 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
NATO to halt Afghan operations for Peace Day
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 20, 5:20 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO's top general in Afghanistan has ordered all international troops here to halt offensive operations Sunday in honor of a U.N.-backed day of peace. Even the Taliban is pledging to lay down their weapons for a day.
Coalition soldier, two Afghans killed in bomb blast
Sat Sep 20, 9:12 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A soldier from the US-led coalition and two Afghan civilians were killed Saturday when a bomb hit their vehicle in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said.
INTERVIEW-Karzai to discuss Afghan casualties with Bush
20 Sep 2008 13:41:12 GMT By Alistair Scrutton
KABUL, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will work with U.S. President George W. Bush at a meeting later this month to find ways to reduce civilian casualties, the foreign minister said on Saturday.
Karzai Agrees To Meet With Palin
By Michael D. Shear and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, September 20, 2008
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will meet next week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in New York, on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, according to Afghan officials in Washington.
Explosion at Pakistan Marriott hotel kills 40
By ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A massive truck bomb devastated the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Saturday, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 100.
U.S. sees threat from Afghan-Pakistan border area
Sat Sep 20, 3:35 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan is not yet equipped to combat the militant threat emanating from the remote area bordering Afghanistan, a senior Bush administration official said
Interpol pushes Afghanistan to record 'terrorist' prisoners
Fri Sep 19, 1:31 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Around half the 2,000 prisoners who escaped worldwide in the past three years broke out of jails in Afghanistan, where many of the escapees were "terrorists", the Interpol chief said Friday.
FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, Sept 20
20 Sep 2008 13:56:57 GMT
KABUL, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1300 GMT on Saturday:
* SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN - A soldier from the U.S.-led coalition force and two Afghans were killed when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said.
Thousands call for end to German military mission in Afghanistan
Berlin, Sept 20, IRNA
Several thousand demonstrators marched in Berlin and Stuttgart on Saturday, demanding an end to the
controversial German military operation in Afghanistan, the press reported.
Taliban has turned much of Afghanistan into 'No Go' zone
New Kerala - Sep 20 3:15 AM
Washington, Sep 20 : A resurgent Taliban 'has turned much of Afghanistan into 'No Go' zones for aid workers and civilians', according to a new report.
Native issues casualties of Afghan spending, chief says
Ottawa has spent billions on the Afghan mission, but won't fund pledges made in Kelowna Accord to raise natives' standard of living, Fontaine says, calling on candidates to engage voters
JOE FRIESEN Globe and Mail, Canada - Sep 19, 2008
Canada has spent $22-billion on a war in Afghanistan while neglecting its promise to eradicate poverty among native people, Assembly of First Nations national Chief Phil Fontaine said yesterday.
Arthur Kent settles suits over 'Charlie Wilson's War'
Fri. Sep. 19 2008 8:07 AM ET Constance Droganes, entertainment writer, CTV.ca
Journalist Arthur Kent has reached a global settlement of his lawsuits against the makers of the feature film "Charlie Wilson's War."
General Petraeus told he 'must succeed' in Afghanistan General
David Petraeus must "knit together" Afghanistan's confused command structure if the coalition is to avoid a humiliating defeat, a senior American defence official has said.
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 19 Sep 2008
The man behind the "surge" strategy in Iraq will take charge of US Central Command tasked with bringing fresh direction to an Afghan campaign that was seen as "marking time".
A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan
Militia Operates a Parallel Government
Washington Post - World
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 20, 2008
KABUL - Sept. 19 -- Just one year ago, the Taliban insurgency was a furtive, loosely organized guerrilla force that carried out hit-and-run ambushes, burned empty schools, left warning letters at night
Taliban making the grade in guerrilla war
A Taliban ambush on a French platoon killed 10 soldiers in August. Now, a secret NATO review shows that the French did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment. By contrast, the insurgents were dangerously well prepared
The Globe and Mail GRAEME SMITH September 20, 2008
It was mid-afternoon when a tribal elder invited a U.S. military commander for a quiet chat in a garden. His village was surrounded by foreign troops, hunting around the mountain valley in search of infiltrators
All change in the US's Afghan mission
Asia Times By Syed Saleem Shahzad 09/19/2008
KARACHI - The direct costs of the seven-year "war on terror", which includes operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, have reached US$752 billion, if the current year's appropriation of $188 billion is included
A scathing critique of US dealings abroad
By Jim Chiavelli September 20, 2008 Boston Globe, United States
Email| Print| Single Page| Yahoo! Buzz| ShareThisText size – + Descent Into Chaos:The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
By Ahmed Rashid Viking, 544 pp., $27.95
Ahmed Rashid has seen and written it all before. If you don't believe me, he'll tell you himself.
Pakistan on the Brink
Mismanaged "war on terror" has stirred extremism, threatening to rip Pakistan apart
YaleGlobal Ahmed Rashid 19 September 2008
LAHORE - For the past seven years the Bush administration studiously ignored the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership gathering in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and now scrambles to make up for lost time.
Back to Top
NATO to halt Afghan operations for Peace Day
By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 20, 5:20 AM ET
KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO's top general in Afghanistan has ordered all international troops here to halt offensive operations Sunday in honor of a U.N.-backed day of peace. Even the Taliban is pledging to lay down their weapons for a day.
The order follows an announcement by President Hamid Karzai that Afghan troops would observe Peace Day by not taking part in any operations. He also called on armed militant groups to observe the day and "stop destroying their country."
"I advised Afghan troops that they should respect this holy Peace Day, and they shouldn't conduct any operation or fire unless they come under attack," Karzai said in a statement Friday. "I advised the same thing to the international forces."
NATO said its 48,000 troops will continue to guard personnel and military outposts but that it will not engage in offensive operations from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday.
"The insurgents must be in no doubt that (NATO) will defend itself and the people of Afghanistan from offensive action by the enemies of Afghanistan," NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
"This has been agreed by the Government of Afghanistan and ISAF as a show of their mutual intent to bring peace to Afghanistan and an end to the insurgency that threatens to undermine the future peace and prosperity of the Afghan nation," the statement said.
The separate U.S. coalition will also observe the day, said coalition spokesman Master Sgt. Mark Swart.
Sunday is the 26th anniversary of the International Day of Peace, a United Nations-backed push for a day of nonviolence and global cease-fire. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan in particular heavily promotes the day.
Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said the U.N. hopes to vaccinate 1.8 million Afghan children over a three-day period starting Sunday in honor of the day.
"The aim of this whole process is to get peace back onto the agenda here. It's as simple as that," he said. "It won't work through one Peace Day alone. We're not naive about that. What you do with Peace Day is you provide a window, an opening."
A Taliban spokesman identifying himself as Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press on Saturday that the Taliban supports the idea of Peace Day. Ahmadi said Taliban attacks are only a means of self-defense.
"We wanted peace in the past, we want peace now and we want peace in the future," he said. "We are defending ourselves. The invaders are in our country, launching operations against us. Now that the Afghan government and their foreign allies are requesting peace for one day, that is nothing, one day, but of course we are respecting it."
Edwards said Peace Day was an apolitical campaign and that he welcomed both NATO's support and the Taliban's support of the day.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Coalition soldier, two Afghans killed in bomb blast
Sat Sep 20, 9:12 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) - A soldier from the US-led coalition and two Afghan civilians were killed Saturday when a bomb hit their vehicle in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said.
The force, which lost another soldier in a similar explosion in the west of the country on Friday, did not give details including the nationality of the dead trooper and the identity of the Afghans.
"One coalition service member and two local nationals were killed today in southern Afghanistan when their vehicle struck an IED (improvised explosive device)," it said in a statement.
At least 213 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year alone, most of them in insurgent attacks, according to an AFP tally. Around 220 died last year.
There are around 60,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them with a NATO-led force that operates alongside the smaller coalition which is tasked with hunting down extremist militants and training the Afghan forces.
Back to Top
Back to Top
INTERVIEW-Karzai to discuss Afghan casualties with Bush
20 Sep 2008 13:41:12 GMT By Alistair Scrutton
KABUL, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will work with U.S. President George W. Bush at a meeting later this month to find ways to reduce civilian casualties, the foreign minister said on Saturday.
Many in Afghanistan are angry over an increase in civilian casualties in recent weeks and it has led to a rift between Karzai's government and its Western backers before a Sept. 26 meeting between Bush and Karzai in Washington.
"We have to look together to find a mechanism and procedure to reduce the number of civilian casualties," Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told Reuters in an interview.
Spanta said military operations by Afghan rather than foreign troops would reduce civilian casualties because they are less likely to be misled by local intelligence from tribal chieftains.
The minister also said he wanted more troops on the ground, an opinion shared by many coalition commanders. He did not say whether they should be foreign or Afghan troops.
