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Pakistan advises Holbrooke talk to Taliban moderates
By Simon Cameron-Moore
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan advised President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Tuesday to reach out to reconcilable elements of the Taliban movement as part of a strategy for peace in the region.
US delegation in Moscow for Afghanistan talks
Associated Press
MOSCOW – U.S. diplomats tried to work out details in talks with Russian officials Tuesday on plans to ship Western supplies bound for Afghanistan across Russia, the U.S. Embassy said.
Blast kills two NATO soldiers in Afghanistan
Tue Feb 10, 3:53 am ET
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomb hit a convoy of NATO-led troops and killed two soldiers in southeastern Afghanistan Tuesday, officials said.
Al-Qaeda, Taliban will not act 'with impunity:' Obama
Tue Feb 10, 3:31 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama vowed to prevent Al-Qaeda from operating "with impunity" in Afghanistan and urged a combined effort to eradicate safe havens for the Taliban and other militants there.
Spain says no plans for more troops to Afghanistan
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer
MADRID – Spain has no plans to raise its troop levels in Afghanistan despite calls by President Barack Obama for a renewed commitment to fight the resurgent Taliban, Spain's foreign minister said Tuesday.
More Troops Not Solution In Afghanistan - Spain Foreign Min
MADRID (AFP)--Sending more troops to Afghanistan is not the answer to its problems and there has to be a greater emphasis on a political solution, Spain's foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Obama: No Timetable on Afghanistan; Seeks 'Face to Face' Talks with Iran
By Jonathan Allen, Cq Staff – Mon Feb 9, 10:32 pm ET
In his first prime-time news conference, President Obama said he has no timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
US Gen Didn't Seek More French Troops For Afghanistan -France
PARIS (AFP)--The senior U.S. military commander in Afghanistan and the Middle East didn't ask France for more troops when he visited Paris this week, the French Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
US general pushes France for help in Afghanistan
By Deborah Seward, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 9, 3:38 pm ET
PARIS – Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, met senior French officials Monday as Washington seeks more military might for Afghanistan but failed to come away with any offer from the French for more troops on the ground.
Afghan presidential hopefuls knock Karzai ahead of Obama envoy visit
Two Afghan presidential contenders with links to the United States have launched attacks on Hamid Karzai days before President Barack Obama's new envoy arrives in Kabul.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul 10 Feb 2009 Daily Telegraph (UK)
Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Nangahar province, echoed previous American criticism of President Karazi to say as Afghan leader he would not "stay inside my bunker".
Afghan presidential contender won't "stay in bunker"
Hamid Shalizi Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Feb 10 3:02 AM
A powerful Afghan provincial governor and potential presidential candidate said on Tuesday he would not "sweet talk" Afghans or stay "in the bunker," a sideways swipe at President Hamid Karzai. Skip related content
US, Canada to focus on Afghan mission
OTTAWA (AFP) – The war in Afghanistan will be high on the agenda when the top US military officer meets his Canadian counterpart on Tuesday amid an increasingly effective Taliban insurgency.
Obama not expected to ask Ottawa for Afghan extension
CAMPBELL CLARK From Tuesday's Globe and Mail February 10, 2009 at 4:33 AM EST
OTTAWA — Canadian officials say they are confident that U.S. President Barack Obama will not ask Stephen Harper's government to extend the military mission in Afghanistan past 2011 when he visits Ottawa next week.
Russia confirms good-will aid to int'l coalition in Afghanistan - Rogozin
10.02.2009, 17.31
MOSCOW, February 10 (Itar-Tass) - Russia has confirmed its good will in rendering assistance to the international antiterrorist coalition engaged in the Enduring Freedom operation in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan 'could be lost by summer'
The war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan will be lost by the end of the summer without dramatic changes in counter-insurgency strategy, according to a leading US military expert.
By Alex Spillius in Washington Daily Telegraph (UK) 10 Feb 2009
The assessment of Col John Nagl, who is consulting the US government as it conducts four separate policy reviews on Afghanistan, comes amid fears that unless the insurgents' advance is halted, Afghanistan will become the new president's Vietnam.
A Race Against Time in Afghanistan
Washington Post, United States By John F. Kerry Tuesday, February 10, 2009
No foreign power has remained welcome in Afghanistan for a sustained period, and the British and the Soviets paid a bitter price for trying. Our goal has never been to dominate Afghanistan but, rather
NATO says attacks on Afghan drug trade up
February 10, 2009, 9:11 pm
KABUL (Reuters) - NATO has stepped up attacks on the Afghan drugs trade since allies agreed last year they could carry out direct strikes on traffickers, but individual nations are still able to opt out of the deal, a spokesman said.
