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US general: Taliban can't launch winter campaign
By JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press September 27, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A top U.S. general said he expects militant violence in Afghanistan to rise some 30 percent this winter compared with last year, but that he does not think insurgents have the ability
Five Taliban said killed in Afghanistan
September 27, 2008
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) — Troops backed by gunship helicopters killed five Taliban-linked militants in a central Afghan province where seven policemen were found dead in two days, an official said Saturday.
All 153 abducted Afghan labors released in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Thirty two labors were released by insurgents in western Afghan province of Farah on Saturday, so that all the 153 labors kidnapped on Sept. 22 were released, said an official.
NATO Hopes to Undercut Taliban With 'Surge' of Projects
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 27, 2008
KABUL - NATO alliance troops facing ever more aggressive Taliban insurgents are planning a winter "development surge" of civil works projects in eastern Afghanistan designed to win over tribes in regions
Pak army warns US to stay off its border
Press TV (Iran) Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:08:47 GMT
Pakistani army has warned the US to stay out of its territory while hunting down militants along the volatile border with Afghanistan.
INTERVIEW-Rice sees promising Pakistan-Afghanistan rapport
By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
NEW YORK, Sept 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday she saw better rapport between Pakistan and Afghanistan that would help international efforts to stabilize a region that has been a hotbed of terrorism.
Poppy-free Nangarhar province shows Afghanistan improvements
Source: Government of the United States of America
By Gerry J. Gilmore American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2008 – Things are looking up in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, a region that has been declared poppy-free and experiences little insurgent-generated violence
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US general: Taliban can't launch winter campaign
By JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press / September 27, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A top U.S. general said he expects militant violence in Afghanistan to rise some 30 percent this winter compared with last year, but that he does not think insurgents have the ability to mount a massive campaign during the country's harsh weather.
Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser said the U.S. will attack militant cells in areas of Afghanistan where U.S. forces in some cases haven't operated before, but where officials now realize "the enemy is seeking to remain as a rest and facilitation area in the winter."
Winter has traditionally been seen as a down time for fighting in Afghanistan, but Schloesser said offensive operations by U.S. troops this year could dispel that notion.
U.S. troops will "take advantage of our mobility and capacity to operate in the snow and to be able to find the enemy," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday.
Militants will have the option to be "captured, killed, to reconcile or flee," the general said. "And I think fleeing will be very hard in the winter, especially if they're in flip-flops or sandals."
In January 2007, U.S. airstrikes killed some 120 militants crossing the border on foot from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and a video of the attack taken by a drone showed that many of the insurgents — who were walking in a single-file line through mountainous terrain — were barefoot.
Schloesser said he thinks militants are now better equipped with boots and sleeping bags but don't have the ability to conduct complex operations in deep snow or freezing weather.
The Taliban and associated militant groups like al-Qaida have steadily stepped up attacks in the last several years. More U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan already this year than in any year since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. At least 127 U.S. forces have died, as have 99 from other coalition countries.
Schloesser said the U.S. military will "redouble" efforts this winter to persuade Afghans to pledge their allegiance to the central government by increasing road, school building and other aid projects. Schloesser said the military spent $480 million on such projects this fiscal year, up from $250 million last fiscal year.
The military has requested $680 million for such projects in the upcoming fiscal year, he said.
Schloesser said a one-star U.S. general from the United States has been investigating a U.S. Special Forces strike on the western town of Azizabad on Aug. 22 that the Afghan government and U.N. say killed 90 civilians.
He said the general is enjoying "a good level of access and has been able to visit the appropriate locations."
The original U.S. military investigation found that up to 35 militants and seven civilians were killed in the raid on Azizabad, but the military reopened the investigation after gruesome images emerged showing what appeared to be many more civilian deaths.
Schloesser said the lead investigator for the original report did not have full access to Azizabad.
"That investigator did go out to the site, (but) he was not granted total access by any means by local officials," he said. "So he used as many means as he could to try to ascertain the basic questions. For instance, were there new graves in the cemetery?
"Our goal was to try to do a fairly rapid assessment so we could try to understand what we saw based upon reports from soldiers on the ground, versus what we were hearing from some of the villagers," Schloesser said.
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Five Taliban said killed in Afghanistan
September 27, 2008
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) — Troops backed by gunship helicopters killed five Taliban-linked militants in a central Afghan province where seven policemen were found dead in two days, an official said Saturday.
The rebels targeted late Friday had been spotted laying mines on a road in the central province of Ghazni, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP.
"The helicopters targeted them and killed them," he said.
International forces helping Afghanistan to fight a Taliban-led insurgency had carried out the air strikes, he said, but this could not be immediately confirmed by the forces.