"In this year, more than 50 percent of operations were implemented under the leadership of the Afghan national army. In each action of the Afghan national army the number of civilian casualties were equal to zero or very low," Spanta said.
"Yes, because they understand the people, they understand the geography of this country. They will talk to the elders of the people. They understand better the tradition, they can check the information."
Violence has surged in Afghanistan this year with nearly 3,000 people killed. It has also been the bloodiest summer for foreign troops since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
In August, a U.S.-led coalition air strike in western Herat province killed more than 90 civilians, mostly women and children, the Afghan government and the United Nations said. The U.S. military is investigating the incident.
An increase in the use of air power has resulted in a high number of deaths in "opportunity" strikes when ground troops come under attack, a human rights group said.
In the first seven months of this year, at least 119 civilians were killed in air strikes, most in U.S.-led coalition raids, Human Rights Watch said in the report.
"I think one of the problems is that the number of land troops is not enough to combat terrorism," Spanta said.
"And sometimes they need to use more air force and as an end result you have a huge number of civilian casualties. We need more land troops to fight terrorism."
PAKISTAN BORDER
The Karzai-Bush meeting also comes amid tension over stepped-up U.S. strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan without the approval of Pakistan authorities.
"We have serious concerns about stability in the region, especially in Pakistan," Spanta said.
The United States has stepped up attacks on militants in Pakistan with attacks by pilotless drones and a helicopter-borne ground assault this month to try to stop the resurgent Taliban.
The Afghan government says it supports the strikes.
"We lost more than six years. We had to start this process six years ago. We discussed that issue on different occasions with friends in the international community. We need to address the sources of terrorism," Spanta said.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said on Saturday his government would not tolerate infringement of its territory in the name of the fight against militancy.
But Spanta also said Afghanistan was keen to improve relations, giving the new Pakistani civilian government time to rein in the military spy service (ISI) it blames for a car bomb attack on the Indian embassy in July.
"I hope that they can bring ISI under control. But our official position is, we don't blame ISI or the military currently because we took the decision to have a demonstration of goodwill against Pakistan." (Editing by Elizabeth Piper)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Karzai Agrees To Meet With Palin
By Michael D. Shear and Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, September 20, 2008
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will meet next week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in New York, on the sidelines of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, according to Afghan officials in Washington.
The meeting is part of a broader effort to demonstrate the Alaska governor's ability to handle foreign policy issues, at a time when she has come under fire for a lack of experience on the international stage. The opportunity to speak before the United Nations annually draws the world's leaders to Manhattan, and the GOP presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), plans to use the occasion to introduce Palin to those officials, McCain aides have said.
"It's a great opportunity for Governor Palin to meet and interact with some of the world leaders she will deal with as vice president," said one McCain adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because her U.N. schedule had not been made public. "She'll talk about the issues facing the world."
Palin will meet with Karzai, and possibly other foreign leaders, during a midweek campaign swing through New York.
"Unfortunately, a few meetings at the U.N. won't change the fact that John McCain is promising four more years of the same cowboy diplomacy that has shredded our alliances and set back our ability to fight international terrorism," said Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
Palin, governor of Alaska for two years, has had limited experience abroad. She took one trip to Germany, Kuwait and Iraq in 2007, but barely crossed the Iraq border. She has also traveled to Canada. Democrats have mocked Palin for citing knowledge of Russia because she can see the nation from her home state.
While acknowledging her lack of a long foreign policy portfolio, McCain advisers have described Palin as a smart and decisive executive who has spent much of her time in office dealing with worldwide energy issues.
The request to Karzai for a sit-down came from Palin's team early this week and Karzai sent his agreement yesterday, officials at the Afghan Embassy said. Karzai, who will travel to Washington later in the week for a White House meeting with President Bush, expects to have separate telephone conversations with McCain and with Obama during his U.S. stay.
Palin's Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), who has traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, will also travel to New York for the General Assembly's opening. He plans to meet there with new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Obama sent Zardari a message of congratulations following his election early this month but has not spoken to him directly. McCain called Zardari to offer his congratulations, as well.
Zardari will spend most of the week in New York. A source close to the Pakistani president said there is a possibility that he might see McCain, but that if Palin requests a meeting, he will see her.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Explosion at Pakistan Marriott hotel kills 40
By ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A massive truck bomb devastated the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Saturday, killing at least 40 people and wounding at least 100. Officials feared there were dozens more dead inside the burning building.
The Marriott has been a favorite place for foreigners as well as Pakistani politicians and business people to stay and socialize in Islamabad despite repeated militant attacks.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but Pakistan has faced a wave of militant violence in recent weeks following army-led offensives against insurgents in its border regions.
The capital has not been spared, though Saturday's blast appeared to be one of the largest ever terrorist attacks in the country.
The bomb left a vast crater, some 30 feet deep in front of the main building, where flames poured from the windows and rescuers ferried bloodied bodies from the gutted building.
Witnesses and officials said a large truck had rammed the high metal gate of the hotel at about 8 p.m., when the restaurants would have been packed with dinners, including Muslims breaking the Ramadan fast.
Senior Police official Asghar Raza Gardaizi said rescuers had counted at least 40 bodies at the scene and that he feared that there "dozens more dead inside."
Associated Press reporters saw at least nine bodies scattered at the scene. Scores of people, including foreigners, were running out — some of them stained with blood.
Witnesses spoke of a smaller blast followed by a much larger one.
A U.S. State Department official using a section of white pipe as a walking stick led three colleagues through the rubble from the charred building, one of them bleeding heavily from a wound on the side of his head.
One of the four, who identified himself only as Tony, said they had begun moving toward the rear of the Chinese restaurant after the first blast when the second one threw them against the back wall.
"Then we saw a big truck coming through the gates," he said. "After that it was just smoke and darkness."
Ambulances rushed to the area, picking their way through the charred carcasses of vehicles that had been in the street outside. Windows in buildings hundreds of yards away were shattered.
Mohammad Sultan, a hotel employee, said he was in the lobby when something exploded, he fell down and everything temporarily went dark.
"I didn't understand what it was, but it was like the world is finished," he said.
In January 2007, a security guard blocked a suicide bomber who triggered a blast just outside the Marriott, killing the guard and wounding seven other people.
In July, a suicide bombing killed at least 18 people, most of them security forces, and wounded dozens in Islamabad as supporters of the Red Mosque gathered nearby to mark the anniversary of the military siege on the militant stronghold.
In June, a suicide car bomber killed at least six people near the Danish Embassy in Islamabad. A statement attributed to al-Qaida took responsibility for that blast, believed to have targeted Denmark over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
In mid-March, a bomb explosion at an Italian restaurant killed a Turkish woman in the capital, and wounded 12 others, including four FBI officials.
___
Associated Press writers Zarar Khan, Stephen Graham and Munir Ahmad in Islamabad contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
U.S. sees threat from Afghan-Pakistan border area
Sat Sep 20, 3:35 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan is not yet equipped to combat the militant threat emanating from the remote area bordering Afghanistan, a senior Bush administration official said on Friday amid stepped-up U.S. strikes in that area.
President George W. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, would not discuss American counterterrorism efforts in that area, including a reported U.S. commando raid, but said Washington was trying to help Pakistan's government address the threat.
"This is a problem that's been created in sovereign Pakistani territory and the problem is going to be solved when Pakistan has an ability to exercise control over that territory," Hadley told reporters.
"We recognize that in the short term right now there are threats emanating out of that area that threaten Pakistan, that threaten our troops in Afghanistan and potentially threaten the homeland," he said ahead of Bush's meeting next week with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Their meeting on Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly comes as tensions have flared between the two allies over suspected U.S. strikes within Pakistan's borders against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Hadley declined to address the strikes or concerns that U.S. forces could come under fire from Pakistani troops if they entered Pakistan without Islamabad's permission.
"We want to cooperate closely with Pakistan, we also need to ensure as best we can that threats do not materialize out of that area," Hadley said. "We work very closely with Pakistan authorities."
With violence declining in Iraq, Washington has increased its focus on Afghanistan and the border region with Pakistan, where attacks have soared over two years.
U.S. officials have said Pakistan was not doing enough to clamp down on militants using that region as a base. But some analysts cautioned that unilateral U.S. action puts pressure on Pakistan's new government and threatens its cooperation with Washington.
Zardari was elected earlier this month and replaced a close U.S. ally, Pervez Musharraf. Bush and Zardari spoke by telephone last week and both pledged to cooperate.
Hadley acknowledged that Pakistan's new government was working to find its footing and that "they obviously are very concerned about Pakistani sovereignty."
A strike on Wednesday on the Pakistani side of the border killed five militants. But a senior Pakistani official with knowledge of the operations told Reuters it was a result of better intelligence-sharing with the United States.