Iran may give India access to Afghanistan
Hindu, India 10 February 2009
NEW DELHI - Iran on Monday said India could soon have a sea-cum-land route that would give Indian goods access to Afghanistan and further on to Central Asian countries, bypassing Pakistan.
Poll of Afghans Shows Drop In Support for U.S. Mission
Washington Post By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A new poll in Afghanistan shows sagging support for U.S. efforts in that country, with airstrikes a chief concern. A quarter of the Afghans polled said that attacks on American or allied forces are justifiable, double the proportion saying so in late 2006.
Afghan people 'losing confidence'
By Ian Pannell BBC News, northern Afghanistan Monday, 9 February 2009
Is Afghanistan going in the right or wrong direction?
Taliban Haven in Pakistani City Raises Fears
By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI The New York Times February 10, 2009
WASHINGTON — Even as C.I.A. drone aircraft pound Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal region, there is growing concern among American military and intelligence officials about different militants’
Pakistan kills 11 militants near Afghan border: military
Tue Feb 10, 5:43 am ET
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships killed 11 rebels and pounded suspected militant hideouts in a tribal town on the Afghan border, the military said Tuesday.
Afghan dog finds new life in Britain
By Melissa Gray
LONDON, England (CNN) -- His life has never been easy. Born into poverty and war, his ears and tail were chopped off when he was just a few months old in preparation for dog-fighting. He escaped to find a better life, only to be trapped in lonely, sterile quarantine for six months.
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Pakistan advises Holbrooke talk to Taliban moderates
By Simon Cameron-Moore
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan advised President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Tuesday to reach out to reconcilable elements of the Taliban movement as part of a strategy for peace in the region.
Envoy Richard Holbrooke met with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani during a visit that will last until Thursday.
Holbrooke's priorities are turning the tide against a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, crushing al Qaeda and making sure neither country is again used as a base for followers of Osama bin Laden's global jihad.
The U.S. plan to double the number of troops in Afghanistan to over 60,000 in the next 18 months would only work if it was accompanied by political engagement with Taliban moderates, warned Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
"Obviously, there are some irreconcilable elements and no one wants to deal with them ... But there is a reconcilable element and we should not overlook their importance," he said.
Late last year, Saudi Arabia helped bring together former Taliban officials and Afghans linked to the government for talks.
But Afghanistan mistrusts Pakistani involvement.
President Hamid Karzai's government suspects Pakistani spies secretly back the Taliban in the hope of eventually regaining influence in Kabul, despite Islamabad having publicly abandoned support for the Islamist militia in 2001.
"RED LINES"
Known for his bulldozing style negotiating an end to war in the former Yugoslavia almost 15 years ago, Holbrooke is new to South Asia and his appointment demonstrated the importance Obama gives to the region.
Expected to set out a new strategy for a NATO summit on April 2, Holbrooke said when he arrived on Monday that he wanted to hear the differing viewpoints as he goes from Islamabad to Kabul, and finally to India.
Pakistan's fragile 10-month old civilian government needs political and financial support, as an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund last staved off virtual bankruptcy.
Qureshi said Holbrooke's visit marked a "new beginning" in relations with the United States, but he also called for mutual respect and a rethink on the use of U.S. drone aircraft to eliminate militant targets on Pakistani soil.
"We also have to have red lines on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable to the U.S., and what is acceptable and not acceptable to Pakistan," Qureshi told a news conference.
U.S. officials say the missile attacks have significantly degraded the mid-level al Qaeda leadership.
Pakistan argues that civilian casualties have hardened anti-American sentiment and fueled support for Islamist militants whose insurgency in the northwest threatens to destabilize the country.
Pakistan believes the $11 billion it has received from Washington for joining the U.S.-led "war on terror" is poor reward given the insecurity it has suffered as a result.
Not only is there an insurgency raging across the northwest, but rival India has gained influence in Kabul at its expense.
Tension arising from an attack by Pakistani militants on the Indian city of Mumbai in November, when 179 people were killed, has magnified the neighbors' chronic lack of trust.
Qureshi said he didn't talk about Mumbai with Holbrooke.
But he let Holbrooke know any confrontation with India would force Pakistan to drop fighting the war on terror down its list of priorities.
"I did point out to him that if Pakistan has to remain focused on the western front then obviously a calm eastern front is to everybody's advantage," Qureshi said.