On Thursday the bullet-riddled bodies of four police officers were found dumped in the province, Jahangir said. They had been kidnapped by suspected Taliban days earlier.
Three more policemen were killed in Ghazni on Friday when militants linked to Taliban attacked their patrol, he said.
The Islamist Taliban were in government between 1996 and 2001 before they were removed in a US-led invasion. They are today waging a growing insurgency that involves bombings, suicide attacks and kidnappings.
Around 150 Afghan labourers meanwhile abducted in the western province of Farah a week ago have been freed, with 118 released on Friday and 30 more on Saturday.
Authorities accused the Taliban of the kidnapping, the largest in the post-Taliban conflict which has also seen the emergence of criminal gangs who kidnap for ransom.
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All 153 abducted Afghan labors released in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Thirty two labors were released by insurgents in western Afghan province of Farah on Saturday, so that all the 153 labors kidnapped on Sept. 22 were released, said an official.
Mohammad Yunus Rusuli, deputy provincial governor of Farah told Xinhua that 118 abducted were released on Friday and 32 others were set free on Saturday.
"Most labors are from the northern Afghanistan and they are no won their way home," Rusuli said.
Three of the abducted labors were released earlier this week while local Taliban outfit in Farah province said they had set free all of them by Saturday for celebrating the religious Eid Festival.
Meantime, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi who claims to speak for the Taliban denied the outfit's involvement in the kidnapping of the laborers who were hired by a U.S.-funded Afghan construction company building an army base in Herat province of western Afghanistan.
Conflicts and spiraling insurgency have claimed over 4,000 people's lives so far this year in the war-torn country.
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NATO Hopes to Undercut Taliban With 'Surge' of Projects
By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 27, 2008
KABUL - NATO alliance troops facing ever more aggressive Taliban insurgents are planning a winter "development surge" of civil works projects in eastern Afghanistan designed to win over tribes in regions near the Pakistan border and to prevent their sons from joining the Taliban's ranks, according to military officials here.
At the same time, troops will keep up armed pressure with a winter offensive that seeks to get a head start on blunting the Taliban's traditional spring fighting season.
In a series of recent interviews, U.S. military and NATO officials said that reversing recent gains by Taliban forces will require more troops, time, confidence-building among the Afghan populace, and cooperation from Pakistan in denying the guerrillas sanctuary inside its borders.
"There is no doubt the enemy has bounced back," said Brig. Gen. Mark A. Milley, deputy commander for U.S. operations under NATO in eastern Afghanistan. "They are not unified, and they only have support of 10 percent of the people. But they have achieved a perception of insecurity. Our challenge is to create a perception of security."
"Our fighting season is 365 days a year," said Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, spokeswoman for U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, describing plans for cold-weather attacks. "We are not going to let them rest and reconstitute themselves." The simultaneous development surge, in the meantime, should help "separate the people from the enemy by presenting alternatives and undermining their recruiting pool."
One development project will be in Khost province, where suicide bombers attacked a U.S. base last month and followers of Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani are active. The U.S. command plans to build a road from Khost city to a major highway, a project that officials hope will solidify local support for the government and weaken Haqqani's grip.
In the past several months, attacks and armed encounters with insurgents have increased by about a third compared with the same period last year, reaching more than 1,000 incidents. As Western forces have responded with more aggressive actions, including airstrikes, the insurgents have won propaganda points by quickly denouncing and sometimes exaggerating the civilian deaths that result.
In the interviews, NATO and U.S. officials said they have taken strong new measures to avoid civilian casualties, not only for humanitarian reasons but because reports of civilian bombing deaths are a way for insurgents to undermine Western air power that they cannot challenge militarily.
"If we inadvertently kill civilians, we pay a price because we go against what we are trying to achieve overall," said Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, chief spokesman for the 53,000-strong NATO forces here. "We need to weigh the effects and the proportionality of every action. If there is the likelihood of even one civilian casualty, we will not strike, not even if we think Osama bin Laden is down there."
A more serious problem for U.S. and NATO forces is the persistence of safe havens for Afghan insurgents across the border in Pakistan. Pakistani security forces have only recently begun to make meaningful headway in combating local groups, at a time of strong opposition among the Pakistani public to cross-border airstrikes and ground raids by U.S. forces.
Milley said Islamist fighters on both sides of the border are "inextricably linked," even though Pakistani and Afghan officials have repeatedly blamed each other's territory as the source of violence. "The insurgency in Afghanistan cannot be solved until the situation in Pakistan is solved, and vice versa," he said in an interview last week.
The general said that even though Pakistani forces cooperate closely with U.S. forces along the border and have lost more than 1,500 men, their troops are not trained in counterinsurgency and their leaders have had difficulty "coming to grips" with the nature of the enemy they face.