That followed a visit to Pakistan by the top U.S. military officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, who reiterated the U.S. commitment to respect Pakistan's sovereignty.
(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Eric Walsh)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Interpol pushes Afghanistan to record 'terrorist' prisoners
Fri Sep 19, 1:31 PM ET
KABUL (AFP) - Around half the 2,000 prisoners who escaped worldwide in the past three years broke out of jails in Afghanistan, where many of the escapees were "terrorists", the Interpol chief said Friday.
Ronald K. Noble, secretary general of the international policy agency, was in Afghanistan to push authorities to start fingerprinting and photographing prisoners for input into a global database to track dangerous escapees.
In the past three years more than 2,000 prisoners had escaped globally, Noble told AFP in an interview. They had fled in 62 prison breaks in 43 countries, according to statistics provided separately by Interpol.
"In many of those countries the prison escapes have been of convicted terrorists for whom there have been no arrest warrants issued, for whom there have been no photographs circulated," Noble said.
In Afghanistan there have been three major escapes, two in 2006 and one in the southern city of Kandahar in June this year when the insurgent Taliban militia used several suicide bombers to blow open the main prison.
"Almost 1,000 total people have escaped (in Afghanistan) and of those... close to 400 to 500 would be terrorists. A substantial number," Noble said.
Interpol had however only been able to get basic details, like the names and places of birth, of about a third of the nearly 1,000 who had escaped, among them Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, said Noble, the most senior Interpol official to visit Afghanistan.
He said he had secured a commitment from Afghan officials to fingerprint and photograph every person arrested for a terrorist-related activity.
Noble also called for more worldwide cooperation on fake travel documents, saying "terrorists" were able to move between countries on fraudulent visas and passports.
Sharing such data had, for example, allowed authorities to ascertain that a militant involved in an attack in Iraq had also been connected to one in Morocco.
Afghanistan's embattled police force meanwhile needed more international training and support to build on international military successes against insurgents on the battlefield, Noble said.
"If we don't invest more money in police, all the gains that are achieved on the battlefield will be lost once the military leaves," he said.
Noble cited interior ministry figures that around 750 police office had been killed in the first six months of this year, most of them in insurgency-linked attacks, and 1,250 wounded.
"A number of these terrorist attacks against the police involve people coming from Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya," he said, adding this showed the need for an international approach to fighting militancy.
"It is not only a homegrown terrorist problem. You also have terrorists coming from neighbouring countries."
Back to Top
Back to Top
FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, Sept 20
20 Sep 2008 13:56:57 GMT
KABUL, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Afghanistan at 1300 GMT on Saturday:
* SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN - A soldier from the U.S.-led coalition force and two Afghans were killed when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said.
It did not release the nationality of the soldier.
PAKTIKA - Insurgents fired rockets at a NATO-led military base in the southeastern province of Paktika on Friday, the alliance said. Four civilians, including one child, were killed when rockets landed in a nearby field.
HELMAND - Soldiers from the NATO-led force shot dead one civilian in Sangin district of southern Helmand province, when the civilian failed to stop approaching a foot patrol, after two warning shots were fired, the alliance said.
NANGARHAR - Afghan commando forces killed five insurgents and detained six more during heavy clashes in eastern Nangarhar province on Friday, the Defence Ministry said.
KABUL - Afghan and foreign military forces have agreed to suspend offensive operations against insurgents for a 24 hour period starting at midnight on Saturday to respect World Peace Day on 21 September.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Thousands call for end to German military mission in Afghanistan
Berlin, Sept 20, IRNA
Several thousand demonstrators marched in Berlin and Stuttgart on Saturday, demanding an end to the
controversial German military operation in Afghanistan, the press reported.
More than 1,000 people rallied in the German capital, voicing opposition to plans by the German government to extend the Afghan mission for another 14 months and increase the troop size in the war- stricken country from 3,500 to 4,500.
Speakers at the Berlin demo, among them the daughter of late Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara, Aleida Guevara, called for the withdrawal of all foreign soldiers from Afghanistan.
Aleida Guevara accused the US of pursuing an aggressive strategy against Iraq, Afghanistan and her native country Cuba.
Meanwhile, around 2,000 people gathered in downtown Stuttgart to say 'no' to the German military campaign in Afghanistan.
The German Parliament is scheduled to vote in mid-October on extending the Afghan military mission.
Germany has deployed around 3,500 soldiers in northern Afghanistan and Kabul as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in addition to police instructors and civilian reconstruction workers.
Some 28 German soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since January 2002, according to official statistics.
Most Germans oppose their country's participation in the war in Afghanistan.
A spokesman for the Taliban told Reuters that one day of peace carried little meaning for them and that peace would only come when the foreign forces leave Afghanistan. (Compiled by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Mariam Karouny)
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban has turned much of Afghanistan into 'No Go' zone
New Kerala - Sep 20 3:15 AM
Washington, Sep 20 : A resurgent Taliban 'has turned much of Afghanistan into 'No Go' zones for aid workers and civilians', according to a new report.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report says that the security situation in Afghanistan is assessed by most analysts as having deteriorated at a constant rate through 2007.
Statistics show that although the numbers of incidents are higher than comparable periods in 2006, they show the same seasonal pattern.
The nature of the incidents has, however, changed considerably since last year, with high numbers of armed clashes in the field giving way to a combination of armed clashes and asymmetric attacks countrywide.
The Afghan National Police (ANP) has become a primary target of insurgents and intimidation of all kinds has increased against the civilian population, especially those perceived to be in support of the government, international military forces as well as the humanitarian and development community, the report said.
The more significant change in 2007 is the shift from large-scale armed clashes in the field to asymmetric or terror-style attacks. The former do still take place and as air support is often used, casualty figures are still high. On average, however, these clashes are fewer and smaller than in 2006, the Daily Times reported.
Possible reasons include the high numbers of Taliban fighters killed during summer 2007, including many mid-level and senior commanders. Another reason must be the realisation that these types of attacks are futile against a modern conventionally equipped military force supported by a wide range of aircraft.
According to the CSIS report, insurgency within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has significantly evolved over 2007, being no longer a traditional rigid structure, operating in a top to bottom order, and more importantly, no longer a Taliban-dominant insurgent network.
Interacting networks including the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, and Tehrik-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi drive the concept of the insurgency in Afghanistan.
Over 2007, the Taliban leadership in the south has been weakened as a result of the capture or killing of senior Taliban leaders.
While the insurgency in the south remains Taliban-led, the once overarching influence of the Taliban over the insurgency in the east is diminishing. The insurgency in the east has become a conglomerate of disparate insurgent groups, operating independently from the once prevailing influence of the Taliban senior leadership in the south.
The report notes that 2007 has seen an unprecedented number of offensive actions taken by insurgent elements against the Pakistan Government and security forces within FATA and the NWFP.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Native issues casualties of Afghan spending, chief says
Ottawa has spent billions on the Afghan mission, but won't fund pledges made in Kelowna Accord to raise natives' standard of living, Fontaine says, calling on candidates to engage voters
JOE FRIESEN Globe and Mail, Canada - Sep 19, 2008
Canada has spent $22-billion on a war in Afghanistan while neglecting its promise to eradicate poverty among native people, Assembly of First Nations national Chief Phil Fontaine said yesterday.
Mr. Fontaine, wading into the federal election campaign, called on all political parties to build on the June 11 residential schools apology and work toward a reconciliation with native people. That reconciliation will require what he called a "Kelowna-plus" solution, referring to the accord reached three years ago by the previous Liberal government that promised $5-billion to raise the standard of living of aboriginal people to that of other Canadians by 2015. After they were elected, the Conservatives dismissed Kelowna as a flawed press release.
"There's been $22-billion expended on the Afghan war, and so what is there for first nations people?" Mr. Fontaine asked. "The response we're looking for from each of the parties is next steps in regards to the eradication of first nations poverty."
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has promised to release a report on the cost of Canada's military mission to Afghanistan. However, a military conference heard this week that the report will say the total is $22-billion.
"The Kelowna Accord was a realization that something significant had to be done. It was an opportunity for all of us to finally turn the corner on this issue. We've put that back three years, and the issue has become even more urgent. The situation has worsened in our communities."
Mr. Fontaine said the absence of any discussion of native issues in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election is a disservice to all Canadians, and urged the political parties to address those issues in their platforms.
"First nations poverty is the single most important social justice issue in the country and we would expect that each of the parties would do the responsible thing, and that is to engage Canadians," he said.
There are 27,000 native children in state care, 40 communities without schools, 100 communities under boil-water advisories and serious concerns about housing and health care for people living on reserves, Mr. Fontaine said.
The blame does not belong to one party, but to successive governments for gross negligence, he added.