Pakistan would dearly like U.S. diplomatic support to persuade India to settle the longstanding territorial dispute over Kashmir, but the timing is all wrong from India's standpoint as anger is still boiling over Mumbai.
India fears Pakistani jihadis will launch more attacks on its cities, and analysts say Holbrooke will be told in New Delhi that India has its own security concerns and he should not attempt to make Kashmir part of a U.S. formula for stability in Afghanistan.
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
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US delegation in Moscow for Afghanistan talks
Associated Press
MOSCOW – U.S. diplomats tried to work out details in talks with Russian officials Tuesday on plans to ship Western supplies bound for Afghanistan across Russia, the U.S. Embassy said.
The delegation's visit to Moscow comes a week after Kyrgyzstan's president said his Central Asian country would evict U.S. forces from an air base crucial to American operations in nearby Afghanistan.
U.S. officials suspect that Moscow is behind the decision to close the Manas base, which could be confirmed by Kyrgyzstan's parliament this week.
Russia, which has denied involvement in the Kyrgyz decision, has agreed to let U.S. and NATO supplies cross its territory on their way to Afghanistan.
The U.S. Embassy said the delegation headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Moon would be discussing the specifics of that transit agreement. Talks were also to include counterterrorism and counter-narcotics cooperation, the embassy said.
If Manas closes, it would be a serious blow to President Barack Obama's plan to deal with growing Taliban and al-Qaida violence in Afghanistan.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov played down the potential effect of the base's closure in remarks broadcast Tuesday, telling state-run Vesti-24 television that U.S. operations in Afghanistan could certainly continue without the base.
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Blast kills two NATO soldiers in Afghanistan
Tue Feb 10, 3:53 am ET
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomb hit a convoy of NATO-led troops and killed two soldiers in southeastern Afghanistan Tuesday, officials said.
Another soldier was wounded by the blast which happened in Khost province near the border with Pakistan, said a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The Afghan Interior Ministry said the blast was caused by a suicide bomb.
Most troops in eastern Afghanistan are American.
Afghanistan is in the grip of the worst violence since the Taliban were toppled from power in late 2001.
Taliban insurgents and their allies have made a comeback in the last two years in their campaign to drive out foreign forces and topple the Afghan government.
(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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Al-Qaeda, Taliban will not act 'with impunity:' Obama
Tue Feb 10, 3:31 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama vowed to prevent Al-Qaeda from operating "with impunity" in Afghanistan and urged a combined effort to eradicate safe havens for the Taliban and other militants there.
As Washington launches a review of US policy in Afghanistan, Obama said Afghanistan's national government "seems very detached from what's going on in the surrounding community."
In his first press conference Monday, Obama pointed to Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants operating in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"What we haven't seen is the kind of concerted effort to root out those safe havens that ultimately makes our mission successful," Obama said.
"We are going to need more effective coordination with our military efforts with diplomatic efforts, with development efforts, with more effective coordination with our allies in order for us to be successful," he said.
"I do not have a timetable for how long that's going to take. What I know is I'm not going to allow Al-Qaeda and (Osama) bin Laden to operate with impunity attacking the US," he said.
"My bottom line is that we cannot allow Al-Qaeda to operate, we cannot have safe havens in that region. And we're going to have to work both smartly and with consistency," Obama said.
In an editorial published Tuesday, Senator John Kerry, who serves as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee echoed the president's line.
"The United States is not in Afghanistan to make it our 51st state -- but to make sure it does not become an Al-Qaeda narco-state and terrorist beachhead capable of destabilizing neighboring Pakistan," Kerry wrote in The Washington Post.
Kerry stressed that the mission there was a "race against time" in a region that has never been welcoming to lingering foreign interests.
He stressed that the United States needed more help from allies and a renewed focus on reconstruction.
"Our NATO allies have to shoulder a bigger burden, and we should continue to seek more combat troops with fewer restrictions," he said.
The Obama administration has said it is carrying out a review of strategy in Afghanistan as Taliban militants challenge the Kabul government for control of the south and the east of the country.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other officials have signaled any new strategy would likely abandon the ambitious goals of the previous administration -- to forge a democracy in the war-torn and impoverished country.
The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen told soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division that the military's focus had switched to Afghanistan.
"It's gotten worse in Afghanistan. Violence is up. The Taliban is back. More than anything else there's a governance issue which is not going well," he said.
The admiral said while he anticipated more troops would be sent to Afghanistan, it was unlikely the force would surpass a total of about 66,000 -- nearly double the roughly 36,000 now deployed there.
Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was to meet key leaders in Islamabad Tuesday as part of the major US policy review aimed at turning around the war against insurgents in South Asia.
Obama has called Afghanistan the main front in the "war on terror" and plans to send a further 30,000 troops there, doubling the US contingent fighting a Taliban-led insurgency along with NATO forces.
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Spain says no plans for more troops to Afghanistan
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer
MADRID – Spain has no plans to raise its troop levels in Afghanistan despite calls by President Barack Obama for a renewed commitment to fight the resurgent Taliban, Spain's foreign minister said Tuesday.
The comments by Miguel Angel Moratinos are sure to be unwelcome in Washington, which has made shifting military assets from Iraq to Afghanistan a priority, but has so far found little enthusiasm from NATO allies in Europe.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, met senior French officials in Paris on Monday, but failed to come away with an offer of more French troops. France has voiced reluctance to send more troops, saying it wants more focus on a political solution.
German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said at a weekend security meeting in Munich that his country thought the troop levels would be adequate but would increase its commitment to train Afghan police forces.
The military situation in Afghanistan is increasingly bleak. The Taliban and other militants have expanded their power across the country in the last three years after their initial defeat following the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Militants control wide swaths of the countryside.
Obama has said he will refocus U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. His administration plans to send up to 30,000 more troops there over the next year to add to the approximately 33,000 already in the country. Some of those American troops are part of the NATO force, while others operate independently.
Spain already has 800 troops stationed in Afghanistan, mostly in the relatively peaceful Western part of the country, part of a 55,000-strong NATO contingent.
"We don't plan for the moment to increase our military presence in Afghanistan," Moratinos told journalists at a breakfast meeting.
The top Spanish diplomat said his country had not yet received a formal request for more troops from Washington, and left open the possibility that it would study such a request when it came.
But he left little doubt that his country is hesitant about an increased military commitment.
"For the time being, our position is to say what our own analysis is," Moratinos said. "And that is that the answer is not to increase our military presence. The military presence has been increasing every year, and the situation has only gotten worse."
The comments by Moratinos and the French this week highlight the difficulty Obama faces on one of his signature issues. Washington has long complained of a lack of commitment from NATO — and has even warned that the security alliance could become irrelevant if its members refuse to stand together in places like Afghanistan.
But there is little appetite in Europe for another faraway war, and a sense among many that the cause is already lost. Analysts say that even a new — much more popular — American administration will have difficulty changing European minds.
Spain has had a frosty relationship with the United States since Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero decided to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq in 2004. But the Spanish government has said openly that it hopes for much closer ties with Obama, a Democrat whose policies ought to be more in line with those of Spain.
But the two men have not spoken personally since Obama's inauguration, and U.S. officials have indicated that cooperation on Afghanistan is at the top of their wish list when it comes to Spain.
Moratinos said there are many ways to contribute besides sending more troops. He said Afghanistan is in dire need of increased infrastructure and aid.
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More Troops Not Solution In Afghanistan - Spain Foreign Min
MADRID (AFP)--Sending more troops to Afghanistan is not the answer to its problems and there has to be a greater emphasis on a political solution, Spain's foreign minister said on Tuesday.
In Afghanistan, there is "a deficit on the political side and a surplus on the military side," Miguel Angel Moratinos said, confirming that Madrid wouldn't increase its 780-troop contingent there.
Spain's troops serve alongside 70,000 from 40 countries under North Atlantic Treaty Organization auspices, with U.S. forces the largest single contingent at 37,000.
Washington plans to deploy another 30,000 as it winds down operations in Iraq but their deployment is awaiting the green light from the White House which wants to get a better grip on overall strategy first, U.S. defense officials said Monday.
Sending more troops "is a bad solution. We need to have a global political vision and talk to all the local actors," Moratinos told the foreign press, without specifying whether this included the Taleban.
Moratinos said that Madrid would examine any U.S. request for a greater Spanish contribution, military or otherwise, in Afghanistan.
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Obama: No Timetable on Afghanistan; Seeks 'Face to Face' Talks with Iran
By Jonathan Allen, Cq Staff – Mon Feb 9, 10:32 pm ET
In his first prime-time news conference, President Obama said he has no timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
Even as he tried to focus the nation on his plan for addressing an economic crisis that he warned will become a "catastrophe" without action by Congress, Obama vowed to stop al Qaeda from operating "with impunity" in Afghanistan and said his administration would be "looking for openings" to move "in a new direction" U.S. policy toward Iran.