Last weekend's massive suicide bombing at a Marriott hotel in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, has shaken the government there. Analysts said it could signal a sea change in public opinion over what many Pakistanis have called America's war. The spectacular blast killed at least 53 people, including two Americans. Most of the casualties were Pakistanis.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who met with President Bush at the United Nations in New York this week, has vowed to launch an all-out war on terrorism, but U.S. doubts about Pakistan's commitment persist.
"The porous border is still a fundamental problem, and it must be solved," Blanchette said. "This is not a boxing ring, it is an area that the enemy can escape at any time. It can basically disappear, replenish, regroup, rearm, recruit and come back."
NATO and U.S. military officials have said recently that they need more troops to make faster headway against a "syndicate" of Taliban insurgents, foreign al-Qaeda fighters and other enemy forces. Milley's boss, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, said recently that maintaining the current level of 34,000 U.S. troops overall in Afghanistan would result in a "slow win" that could take years to achieve.
But Western officials here also said that the major obstacles to progress on the ground are not only military. In particular, they cited the lack of strong local governance, the poor performance of the Afghan national police, and the difficulty of protecting rural areas long enough to provide projects and services that will strengthen public loyalty to the authorities.
"We can never eliminate the last Taliban. It is a question of building Afghan capacity," Blanchette said. "Yes, we need more troops, but we also need better synchronicity of the other parts. Our job is to create a window of security, so that governance and reconstruction can start."
Despite the wide perception that the Taliban is rapidly gaining ground, with attacks occurring regularly near the capital, officials cited several cases in which it is being decisively pushed back. In Kapisa province, just northeast of the capital, they said, French and Afghan troops have routed Taliban forces, and soon the construction of a new Kabul bypass road will begin there.
Still, officials described the overall situation as mixed, with Western troops defeating the insurgents in every individual encounter but remaining unable to wipe them out. Moreover, officials acknowledged that some of their advances are coming at a high political cost, especially Afghan anger over civilian casualties and Pakistani opposition to cross-border raids.
"All counterinsurgency is local," Nielson-Green said. "We have to get in among the people. If we had more troops, we could clear more space and do more to meet people's needs. Otherwise, the enemy will keep coming back like cockroaches, hiding in the light and then scurrying back in the dark."
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Pak army warns US to stay off its border
Press TV (Iran) Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:08:47 GMT
Pakistani army has warned the US to stay out of its territory while hunting down militants along the volatile border with Afghanistan.
Major General Tariq Khan said that the country did not need American firepower along the frontier to combat terrorism and predicted the region will be "stabilized" within two months, local media reported Saturday.
“My timeframe for Bajaur is anything from between one-and-a-half to two months to bring about stability,” Khan told reporters on an army-organized trip to volatile Bajaur region.
He also showed photos of militants' tunnel systems and trenches in Bajaur region, suggesting that there is tougher fighting ahead in an area that is considered a likely hiding place for al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
Meanwhile, Pakistani government spokesman Akram Shaheedi also urged US-led coalition forces "not to violate (the) territorial sovereignty of Pakistan as it is counterproductive to the war on terror."
"It has been Pakistan's policy that we will not allow anyone to violate our sovereignty, and we will continue to defend our territorial sovereignty," he said.
US forces have fired a flurry of missiles and made a ground assault on targets within Pakistan recently, infuriating Pakistanis and their leaders.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari lashed out at the United States over alleged violation of Pakistani airspace on the border with Afghanistan. "Unilateral actions of great powers should not inflame the passion of allies," he said. He further cautioned that any cross border raids could be counterproductive.
On Thursday, in the first serious exchange with Pakistani forces to be acknowledged by the United States, two American helicopters and Pakistani ground troops traded fire on the border. US officials said the two helicopters were inside Afghanistan when the troops opened fire while Pakistan insisted the aircraft had crossed border.
Analysts say Pakistani leaders' comments underscore significant tensions between the two allies of the so-called "war on terror".
Pakistan reiterates prevention of cross-border infiltration is not solely its responsibility, but insists that no foreign troops will be allowed to operate in its territory.
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INTERVIEW-Rice sees promising Pakistan-Afghanistan rapport
By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
NEW YORK, Sept 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday she saw better rapport between Pakistan and Afghanistan that would help international efforts to stabilize a region that has been a hotbed of terrorism.
"There's a new spirit between President Zardari and President Karzai," Rice told Reuters in an interview after the launch of a multilateral "Friends of Pakistan" group to help Islamabad tackle its massive economic and security problems.
Rice held talks on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- U.S.-allied countries whose disputes have hampered the campaign against terrorism.