Polling done for the AFN last month showed 84 per cent of Canadians believe natives should have more control over their own affairs, and 61 per cent believe there is a very strong or strong need for a fundamental change in the relationship between natives and the federal government.
The polling data were sent to each party leader along with a list of 11 questions on where they stand on issues such as governance, job training, unequal education and child-welfare funding, and whether they would honour the commitments made at Kelowna.
The AFN is lobbying for an aboriginal segment to be included in the leaders televised debate, and aboriginal voters are being encouraged to go to the polls in a joint effort with Elections Canada. There are 70 ridings across the country with at least 5 per cent aboriginal population, according to the 2006 census.
"In the last federal election, there were a number of ridings where the margin of victory was very slim. We can actually influence the outcome in a number of ridings, but only if we participate," Mr. Fontaine said.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Arthur Kent settles suits over 'Charlie Wilson's War'
Fri. Sep. 19 2008 8:07 AM ET Constance Droganes, entertainment writer, CTV.ca
Journalist Arthur Kent has reached a global settlement of his lawsuits against the makers of the feature film "Charlie Wilson's War."
"I am very pleased with the terms of the settlement," Kent announced today. Those terms, however, remain confidential.
Kent, 55, filed his suit against Universal Studios in April of 2008. Kent claimed that his intellectual property rights were violated because the filmmakers used footage in the movie from his 1986 reporting in Afghanistan without his consent.
The 2007 film, about covert U.S. dealings in Afghanistan, stars Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Kent's lawsuit sought an injunction against distributing the movie, among other provisions, in addition to unspecified damages.
As Kent said in a statement, "I brought these actions only to uphold the copyright protection of my work, my voice, and my archive, and to make clear that I do not endorse the account of historical events conveyed by the movie."
'Scud Stud' makes history
Born in Medicine Hat, Alta., Kent began reporting from Afghanistan in 1980. By 1986 the Carleton University graduate was reporting from the war-torn country for CBC, NBC News and The Observer newspaper based in London.
Dubbed the "Scud Stud" for his coolness under fire, Kent became an international celebrity while reporting live for NBC during the 1991 Gulf War. His dramatic nightly broadcasts were made from the top of the Dhahran International Hotel in Saudi Arabia.
The veteran war correspondent is not unfamiliar with big legal battles. From 1989 to 1992, Kent worked as the host of "Dateline NBC," but was fired after a contract dispute. Kent sued for breach of contract and settled with NBC in March 1994.
Under the terms of the agreement, NBC paid Kent an undisclosed amount and retracted prior statements about Kent and the dispute. Kent also won the right to publish testimony and evidence from the discovery phase of the suit in his book, "Risk and Redemption: Surviving The Network News Wars."
Kent returned to Canada to host the CBC's "Man Alive." He also established his own film company, Fast Forward Films, in Britain.
A host for many History Channel shows, Kent's most notable documentary, "Afghanistan: Captives of the Warlords," garnered great critical acclaim after PBS broadcasted it in June of 2001. Shot secretly using hidden cameras, the film shows life in Afghanistan under the repressive Taliban and contrasts it against life under the much more lenient Northern Alliance.
In March 2008, Kent lost a bid to become a provincial legislator in a Calgary riding in the Alberta election.
He now chronicles the Afghanistan conflict online at www.skyreporter.com. Kent launched Sky Reporter in 2007 as an outlet for new and archived documentaries and short films. The site features Kent's independent reportage and commentary direct from the field.
Back to Top
Back to Top
General Petraeus told he 'must succeed' in Afghanistan General
David Petraeus must "knit together" Afghanistan's confused command structure if the coalition is to avoid a humiliating defeat, a senior American defence official has said.
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 19 Sep 2008
The man behind the "surge" strategy in Iraq will take charge of US Central Command tasked with bringing fresh direction to an Afghan campaign that was seen as "marking time".
But he will face a tough battle to bring unity to the 40 nations and 53,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan that come under several different chiefs.
In a downbeat assessment of the current state of the campaign in Afghanistan, the officer said there was "100 per cent chance of success if we do it the right way but if we do it the wrong way there is a zero per cent chance".
He admitted that it was unlikely other nations such as Germany would get more involved in the fighting in southern Afghanistan.
He also warned that like the British Army, the American military was suffering from the effects of continual operations over seven years. "At some point we have to refit, rest our force and retrain them before we redeploy them."
Gen Petraeus will look to unite commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq for "unity of purpose" so there could be "unity of effort," the military official told defence correspondents in London.
Adding to his concerns a district governor in southern Afghanistan allied to President Hamid Karzai has been killed in a "misunderstanding" between coalition and Afghan forces.
Roozi Khan, the governor of Chora district in Uruzgan province, was shot dead at his home but no details were released.
Following comments made by Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, that Britain may increase its force next year the US officer said "force strength from elsewhere would be welcome".
American troops are expected to surge to Afghanistan in increasing numbers from 30,000 to 44,000 next year. "You will get more combat operations for a period of time," the officer said.
The US official said American military power was "finite" and that there was a "bottom line" on resources.
Although he was not "despairing" it was up to the community of nations to "embrace the challenge" of Afghanistan and "honest leadership" was needed.
To resolve the problems of Afghanistan it would take a "long time" if not a couple of decades.
Iran was singled out as a "malign influence" for its "seepage" of weapons across the border.
The officer said America would not tolerate the arrival of more armour piercing bombs, known as explosive formed projectiles, from Iran.
He said rogue elements of the Iranian regime, not necessarily connected to the government, were using "front companies" to fund the military operations in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
The officer suggested that US forces would "selectively go after nodes of that network" but ruled out any "combat operations in Iran".
It is expected that Gen David McKiernan, the current US commander, will unite the commands of the International Security Assistance Force and the mainly US special forces of Operation Enduring Freedom under the banner of Commander Forces Afghanistan.
Back to Top
Back to Top
A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan
Militia Operates a Parallel Government
Washington Post - World
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 20, 2008
KABUL - Sept. 19 -- Just one year ago, the Taliban insurgency was a furtive, loosely organized guerrilla force that carried out hit-and-run ambushes, burned empty schools, left warning letters at night and concentrated attacks in the southern rural regions of its ethnic and religious heartland.
Today it is a larger, better armed and more confident militia, capable of mounting sustained military assaults. Its forces operate in virtually every province and control many districts in areas ringing the capital. Its fighters have bombed embassies and prisons, nearly assassinated the president, executed foreign aid workers and hanged or beheaded dozens of Afghans.
The new Taliban movement has created a parallel government structure that includes defense and finance councils and appoints judges and officials in some areas. It offers cash to recruits and presents letters of introduction to local leaders. It operates Web sites and a 24-hour propaganda apparatus that spins every military incident faster than Afghan and Western officials can manage.
"This is not the Taliban of Emirate times. It is a new, updated generation," said Waheed Mojda, a former foreign ministry aide under the Taliban Islamic Emirate, which ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. "They are more educated, and they don't punish people for having CDs or cassettes," he said. "The old Taliban wanted to bring sharia, security and unity to Afghanistan. The new Taliban has much broader goals -- to drive foreign forces out of the country and the Muslim world."
In late 2001, U.S. forces made common cause with ethnic groups in Afghanistan's north to overthrow the Taliban, in response to Osama bin Laden's use of the country as a base. Hamid Karzai was tapped as president by the United States and other powers, then elected to the job. In the early years, much of the deeply conservative Muslim country was largely peaceful and secure.
Over the past two years, the Taliban's revival has been fueled by fast-growing popular dissatisfaction with Karzai's government, which has failed to bring services and security to much of the country. Deepening public resentment against civilian deaths caused by U.S. and NATO alliance airstrikes is another factor.
No one here believes that the insurgents, estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 fighters, are currently capable of seizing the capital of Kabul or toppling the government, which is backed by more than 130,000 international troops. But a series of spectacular urban attacks in recent months, notably the bombing of the Indian Embassy and an armed assault on a parade reviewing stand where Karzai sat, have turned Kabul into a maze of bunkers and barricades that drive officialdom ever farther from the public.
In many regions a short drive from the capital, some of them considered safe even six months ago, residents and officials said the Taliban now controls roads and villages, patrolling in trucks and recruiting new fighters. Its members execute government employees, bomb and burn cargo trucks on the highway, and search bus passengers for foreign passports and cellphones programmed with official numbers.
"Our staff members don't want to commute to the capital anymore," said Nader Nadery, an official of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "They say, 'If the Taliban find my cellphone and call you, please tell them I am a shopkeeper.' " The Taliban is "creating an environment of fear, and it is working very well, because the people have no hope of being protected if they stand up against them," Nadery added.