"My bottom line is that we cannot allow al Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region. And we're going to have to work both smartly and effectively, but with consistency in order to make sure that those safe havens don't exist," Obama said Monday evening.
"I do not have yet a timetable for how long that's going to take. What I know is I'm not going to make -- I'm not going to allow al Qaeda or [Osama] bin Laden to operate with impunity, planning attacks on the U.S. homeland."
On Iran, Obama said he envisioned looking for "openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face to face" with Iranian leaders.
An openness to starting a dialogue with Iran is a marked shift from that of Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, who labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address.
Obama said that "direct diplomacy" would require understanding by Iran that the United States finds "the funding of terrorist organizations unacceptable, that we're clear about the fact that a nuclear Iran could set off a nuclear arms race in the region that would be profoundly destabilizing."
His rhetoric echoed an early campaign signal that his administration would sit down with the leaders of Iran within the first year of his presidency, though Obama did not reiterate that timeline on Monday.
While most of the questions he fielded from the press corps centered on the economic crisis and the stimulus bill , Obama's most revealing answers came on foreign and military policy.
He said he has not yet made a determination about whether to overturn the Bush administration policy banning cameras from filming or photographing the flag-draped coffins of American servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan when they return to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
"We are in the process of reviewing those policies in conversations with the Department of Defense, so I don't want to give you an answer now before I've evaluated that review and understand all the implications involved," he said.
Obama took the question after noting it's grim timing, coming on the same day he was informed of the death of four American service members in Iraq.
The president opened the press conference with an aggressive appeal for action on the stimulus bill, citing an escalating shedding of jobs from the economy.
"If there's anyone out there who still doesn't believe this constitutes a full-blown crisis, I suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down because they don't know where their next paycheck is coming from," he said.
Obama addressed criticism of the more than $800 billion stimulus package (HR 1), saying the private sector is not equipped to recover without government intervention.
"It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money which leads to even more layoffs," he said. "And breaking that cycle is exactly what the plan that's moving through Congress is designed to do."
After shifting away from early calls for bipartisanship on the stimulus bill and watching just three Senate Republicans back his bill, Obama was asked whether he had misjudged the possibility of reaching across the partisan divide.
"I don't think I underestimated it," he said. "There have been a lot of bad habits built up here in Washington."
He said his efforts to cultivate bipartisanship, such as meeting with House and Senate Republicans, were aimed at long-term trust-building, not short-term gain.
Obama called on lawmakers to confront the challenges before the nation and "break out of some of the ideological rigidity and gridlock that we've been carrying around for too long."
In responding, Obama, nonetheless, fired off a few shots at Republicans.
"When I hear that from folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt, I just want them not to engage in some revisionist history," he said.
Republicans didn't take long to return the volley.
"There is an earnest difference between the current stimulus bill and what many others, including myself, believe is the most effective use of taxpayer's money to stimulate the economy," Rep. Lee Terry, a Nebraska Republican, said in a written statement."The president I and want a quick recovery, but I just don't believe this bill will accomplish what we want."
Obama declined to close the door on a call made earlier in the day by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., for establishing a panel to investigate actions taken by the Bush administration.
"My view is also that nobody's above the law and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen," Obama said. "But that, generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards."
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US Gen Didn't Seek More French Troops For Afghanistan -France
PARIS (AFP)--The senior U.S. military commander in Afghanistan and the Middle East didn't ask France for more troops when he visited Paris this week, the French Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Gen. David Petraeus was in France as the Pentagon and the new White House team conduct a series of reviews of policy in Afghanistan, where U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces face a resurgent Taliban.
NATO commanders have asked European allies, particularly France and Germany, to take a larger role in the Afghan campaign, but Petraeus didn't repeat that request during his visit, ministry spokesman Eric Chevalier said.
New U.S. President Barack Obama will send an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan but - while it is mulling moving some of its 2,600 troops from Kabul to the battlefront - France has offered no reinforcements.
During his visit Petraeus met French Defense Minister Herve Morin and gave a closed-door briefing to the parliamentary defense committee.
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US general pushes France for help in Afghanistan
By Deborah Seward, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 9, 3:38 pm ET
PARIS – Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, met senior French officials Monday as Washington seeks more military might for Afghanistan but failed to come away with any offer from the French for more troops on the ground.
Prior to Petraeus' visit, French Defense Minister Herve Morin had signaled that France was reluctant to commit more troops to Afghanistan and wanted greater efforts toward a political solution to achieve stability.
