities and focus on the ones with the potential of helping resolve the rest overtime. This means a departure from ad hoc approaches to nation-building in Afghanistan where the precious assistance of tax payers in donor countries has so far been wasted on quick fixes, which have made no real difference in the lives of the Afghan people over the past seven years.
Domestically, it is critically important to prioritize the strengthening of the Afghan nascent state institutions so they will soon gain the capacity to govern effectively, address the corruption problem, and adopt and implement policies that promote long-term economic growth. Without security and good governance, Afghanistan will be unable to attract foreign capital intensive investment in the natural resource and infrastructure sectors, which we know can help provide off-farm employment for poppy farmers and jobs for youth and the returning refugees. And we know from the experience of many developing countries (from the "Rise of the Rest": China, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Korea, Malaysia and others) that only sustainable economic growth will help reduce poverty in Afghanistan, not any unlimited amount of relief hand-outs.
It is important to stress that Afghanistan cannot achieve self-reliance and self-sufficiency unless the international community enables it to do so. In light of the country's massive rebuilding needs, the international community must match ends with means. Committing long-term resources is absolutely necessary but ensuring that aid is effectively delivered through the Afghan state institutions to achieve the objectives of the Afghan Marshall Plan -- the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) -- is equally important. Therefore, the international community must deliver on the commitments they made in the recent Paris Support Conference to align their aid resources with the objectives of the ANDS, a key priority of which is to build capacity in the Afghan state institutions in order to address overtime other domestic challenges facing Afghanistan.
Regionally, the United States and NATO have now realized that the Taliban cannot be defeated in Afghanistan without dismantling their command and control infrastructure in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, from where they daily launch terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan, mostly killing innocent civilians. And unless external institutional support for the Taliban insurgency ends, military and civilian casualties will continue rising in Afghanistan, gradually giving the terrorists an upper hand. Therefore, Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment must be bilaterally and multilaterally persuaded to cooperate sincerely in the war against terrorism, while the country's civilian government must be strengthened to ensure stability in Pakistan and the rest of the region on the long run.
At the same time, NATO needs to bolster its military strength in the fight against cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan. The commanders on the ground are asking for three additional well-equipped brigades (about 10,000) with a flexible mandate to secure Afghanistan. The U.S. recently announced deployment of some 4,500 additional troops to Afghanistan by early next year, which should be complemented with more forces from other NATO member states to bolster military efforts to contain and defeat the Taliban.
Ultimately, however, the key to securing Afghanistan will rest in the build-up of a professional Afghan army and police. The Afg