Abdul Jabbar, a former anti-Soviet guerrilla commander and a member of parliament from Ghazni province, said he no longer dares visit his home district. Interviewed in Kabul, he said Taliban leaders asked him to leave the government and join their cause, but he refused and now fears being killed. Last week, three Ghazni residents were hanged by the Taliban, which called them government spies.
"The other day, a Taliban commander called me and said I should come help him to free Afghanistan from the foreigners," Jabbar recounted. "I asked him, 'What do you want me to do? Kill a teacher? Kidnap an engineer? Capture a U.N. vehicle?' The people are not happy about the Taliban, but the government is weak, and the foreign forces have not brought us security. What choice do we have?"
In Wardak, the next province toward Kabul along a highway that is under constant Taliban attack, residents said they now ask relatives from the capital not to travel there for weddings or funerals.
Roshanak Wardak, the only private obstetrician in the region, said that since last spring, Taliban leaders have recruited dozens of young men from her town. Wardak, who is also a legislator, said people in her province may not like the Taliban, but they relate to those in the movement as fellow Afghans and Muslims, at a time of growing public disenchantment with U.S. and NATO military forces.
"Their popularity is increasing day by day, because the government has done nothing for our province," she said. "They take our innocent boys and tell them Islam is in danger. They offer them money and weapons. Now everyone is becoming a Talib. It is a great game, and they are the fuel."
As in Ghazni, many of the Taliban supporters in Wardak are Pashtuns, members of the country's largest ethnic group. They believe that rival ethnic groups unfairly rule the country with the help of foreign soldiers. Though Karzai is a Pashtun, he is viewed in Taliban ranks as a traitor to his religion and community.
One aspect of the game the Taliban now clearly dominates is the propaganda war over battlefield victories, defeats and casualties. Once composed of largely illiterate fighters and clerics who shunned modern technology as un-Islamic, the Taliban now uses a variety of high-tech means to communicate its version of events, often far faster than its adversaries.
This issue has crystallized with the controversy over civilian casualties inflicted by U.S. and NATO airstrikes, especially a village bombing last month near Herat in western Afghanistan. Although civilian deaths have been frequent and real, officials say the Taliban quickly broadcasts exaggerated tolls, stoking public anger, while foreign military officers may take days to respond.
"We are definitely not winning the information war, and we have to reverse that," said Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, the chief spokesman for NATO forces here.
He said the Taliban uses such tactics as hiding in farm compounds, dressing dead fighters in civilian clothes and then denouncing foreign forces for bombing villagers. "They don't have to bother with the truth," Blanchette said.
Today's Taliban also has a much greater degree of formal organization. The old Taliban was disastrous at governing, and ministries were run by barefoot mullahs who scribbled orders on scraps of paper. The new Taliban structure has councils for each area of governance, appoints officials in controlled areas and confers swift justice for crimes and disputes.
One Afghan journalist said he recently visited the capital of Logar province, less than an hour's drive south of Kabul, where the Taliban now wields enormous power. He said a man had walked into a Logar radio station and politely introduced himself to the astonished manager as the new provincial spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
According to Mojda and others, the Taliban is still led by Mohammad Omar, a village cleric who headed the 1996-2001 administration and has been a fugitive since its overthrow. Some former leaders hold senior posts in the new movement, although many have been killed. The rank-and-file fighters are a mix of old members and new recruits.
Their statements focus on ridding Afghanistan of foreign occupiers and incompetent leaders. Although they use Islam to motivate followers, they regularly violate what people here consider to be basic Islamic tenets against such things as the murder of women and trafficking in opium.
Their predecessors used harsh punishments to instill law and order but were often pious Muslims. This year, the insurgents have killed teachers, mayors, policemen, truck drivers, doctors, female aid workers and Muslim clerics.
"These people claim to be Muslims, but they are nothing more than terrorists," said Abdul Razzak Qureshi, police chief of Paghman, a district in the mountains west of Kabul. Last week he showed a visiting journalist a trove of land mines and explosive devices that his officers had found planted beside roads and in culverts in the past several months.
One such device was detonated last week under a vehicle carrying Abdullah Wardak, the governor of Logar province, near his home in Paghman. He died instantly, along with two bodyguards and a driver.
In separate interviews, residents of Paghman, a pretty area in the hills with wildflowers, birches and breezy picnic spots, said they had unhappy memories of Taliban rule and hoped it would not return. So far, the insurgents have not emerged in daylight there, but Razzak, the police chief, said he was unsure how long his force of 147 officers could continue to protect a sprawling district of 186 villages that borders Taliban-controlled Wardak.
"The Taliban used to have nothing, but now they have more modern weapons than we do," he said. "Our people feel safe for now, but just over the border they operate freely and have their own checkpoints. If they decide to come here one day, there is nothing I can do to stop them."
1233
A fight we must take seriously
The Australian, Australia Patrick Walters, National security editor September 20, 2008
The Taliban were seeking to outlast NATO, and they were succeeding; for as in Iraq, as long as the Afghan Government failed to create effective governance and provide services to the people, the Taliban were winning by default. The outcome of the fighting was becoming less relevant, because even when faced with a string of tactical defeats, the Taliban were expanding their influence and base areas and cowing more of the population. -- Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: How the War against Islamic Extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, 2008.
ALMOST seven years into the Afghanistan war, Australia will soon face a decisive test of its engagement in what promises to be the hardest and most durable campaign of the "long war" against Islamist extremism.
In the dry, dusty mountain-locked province of Oruzgan in southern Afghanistan, Australian troops have notched up some notable successes in the past two years.
The Special Operations Task Group consisting of elite Special Air Service soldiers and commandos has fractured the local Taliban leadership and killed or captured a string of their key military commanders over the course of 2008.
Our versatile and capable army engineers have built four significant forward patrol bases at the Baluchi Pass and other strategic gateways to the provincial capital Tarin Kowt and the sprawling Dutch-led base that sits on a barren slope just above it.
They have also built roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. Just a week ago, Oruzgan Governor Asadullah Hamdan opened the new women's wing of the local hospital at Tarin Kowt, one of our engineering contingent's biggest projects for this year.
But the paradox of this Afghanistan war is that continuing tactical victories in Oruzgan are not delivering strategic success. The real counter-insurgency struggle against the Taliban remains in the balance.
Across southern Afghanistan, NATO is struggling to win. Popular support for Hamid Karzai's corrupt and under-performing central Government is fragile, particularly in Kandahar.
The coalition's military campaign is hamstrung by a critical shortage of troops and logistical support as well as a fragmented command structure. NATO still lacks a long-term multi-year inclusive campaign plan for Afghanistan embracing military operations and civil governance.
Two years after we committed the 450-strong Reconstruction Task Force to Oruzgan, and three years after Australian special forces deployed there, the Dutch-led provincial reconstruction team has secured only a fraction of Oruzgan's key population centres. At best the Dutch and Australian troops of the International Security Assistance Force control 10 to 15 per cent of the province, with Taliban fighters still able to roam across the Tarin Kowt bowl, the province's main population and food-growing centre. "The locals still don't feel secure at night. We have achieved temporary effects but we still have to convince the population they are secure," observes one senior coalition military source.
Security in the town of Tarin Kowt remains problematic. The Australian government aid agency AusAID's representative is still resident at the main coalition military base at Kamp Holland and yet to set up in town.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan is finally set to open an office in Tarin Kowt next month. The Australian Federal Police still has no presence in Oruzgan and Australian non-governmental organisations are still too worried about local security to consider a permanent presence.
With the Dutch pulling out the bulk of their 1700 strong presence in Oruzgan in less than two years (by August 2010), the Rudd Government will face a fundamental test of its commitment to the US-led war early in the new year.
As the US begins a long troop drawdown from Iraq and a steady military build-up in Afghanistan, both John McCain and Barack Obama have signalled support for a lifting of America's effort in the war against the Taliban and a sharper focus on the Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre.
Kevin Rudd has repeatedly said that Australia is in Afghanistan for the long haul and has touted Labor's alliance credentials with the US.
Regardless of whether there is a Republican or a Democratic president in the White House next January, Washington could well take Rudd at his word and demand a stronger long-term commitment from Canberra.
For Labor, Afghanistan is the just war. Rudd strongly supported John Howard's historic invocation of the ANZUS Treaty in 2001 in support of the US-led effort to oust the Taliban-led government from Kabul and eject al-Qa'ida from its bases in Afghanistan.
As the Dutch begin to think about going home, the key question is whether Rudd will match his political rhetoric with a lift in Australia's military and civil effort that could make the difference between strategic success and failure in Oruzgan.
The challenge for the Rudd Government is to build on the incremental gains in Oruzgan and take the counter-insurgency campaign to a new level.
This would secure Tarin Kowt and other regional centres, allowing international aid agencies -- including the UN and AusAID -- to operate. It would also involve a far more integrated whole-of-government effort to win hearts and minds in Oruzgan and build a functioning government and economy.