Petraeus said that French troops had conducted operations in Afghanistan "superbly" and that the purpose of his visit to Paris had been to explain U.S. strategy and not to ask for a new French military effort. "That wasn't part of the discussion," Petraeus said.
However, the U.S. has been actively seeking a larger commitment from NATO countries.
Over the weekend, Gen. John Craddock, who also heads the U.S. European Command, told a security conference in Munich that he still needs about 5,000 NATO troops to fortify Afghan forces before elections this summer.
President Barack Obama and the head of NATO have urged European allies to send reinforcements to Afghanistan. The U.S. is expected to deploy up to 30,000 more American troops there this year, doubling the number already there.
After meeting Petraeus, Morin told a news conference that "the French effort counts more than the number of French troops on the ground." He declined to say if and when the French would offer any more troops for Afghanistan.
Morin said in various radio and newspaper interviews since Sunday that France already had made a considerable effort toward stability in Afghanistan and would not add more troops to the 3,300 French soldiers already there.
The U.S. hunt for more troops comes as France is reducing its foreign military presence around the globe. Late last month, France announced plans to cut the 13,000 troops it has overseas by 13 percent as part of a new doctrine of more selective foreign deployments.
Earlier Monday, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told Petraeus that France's priority was to pursue both military and civilian policy to achieve stability in Afghanistan.
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Afghan presidential hopefuls knock Karzai ahead of Obama envoy visit
Two Afghan presidential contenders with links to the United States have launched attacks on Hamid Karzai days before President Barack Obama's new envoy arrives in Kabul.
By Ben Farmer in Kabul 10 Feb 2009 Daily Telegraph (UK)
Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Nangahar province, echoed previous American criticism of President Karazi to say as Afghan leader he would not "stay inside my bunker".
Mr Obama last year blamed the president of Afghanistan for failing to get "out of the bunker" to rebuild his war-torn nation.
At the same time, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister, said President Karzai had squandered an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild the country.
Richard Holbrooke, the new US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, will arrive for talks later this week but has been scathing of the Karzai regime in the past.
The new US administration is understood to have abandoned President Karzai after becoming frustrated at his lack of progress tackling corruption and the drug industry. Officials have said they will offer tacit support to presidential rivals.
Speculation over potential rivals has focused on four senior Afghan politicians with close US links: Mr Sherzai, Dr Abdullah, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Ali Ahmad Jalali.
Mr Sherzai a Pashtun former mujahadeen commander who attended President Obama's inauguration, has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses.
However his robust stances on poppy growing and fighting insecurity have achieved results and won praise.
Though he has not declared his candidacy, he claimed he had the backing of the international community.
"I have met various tribal leaders, delegations from neighbouring countries as well as Saudi Arabia and the international community," he said. "They have all asked me to run for the next presidency."
Dr Abdullah also said he was "under pressure to run" and blamed President Karzai for dashing hopes of reconstruction in Afghanistan.
"No leader in our history had an opportunity like Mr Karzai had," he said. "At least 90 per cent supported him without knowing him. The hopes they placed on him were not unrealistic."
Dr Abdullah described Mr Holbrooke as a capable man and a man of principle.
A US Embassy spokesman would not say, for security reasons, if Mr Holbrooke would meet Mr Sherzai or Dr Abdullah during his visit.
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Afghan presidential contender won't "stay in bunker"
Hamid Shalizi Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Feb 10 3:02 AM
A powerful Afghan provincial governor and potential presidential candidate said on Tuesday he would not "sweet talk" Afghans or stay "in the bunker," a sideways swipe at President Hamid Karzai. Skip related content
Gul Agha Sherzai, a former mujahideen fighter who ousted the Taliban from the southern city of Kandahar in 2001 and is now governor of eastern Nangarhar province, is often mooted as a potential contender for President Hamid Karzai's job.
Presidential elections have been scheduled for August 20. Several politicians and former ministers have hinted they would be interested in running the war-torn country, where some 65,000 foreign troops fight a growing Taliban insurgency.
"If I become the next president, I will definitely stay one month in each province with a broad-based reconstruction plan and I will not stay inside my bunker," Sherzai told Reuters.
U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan his top foreign policy priority and will be unlikely to give Karzai an easy ride, having accused him in the past of failing to get "out of the bunker."
The eloquent Karzai, once the darling of the West, is losing popularity both at home and in Washington as his attempts to curb corruption, seen as endemic in Afghanistan, have largely failed.