"They both speak very warmly of one another. They have some ideas about how to bring some political reconciliation of various tribals on both sides of the border and how to use this to bring greater stability," Rice said of the two leaders.
"The president of Pakistan seems quite committed and resolute about resolving the multiple challenges," she said.
Zardari, widower of assassinated former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was elected president earlier this month, replacing military strongman Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf often publicly traded blame with Karzai over cross-border attacks and infiltrations, to great U.S. consternation.
A new complication in cross-border tensions emerged on Thursday when U.S. and Pakistani ground forces exchanged fire across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. U.S. and Pakistani officials clashed over whether American helicopters had entered Pakistan.
'FRIENDS OF PAKISTAN'
That incident followed a U.S. campaign of attacks on militant targets inside Pakistan, including a Sept. 3 commando raid on a village compound in South Waziristan.
"We cannot allow our territory and our sovereignty to be violated by our friends," said Zardari in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
Rice played down the dispute, and said Washington would help meet Zardari's appeals for international support for Pakistan's strategy to deliver economic development and alleviate food and energy shortfalls.
"The United States is prepared to look at the significant aid programs that we have to see if we can bring them more into conformity with some of the direction initiatives that (Zardari) himself is developing," she said.
On Friday, Rice and Zardari joined the foreign ministers of Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, as well as European Union and U.N. representatives, to launch the Friends of Pakistan group.
The group pledged to address Pakistan's energy shortfall, help build its democratic institutions and promote stability and development in Pakistan, including the tribal border areas that have been a haven for militants, the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
"The Group committed to work with the Government of Pakistan to develop an over-arching Pakistani-led strategy and to provide technical assistance for this," said the statement.
Rice said Washington would work with Islamabad, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank to find ways to support Pakistan as it struggles with a surge in its current account deficit, a slide in the rupee and a sharp drop in foreign currency reserves. (Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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Poppy-free Nangarhar province shows Afghanistan improvements
Source: Government of the United States of America
By Gerry J. Gilmore American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2008 – Things are looking up in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, a region that has been declared poppy-free and experiences little insurgent-generated violence, senior U.S. officials posted in Afghanistan told Pentagon reporters today.
The report was in contrast to a Pentagon briefing earlier in the day in which Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed increased tensions along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. Nangahar borders Pakistan, just east of Afghanistan's capital city, Kabul.
Shawn Waddoups and Army Lt. Col. Gregory Allison, the U.S. State Department and military leaders, respectively, of Provincial Reconstruction Team Jalalabad that operates in Nangarhar, briefed President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai via video teleconference earlier today. Karzai is in Washington for meetings with Bush and other senior U.S. officials.
The 26 provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan comprise "a central part of the counterinsurgency strategy, which combines economic development, education, and infrastructure with security, all aiming to help this young democracy not only survive, but to thrive, so that it never becomes a safe haven for those who would do us harm," Bush said after the teleconference.
Karzai said "life was better" in his country, and he thanked Bush and the United States "for all that you have done for Afghanistan."
During the news conference, Waddoups recalled Nangarhar's Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai telling him about a year ago, "I'll be able to wipe out the poppy crop."
The governor did so by issuing an ultimatum to growers: plow up the poppy fields, or go to jail.
Today, Nangarhar province has been declared by a United Nations body as being poppy free, Waddoups said.
Poppy eradication is a major goal of the United Nations because the plants are processed into heroin, sold on the black market and used to fund terrorist groups.
Afghan farmers in Nangarhar province now grow onions, wheat and other food crops, Waddoups said. There is more interaction between Afghans and their government than in the past, he said, noting the myriad government-provided improvements consisting of new buildings, roads, schools, bridges and other infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the reconstruction team hopes to see the development of hydro-electric dams to generate power that can be used to establish food-processing factories and create much-needed jobs, said Allison, who's also commander of the 935th Agribusiness Development Team that serves Nangarhar province.
"The agriculture piece, of course, is a viable alternative (to poppy growing)," Allison said. "But, it's not a 'quick fix.' It takes time for crops to grow, and in some of the rural and remote areas, irrigation is a problem."
Irrigation is being addressed, but large amounts of electricity is needed to run factories that can process foodstuffs and provide jobs, Allison said. Fortunately, Nangarhar province has abundant water resources for hydro-electric power, he said.
"The electricity problem is particularly difficult," Waddoups said. However, Afghan leaders are looking to obtain resources for electricity-generating projects through internal funding or via the international donor community, he said.
The outstanding Afghan army and police in Nangarhar province "are in the lead" providing security for residents, Waddoups said. Improvised explosive devices constitute the main, but rarely seen, insurgent threat in the province, he said.
"The insurgents, frankly, they can't stand toe-to-toe with the Afghan security forces in our part of the country," Waddoups said.
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