In the view of some of our best military minds, Australia should expand its military footprint in Oruzgan and combine with the Americans in establishing a brigade-size force, with the headquarters preferably run by Australians. "Are we there simply as a token political commitment or are we there to win? More of the same is not going to work," one senior Australian military source in Afghanistan tells Inquirer.
The larger force would retain the key elements of the existing deployment -- special forces, engineers, trainers and infantry protection -- but deliver additional security forces to aid civil rebuilding as well as more organic support, including helicopters, to support military operations.
Some of the key enablers, such as logistics support, artillery and aviation support, could be supplied by US and its NATO allies.
With Australian combat forces out of Iraq and soon to draw down from the long-standing East Timor commitment, the Australian Army is now in a far better position to sustain a slightly larger infantry commitment to Afghanistan.
Senior US military commanders also expect that Australia, having pulled out of Iraq, will now be prepared to do more to help in Afghanistan, particularly in the wake of the planned Dutch withdrawal.
When Inquirer spoke to General David McKiernan, NATO's top commander in Kabul, he said he would like to see a bigger effort from Australia, "whether it's combat arms, combat support, logistics or aviation".
A similar message was delivered to Inquirer by the US's next Central Command chief, General David Petraeus, who assumes overall responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan next month.
Over the next two years, depending on developments in Iraq, the US is expected to send an extra 7000 troops, or two brigade combat teams, to southern Afghanistan, including a possible brigade-size force to Oruzgan.
The Rudd Government has set a overly restrictive cap of 1078 on Australia's military contribution to the fight in Afghanistan. That artificial ceiling and cumbersome command arrangements mean that our deployed forces have little flexibility to respond to unforeseen contingencies. They also lack the necessary military resources to "clear, hold and build" in local communities, the essence of counter-insurgency warfare. "Australia should consider running the province with full operational authority and be masters of our own destiny," says one senior military source.
At the very least, say some of our senior military, Canberra should insert more embeds, or planning staff, into ISAF headquarters or Regional Command South to improve operational co-ordination across the three key southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Oruzgan.
Rudd and Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon have repeatedly called on European NATO members to lift their troop commitments to Afghanistan before Australia will consider doing more. The Government's real hope is that we can avoid any extra military commitment as the US military surge into southern and eastern Afghanistan gathers momentum. But the risk is that in the absence of a greater effort in the short term, we will lose the initiative in Oruzgan.
Next month the Australian Defence Force will change the shape of its existing deployment from the RTF model to an expanded mentoring and reconstruction task force, involving the addition of a dedicated Australian Army training team that will live and fight with the Afghan National Army.
Fundamental to any exit strategy for Australia's military involvement in Oruzgan is an effective Afghan army and police force. According to Australia's Middle East military commander Major-General Mike Hindmarsh, the Australian mentors will fight with the Afghan army and "guide them around the battlefield".
"They will essentially locate themselves wherever the ANA are located in these forts that we built for them. Afghan soldiers are very courageous soldiers and with a little bit of assistance, leadership and guidance they will be, and have been, very effective."
In Kandahar, Hindmarsh tells Inquirer he remains positive about Australia's military effort in Oruzgan. "I personally don't believe it has deteriorated to the extent a lot of people are saying. Afghanistan is where Iraq was about two or three years ago."
Hindmarsh predicts big changes in the way the US-led counter-insurgency campaign across Afghanistan will unfold under new leadership provided by McKiernan and Petraeus, with a synchronisation of effort across the 39-nation ISAF command.
"Providing the coalition hold their nerve and understand this is a long haul and be patient and persistent, I am very confident this can be won," he says.
Hindmarsh argues there has been a "demonstrable improvement" in security in Oruzgan, where Dutch and Australian forces have been operating.
"Oruzgan is a big place. If I could use a rugby analogy, you have got to do the hard yards in close before you push it wide.
"We have a structure with our special forces engineers, and ultimately the mentoring task group which is already creating great synergies.
"Our campaign strategy takes us into those areas where traditionally the Afghan security forces only used to venture for a short period of time because there was nowhere for them to stay. Our engineers have been extremely successful in providing them with bases where they will happily garrison themselves and stay there permanently."
Since 2005, Australia has been lucky that Oruzgan has remained a relatively benign sector in the hard counter-insurgency fight being waged across the south and east of Afghanistan.
"The only reason we have not gone backwards is that Oruzgan is not the centre of the Taliban insurgency," observes one senior Australian army expert.
As Ahmed Rasheed points out in his fine new book, Descent into Chaos, time is on the side of the Taliban.
The life of most ordinary Afghans has barely improved since 2001. Across the border in Pakistan, the Taliban are expanding fast and al-Qa'ida fighters are steadily rebuilding in their remote mountain sanctuaries.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban making the grade in guerrilla war
A Taliban ambush on a French platoon killed 10 soldiers in August. Now, a secret NATO review shows that the French did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment. By contrast, the insurgents were dangerously well prepared
The Globe and Mail GRAEME SMITH September 20, 2008
It was mid-afternoon when a tribal elder invited a U.S. military commander for a quiet chat in a garden. His village was surrounded by foreign troops, hunting around the mountain valley in search of infiltrators from Pakistan rumoured to be lurking in the barren hills.
Thirty soldiers from a French airborne platoon wandered farthest from the village, exploring a steep slope covered with rocks and scrubby vegetation under a high ridge.
That hill would soon become a killing ground, scene of the deadliest ambush against international forces since 2001, and the latest troubling sign that the insurgents are mastering the art of guerrilla war.
A NATO report on the incident obtained by The Globe and Mail provides the most in-depth account so far of an attack on Aug. 18 that shook the countries involved in the increasingly bloody campaign. The NATO report, marked “secret,” reveals woefully unprepared French troops surprised by well-armed insurgents in a valley east of Kabul. Ten soldiers were killed, the report concludes, but the other soldiers were lucky to escape without more deaths.
The French did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment, the report said. The troops were forced to abandon a counterattack when the weapons on their vehicles ran out of ammunition only 90 minutes into a battle that stretched over two days. One French platoon had only a single radio and it was quickly disabled, leaving them unable to call for help. Chillingly, in an indication that the French troopers may have been at the mercy of their attackers, the dead soldiers from that platoon “showed signs of being killed at close range,” the report said.
By contrast, the insurgents were dangerously well prepared. The investigation found evidence of well-trained snipers among the guerrillas – highly unusual, because the Taliban are frequently mocked for their poor marksmanship – and indications they were supplied with incendiary bullets designed to punch holes in armour.
Insurgents have spread rumours in recent weeks that they captured French soldiers during the ambush, perhaps even videotaping their executions. “Maybe I will make her my wife,” said Mullah Rahmatullah, a local commander, describing a captive female soldier in a boastful conversation with a researcher for The Globe and Mail. Other rumours described French soldiers dying of stab wounds.
But senior Western officials say this was a disinformation campaign by the Taliban, who notoriously exaggerate their victories. The classified military review concludes that all French dead were killed by insurgent fire, except one soldier who died in a vehicle accident.
The French military declined to comment for this article, but French officers have previously spoken about the ambush in fatalistic tones, as if the insurgents inevitably score an occasional success.
“Our comrades fell during an ambush. They couldn't have done anything. It's a tactic as old as Herod,” a French officer told Le Figaro, a daily newspaper in Paris.
But only a swift rescue mission by other international forces prevented more serious losses, the report said, also crediting a heroic performance by a French intelligence officer who was wounded in the leg but did not stop leading his troops.
“This contact could have been much worse,” the report said.
Military forces routinely conduct so-called “after-action” reviews in the wake of major incidents; in keeping with the usual practice, the report on the French ambush examines only the battle itself, on Aug. 18 and 19, in the Uzbin valley about 40 kilometres east of Kabul.
But other analysts have looked at the incident in a broader context, speculating that trends in the Uzbin valley, and beyond, may have contributed to the deadly incident. Some observers connect the French ambush with attacks that killed nine American soldiers in July and another that killed three Canadians earlier this month, all of them examples of bold strikes against international forces by insurgents who seem increasingly skilled at guerrilla warfare.Unlike the crude tactics witnessed by Canadian troops in 2006, when the insurgents dug trenches and bunkers, camping out in groups of several hundred and making themselves easy targets for aerial bombing, insurgents in the recent high-profile attacks have gathered ad-hoc units by pulling together many small bands of fighters for specific missions.
A similar, temporary grouping of fighters assembled before the French ambush, two Western security officials said, adding that the attackers cannot be described as purely Taliban; they likely included fighters from the Taliban movement, but also from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-i-Islami network, and perhaps from other groups.