An ethnic Pashtun, the largest and dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan, Sherzai developed a formidable reputation as a mujahideen fighter against the invading forces of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
After recapturing Kandahar from the Taliban in 2001, he was appointed its governor from 2001-2003, but his warlord-style leadership, and accusations he breached human rights and profited from the opium trade, have hurt his image.
But his handling of Nangarhar province, where security has improved and drug cultivation has been all but wiped out, has also earned him a reputation of someone who gets things done.
NO "SWEET TALK"
Sherzai, often seen as an ally of Karzai, would not confirm if he would definitely run for president but said if he was elected he would avoid using flowery rhetoric to sway public opinion.
"I will not deceive the people with sweet talk. I love my country and I love my people," Sherzai said.
He said he has strong support from outside Afghanistan.
"I have met various tribal leaders, delegations from neighbouring countries as well as Saudi Arabia and the international community, they have all asked me to run for the next presidency," Sherzai said.
He added that "interference from neighbouring countries" was a major problem for Karzai's government and that he welcomed additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but foreign forces had to share intelligence with their Afghan counterparts.
"I repeatedly warned foreign troops to share with us intelligence and operations, now we have Afghan army and police, the foreign troops must trust us right now," Sherzai said.
He is a strong supporter of Obama, having met the former Illinois senator before he was elected and even before Karzai was introduced to him.
"I haven't paid any money to Obama's campaign but I have definitely helped Obama through my friends and communities in Europe and United States to vote for Obama ... when he came here I said to Obama "you will be the next President, Inshallah (God willing)."
(Writing by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Mullen: No more than 30K new troops in Afghanistan
By Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer – Mon Feb 9, 8:15 pm ET
FORT DRUM, N.Y. – No more than an estimated 30,000 additional troops will be sent to Afghanistan as the U.S. ramps up forces there, the nation's top military officer told soldiers Monday. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen also called U.S. efforts in Iraq a success, even though "we're not done."
Mullen, speaking to fresh-faced soldiers and war-weary military wives, sought to boost morale and soothe concerns at the Army base that has seen a constant revolving door of troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years.
"I don't see us growing a force well beyond the 20,000 to 30,000 for Afghanistan — American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines — beyond that 30,000 or so," Mullen told about 800 soldiers and specialists gathered for a town hall meeting.
He added: "It's got to be met with a commensurate surge from the other agencies, particularly the State Department, in order for us to start generating success in 2009."
Mullen's comments mark the first time he has capped the number of soldiers to be sent to Afghanistan amid some predictions that the U.S. will be there for at least a decade.
An estimated 33,000 U.S. troops currently are in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon is set to announce at least three more brigades — about 16,000 soldiers — to be deployed in coming months. In all, the Pentagon said it expects to send about 60,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
By comparison, about 146,000 U.S. troops have been sent to Iraq.
Mullen also praised the soldiers for helping stabilize Iraq, where the U.S. is grappling with withdrawing all forces by the end of 2011 under an agreement signed late last year with the Iraqi government.
"You have turned it around in Iraq, and a year or two ago we were not in a situation that looked like we could succeed. And now we are," Mullen said.
Even so, "we're not done in Iraq," he said, noting al-Qaida's diminished but continuing threat there.
The White House is considering at least three options to withdraw troops from Iraq — either within 16 months, 23 months or a 19-month compromise. Even so, U.S. officials want to leave behind some noncombat brigades to help train and advise Iraqi security forces. The Iraqi government would have to agree in advance to let those troops stay behind.
Mullen said he sympathized with the strain the dual wars is putting on soldiers and their families, citing one Fort Drum woman who told him her husband has so far been sent on yearlong deployments to war zones five times since 2002.
Soldiers in the town hall meeting said they worried the Obama administration would cut military funding. Several also questioned why civilian contractors were in some cases being paid more to do the very jobs that soldiers are trained to do.
"The government spends so much money on training us in our jobs, and we get to our units and we see other people doing our jobs and getting paid," said Pfc. Lawrence Williams, 24, of Sacramento, Calif. His unit is heading to Iraq in May. "So it's like the government is actually paying twice, as opposed to just paying once and then getting us equipment. There's a million of other things they could do with that money."
Mullen said he would look into it.
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US, Canada to focus on Afghan mission
OTTAWA (AFP) – The war in Afghanistan will be high on the agenda when the top US military officer meets his Canadian counterpart on Tuesday amid an increasingly effective Taliban insurgency.
The visit to Ottawa by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, comes at a pivotal moment as President Barack Obama's administration reviews US strategy in Afghanistan in the face of an emboldened Taliban and weak Kabul government.