Senior officials said they suspect the involvement of Hazrat Noor, an extremist leader from South Waziristan, in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A report in the French magazine Paris Match suggested a local commander named Farouki may be responsible. Yet another insurgent leader, Mullah Rahmatullah, has also taken credit for the ambush. Originally a commander for Hizb-i-Islami in the Uzbin valley, Mr. Rahmatullah now reputedly gets funding for his activities from both the Taliban and Mr. Hekmatyar. All reports may be correct, observers say, assuming that many groups co-operated on the attack.
The appearance of well-trained marksmen among the insurgents may point toward the involvement of extremists trained in Pakistani territory, said Brigadier-General Richard Blanchette, a Canadian who serves as chief spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
“We do have hints that al-Qaeda provides training to some insurgents on the other side of the border,” Brig.-Gen. Blanchette said. “Because it's close, it would be very reasonable to believe that this could have been an influence of outside training.” He added: “The fact that they have more sophisticated arms is perhaps also a sign there's a connection to outsiders.”
By one account, the insurgents were preparing for a strike against the government headquarters in Surobi town, but found a ready target when a column of military vehicles snaked up the narrow road among the steeps hills of the valley. They were driving toward a small collection of mud houses known as Spur Kunday, in the valley east of Kabul, investigating reports of 40 Pakistanis sheltering in the village.
“This attack was most likely the result of two things,” the NATO report said. “Either, A) the ISAF forces picked a village that had a great deal of insurgents. The insurgents moved to defensive positions upon the ISAF approach and executed a rehearsed plan.
The report continued: “Or, B) the insurgents had intelligence indicating the route and destination.”
The village initially seemed quiet. A U.S. Special Forces commander and interpreter talked with locals, and got the usual answers supplied by ordinary Afghans when they find themselves surrounded by foreign troops. “All villagers said that they supported the government, there was no trouble here,” the report said.
A tribal elder asked to speak with the U.S. officer alone, and they arranged for a private meeting in a garden, but the elder broke off the conversation when he noticed a local police officer eavesdropping on the exchange. The elder was escorting the soldier back to his vehicle when shooting erupted from a ridge overlooking the village to the east.
In that direction, a French platoon was doing reconnaissance by climbing a hill that sloped upward several hundred metres. Many soldiers were holding positions in the valley, providing security for the meetings at the village, but the platoon of 30 French airborne troops had left their vehicles and hiked more than a kilometre away from the main group, spreading themselves out in an area roughly 300 metres by 300 metres. They were in a vulnerable position, looking up at rocky ridges to the north, south, and east, and that's where the insurgents struck most fiercely.
Soldiers' accounts in the French media say the fighting started at 3 p.m. and they endured four hours without reinforcements. The NATO report gives no timeline, but details a bloody struggle for survival as the foreign troops were incapable of retreating.
The stranded French platoon soon lost communication with the rest of the soldiers, making it impossible for them to call for air support. “This was probably due to the fact that the French platoon had only one radio,” the report said.
From high positions overlooking the foreign troops, the insurgents rained down devastatingly effective fire. All three U.S. Humvee jeeps had their windows struck with well-aimed bullets. Large sparks trailed out from the bullet impact sites, suggesting the insurgents were using incendiary rounds.
“The enemy's accuracy was very good,” the document said.
While praising the performance of U.S. and French troops under the onslaught, the report singled out the Afghan soldiers for criticism.
Fifteen troops from the Afghan National Army had accompanied the patrol in three Ford Ranger pickup trucks, but two of the vehicles were disabled under what the report described as “withering machinegun fire.” Four Afghan soldiers were wounded. Eventually the ANA troops decided to run away on foot.
“The ANA performed very poorly,” the report said. “The ANA force spent much of the time lounging on the battlefield. When they finally dispersed, most left their military equipment [including] weapons ID cards, and other items for the enemy.”
Reinforcements from nearby military bases eventually forced the insurgents to retreat, but some fighting continued through the night and into the next morning. The final tally was 10 French killed and 18 French wounded, with estimates of 15 insurgents killed and 18 wounded.
The French dead were not recovered from the battlefield until midday on Aug. 19, the report said. Some had been stripped of their equipment by the ambushers.
The final sentence of the NATO report suggests the military forces should return to the valley, prepared for another fight.
“Further presence in this denied area is crucial to disrupt the insurgent freedom of movement in what is a long-held and uninterrupted safe haven.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
All change in the US's Afghan mission
Asia Times By Syed Saleem Shahzad 09/19/2008
KARACHI - The direct costs of the seven-year "war on terror", which includes operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, have reached US$752 billion, if the current year's appropriation of $188 billion is included, according to the non-partisan US Congressional Budget Office.
With the situation in Afghanistan further than ever from being settled, the US response, much like the financial crisis, is to throw more money and resources at the problem.
US General David McKiernan, who commands the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) forces in Afghanistan, said after a meeting in Afghanistan with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates this week that he needed a permanent increase in troop levels and other assets such as reconnaissance planes.
Although President George W Bush has said he will send an additional brigade (4,000 to 5,000 troops), McKiernan said he needed three brigades beyond that "to counter the increasing violence and speed up progress in the war". There are currently about 33,000 US troops in the country and if McKiernan gets his way, potentially more than 20,000 troops could be added once support units are counted.
Gates said the George W Bush administration was considering possible changes in its war strategy in Afghanistan, without going into detail. The Independent of London has reported that the US is pushing for sweeping changes to the military command structure in Afghanistan, so the head of international forces reports directly to US Central Command (CENTCOM) instead of NATO.
The newspaper reported that one possibility under consideration was for NATO to continue to be in charge of logistics, force protection and public affairs, while direct counter-insurgency operations would be run from CENTCOM by General David Petraeus, who now oversees US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From the US perspective, seven years after the invasion that toppled the Taliban, progress and speed are certainly needed in this very costly war.
Independent Western think-tanks paint a picture in which the Taliban have a presence in over 54% of the country, including all the important towns around the capital Kabul.
The influential international policy think-tank the Senlis Council reported recently, "Research this summer shows that over half of Wardak province - which neighbors Logar province, and is just 45 minutes from Kabul by road - is under Taliban control, according to local Afghans. This information was gathered by Senlis Council researchers in June 2008, and is proof of the Taliban's resurgence in and around the capital, as well as in their southern and eastern heartlands."
Asia Times Online has reported on Taliban preparations to reach Kabul and its surroundings (Taliban have Kabul in their sights February 27, 2008).
Taliban activities in Wardak are recorded in a recently released video by the Taliban's newly formed media organ, al-Samood. Footage shows camouflaged Taliban fighters on the main highway into the capital attacking a NATO supply convoy, driving around in captured Afghan police vehicles, ferrying ammunition and making preparations for a raid.
Neither the NATO military spokesperson in Kabul nor the Afghan presidential spokesperson responded to Asia Times Online's requests for comment on the video and the security situation around the capital.
The war theater expands Given the lack of progress in Afghanistan, the US is actively taking the war into Pakistan, where the Taliban have sanctuaries in swathes of the tribal areas across the border.
Admiral Mike Mullen, on his fifth visit to Pakistan since he became chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff a year ago, on Tuesday tried to reassure Islamabad that the US would respect Pakistan's sovereignty. But the very next day there was a further Predator drone missile attack in South Waziristan in which it was claimed that a pile of the Taliban's rockets had been hit. This follows several other drone missions over the past few weeks and an operation by US special forces that killed about 15 people.
The Pentagon says Pakistan's military and civilian government are onboard with the missile attacks, a claim Pakistan dismisses.
Either way, the US incursions have unprecedented unity between local tribesmen, the Taliban and the rank-and-file Pakistani security forces deployed on the border regions. Tribal sources tell Asia Times Online that the next time American ground forces venture into Pakistan they will meet stiff opposition from these now-combined forces.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.
Back to Top
Back to Top
A scathing critique of US dealings abroad
By Jim Chiavelli September 20, 2008 Boston Globe, United States
Email| Print| Single Page| Yahoo! Buzz| ShareThisText size – + Descent Into Chaos:The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
By Ahmed Rashid Viking, 544 pp., $27.95
Ahmed Rashid has seen and written it all before. If you don't believe me, he'll tell you himself.
"Descent Into Chaos" chronicles six years of lost opportunities, failed missions, lies, bumbling, and willful ignorance that characterize our war in Afghanistan. It's also a primer on the long history of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations and the Central Asian oppression that brought us to this morass -- with Afghanistan as victim and victimizer, Pakistan enabler and inciter, and the West an inept and capricious dabbler.
At every step, Rashid -- a fearless Pakistani journalist whose previous, largely ignored books warned the West of the jihadist threat being cultivated in Central Asia --is there not only to tell us afresh, but to remind us that he's told us already. Time and again, Rashid pauses to note how he advised the United Nations of the need for quick economic progress or "constantly berated" Afghan president Hamid Karzai to allow the formation of political parties, for example.
The book is a punishing examination of the failures of virtually everyone who set foot in Afghanistan. Rashid lays out charges against Pakistan: creating and supporting the Taliban regime as a potential bulwark against India, and providing refuge, since their 2001 overthrow, for Afghan fanatics and their Al Qaeda comrades. Its pro-fundamentalist policy has come back to bite it, in the form of suicide bombings and virtual civil war, and Rashid is relentless in reciting the names, dates, and incidents that have brought Pakistan to the brink of state failure.
Of Karzai, the author is no less sparing. The urbane leader is excoriated for indecisiveness on cronyism, corruption, and opium growing. "He seemed to be rejecting the fledgling institutions of government [and] resorted to traditional tribal methods of governance that were retrograde and ultimately contributed to more violence and fear."
And, Rashid says, after 9/11 the United States was intent on destroying Al Qaeda but ignored the resurgent Taliban, giving then Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf money and public support in exchange for sham assistance. Even as "democratic politics had regressed and Islamic extremism became ever stronger," the Bush administration, with the Pentagon focused on Arab terrorists and action against Iraq, handed over aid and stifled internal critics of the Islamabad junta.
Under its policy of minimum-boots-on-the-ground, the US military relied on self-serving warlords; some took cash to let Osama bin Laden slip away; others used the cover of US connections to take down enemies, smuggle poppy, and weaken the central government. The CIA's management of the hunt for Al Qaeda was "inefficient, ineffective, and self-defeating." NATO remains bound by "national caveats" that leave few troops permitted to fight, contributing to the Taliban's belief that the West will eventually walk away.
Afghanistan could have been saved, Rashid argues, were it not for the United States "path of least reconstruction," which has left Afghans "restless with and critical of the lack of progress ..... blaming both the government and the Americans." The lack of postwar planning, Rashid argues, would be repeated in Iraq.
Bootlegs of Rashid's books are sold in Kabul. Their cautions are late for those floundering to find an end to the Afghan conflict. "Descent Into Chaos" should be required reading in corridors of power; alas, because history repeats, it's likely to be snapped up in Central Asian bazaars by the next generation of Westerners caught in a quagmire.
Jim Chiavelli, interim director of communications at Northeastern University, worked for NATO in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and visited the country in 2007.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Pakistan on the Brink
Mismanaged "war on terror" has stirred extremism, threatening to rip Pakistan apart
YaleGlobal Ahmed Rashid 19 September 2008
LAHORE - For the past seven years the Bush administration studiously ignored the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership gathering in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and now scrambles to make up for lost time. US elections are looming, and facing the humiliating prospect of Osama bin Laden outlasting a two-term presidency and even expanding his reach, Bush has pushed the Pentagon into a do-or die-hunt for bin Laden. Whether the search for an “October surprise” for the election succeeds or not, the radical threat is now beyond easy military solution.
It’s a sign of desperation that on September 16 the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen was in Islamabad meeting the Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, his boss Secretary of Defense Bob Gates was in Kabul, while Pakistan’s newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari was in London begging Prime Minister Gordon Brown to get the Americans off his back and deliver aid to a beleaguered country rather than angry ripostes.
Pakistan is at the center of a gathering fire storm engulfing south and central Asia in the most volatile confrontation since 9/11. Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and NATO all bear heavy responsibility for the crisis. Bush had neither the inclination nor urge to do right by Afghanistan, despite pleas by President Hamid Karzai to eliminate cross-border terrorist strikes from Pakistan and effectively rebuild the country. Senior US officers serving in Afghanistan say they begged the White House and the State Department for action in 2006, but Bush was cozy with Pakistan’s former President Pervez Musharraf and Iraq occupied US attention. Meanwhile, veteran John McCain flails in effectively playing the national security card against Barack Obama because Republican policies failed to secure the homeland against future Al Qaeda attacks.
The Pakistan military and Interservices Intelligence (ISI) saw Bush’s lack of attention as a free pass to re-engage the Taliban as a Pakistani proxy force. As outlined in detail in my book “Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia,” the army hedged its bets against possible US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan or danger of India becoming too influential in Kabul, by moving pro-Pakistan Afghan leaders into Kabul and carving out a dominating position in Afghan politics.
Until this year, Pakistan appeared to be winning the game. Then the Afghan Taliban launched an unprecedented offensive against US, NATO and Afghan security forces, attempting to paralyze the country by cutting all major roads to urban centers, thereby depriving the people of supplies and Western forces of fuel and ammunition – 80 percent of which is trucked through Pakistan – and killing aid workers so what little development work is taking place comes to a grinding halt.
Catching the Pakistan military off guard was dramatic growth of the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistani Pashtun tribesmen in the border region were quickly radicalized by their Al Qaeda guests. Last year, Pakistani Taliban militias developed their own political agenda – to Talibanize northern Pakistan and create a new “sharia state” that would lead to the balkanization of Pakistan.
The Pakistani Taliban now control all seven tribal agencies that make up the autonomous region bordering Afghanistan called the Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). They have spread across the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) through brutal terror tactics and threaten large towns. Poised on the borders of Punjab, the largest province, they’re joined by Punjabi and Kashmiri extremist groups.
US forces in Afghanistan launch almost daily attacks against suspected Al Qaeda hideouts in FATA and also target Afghan Taliban leaders such as Jalaluddin Haqqani. Pakistan’s military first denied the strikes, then virulently protested them. However on 3 September US Navy Seals put boots on the ground in FATA to demonstrate US seriousness and perhaps to also blackmail Pakistan to own up to US missile strikes and gain greater cooperation from the army. As a result, the army now says it allows US missile strikes despite public anger over Pakistan losing its sovereignty.
The army’s policies over the past fateful seven years led to Pakistan losing much of its territorial sovereignty. Heavily armed militant groups run wild, crime is rampant, paramilitary and police morale has plummeted with a stream of desertions. The country is in the throes of an economic meltdown. Foreign exchange reserves have halved in the past three months to less than US$8 billion, inflation runs at 25 percent, power shortages cripple industry and agriculture, and massive unemployment fuels a resentful populace.
Musharraf resigned, replaced by the ever-controversial Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto and leader of the country’s only national party in the country, the Pakistan Peoples Party, winning election with overwhelming support from the three smaller provinces of NWFP, Balochistan and Sind. But Punjab, with 65 percent of the country’s 160 million people, remains out of his hands, run by rival Nawaz Sharif, who refuses to take the terrorist threat seriously and befriends right-wing Islamic parties. Cleavage between the smaller provinces and Punjab has never been greater.
Zardari’s first tasks are to deal with the faltering economy and get a grip on the war against terrorism while satisfying international concerns. So far he has not much to show. Since the new PPP-led coalition government took office in February, it’s been locked in interminable battles with Sharif. If Zardari continues on those lines, Pakistan is sunk. Promising economic aid and demanding ISI reforms, a lame-duck Bush administration cannot rescue Zardari.
Zardari needs to develop a partnership with the army to fight the terrorists, but so far the army lacks strategy or coherence – one day bombing villages in FATA, the next day announcing ceasefires and offering compensation to militants. It has failed to protect the people of FATA – some 800,000 of a population of just 3.5 million have fled the region since 2006 – terrified of both the army and the Taliban.
The army has still not made the necessary strategic U-turn, giving up on the Afghan Taliban leadership who live in Balochistan. The ISI still attempts to separate the favored Afghan Taliban from the disfavored Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. But the truth is that all operate under a common strategy and guidelines set by Al Qaeda. The aim for Al Qaeda is to use the coming months to take serious territory in the NWFP where it can re-establish safe bases and training camps it once had in Afghanistan.
The American answer is to send more troops to Afghanistan – 4500 are due to arrive soon and another 10,000 by next year – and pressure Pakistan. However the solution no longer lies in a single country. The Taliban are now a regional problem and the next US administration must generate a regional strategy that encompasses Iran, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and the five Central Asian republics.
Western forces cannot win in Afghanistan without dealing with Pakistan, but the military will only change its colors when it feels more secure vis à vis India which has warm relations with President Karzai and Tajiks in northern Afghanistan. Likewise Iran, now arming groups in Afghanistan, needs to be addressed directly by the Americans. Going back to the UN Security Council to get a new mandate for a major regional diplomatic initiative, coupled with a massive regional aid program and widespread public information campaign that portrays the Western coalition as a regional problem-solver rather than a warmonger, are the needs of the hour.
However the issue is whether the next US president, Europe and NATO will have the courage and the will to take the bull by the horns and attempt something new rather than continue with a policy that has clearly failed.
Ahmed Rashid is the author of " Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia" and a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. Click here to read an excerpt from his book.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).