Mullen was scheduled to meet Canada's chief of defense staff, General Walter Natynczyk, as well as Defense Minister Peter MacKay in Ottawa, officials said.
More than 100 Canadians have died in Afghanistan since the start of its mission in 2002, with the toll rising after Canadian troops deployed to the country's volatile south in 2006.
The Afghan mission is a sensitive issue in Canada, where the government has committed to stay in the country only to the end of 2011 after a political deal.
US officials have suggested that Washington would like to see Ottawa extend its mission, but Canadian ministers and military officers have insisted the deadline is firm.
MacKay defended the mission in Afghanistan before a parliamentary defense committee on Monday as expensive but worthwhile, but some MPs questioned the rising price tag of the mission at a time of economic crisis, Ottawa media reported.
Even mission supporters voice resentment that some NATO members have avoided sending troops for combat in Afghanistan.
MacKay said at a security conference in Munich over the weekend that members of the alliance needed to fully commit to the mission in Afghanistan, saying it was "exactly the sort of mission that NATO must be able to deliver in the 21st century."
Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States have troops on the frontline in the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents, but other NATO allies argue that reconstruction is as important as combat and refuse to redeploy.
Canada has about 2,750 soldiers serving among the nearly 70,000 international troops in Afghanistan under NATO and US command.
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Obama not expected to ask Ottawa for Afghan extension
CAMPBELL CLARK From Tuesday's Globe and Mail February 10, 2009 at 4:33 AM EST
OTTAWA — Canadian officials say they are confident that U.S. President Barack Obama will not ask Stephen Harper's government to extend the military mission in Afghanistan past 2011 when he visits Ottawa next week.
Mr. Obama has set Afghanistan as a top foreign-policy priority and there has been speculation he might use his first foreign trip to make a politically sensitive request that Canada stay longer.
But his new administration has not mounted any pressure on Canadian officials to backtrack from the planned withdrawal date - the kind of signals that would certainly precede such a request - according to Foreign Affairs and Defence sources.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, will visit Ottawa today to meet with Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, General Walt Natynczyk, in part to prepare for Mr. Obama's visit.
And while they are expected to discuss the conduct of the Afghan mission over the next two years - both Canadian and U.S. generals have said it will be necessary to increase troops when elections are held there in August - Pentagon generals know the Canadian Forces would have trouble fielding enough troops in Kandahar after 2011.
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Russia confirms good-will aid to int'l coalition in Afghanistan - Rogozin
10.02.2009, 17.31
MOSCOW, February 10 (Itar-Tass) - Russia has confirmed its good will in rendering assistance to the international antiterrorist coalition engaged in the Enduring Freedom operation in Afghanistan, Russian ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said Tuesday as he addressed audiences during a Moscow-Brussels televised linkup.
"We confirm our consent to do commercial transits of civilian cargoes of the international group of security facilitation forces in Afghanistan," Rogozin said.
"It's the UN Security Council rather than NATO that Moscow gives assistance to."
"We're doing as much in this area as we find necessary and we firmly oppose the possibility of getting Russia enmeshed in the armed sorting-out in Afghanistan," he said.
"Foreign /Western -- Itar-Tass/ troops in Afghanistan have proved unable to avoid repetition of the mistakes committed by the Soviet political machine in the past, and they have made blunders of their own, too," Rogozin said.
"U.S. President Barack Obama considers Afghanistan to be a priority problem but we think all the solutions will fail to deliver there unless problems of infrastructure are settled and peaceful life is restored," he said.
"There must be a forehead-to-forehead and fist-to-fist fighting with the Taleban in Afghanistan, not the fighting from a distance which the Americans are conducting," Rogozin said.
"The U.S. doesn't conduct military operations, it confines them to air strikes from big altitudes," he said. "The problem is, however, that pilots always have difficulty telling a civil party from a concentration of militants when they take sight from up there and that's how it happens that the operations take away many human lives and fuel to fuel to the Talibs' activity."
"There is no eliminating the Afghan problem without clearing out the Pakistani one," Rogozin said.
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War in Afghanistan 'could be lost by summer'
The war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan will be lost by the end of the summer without dramatic changes in counter-insurgency strategy, according to a leading US military expert.
By Alex Spillius in Washington Daily Telegraph (UK) 10 Feb 2009
The assessment of Col John Nagl, who is consulting the US government as it conducts four separate policy reviews on Afghanistan, comes amid fears that unless the insurgents' advance is halted, Afghanistan will become the new president's Vietnam.
Adm Mullen has said he expected to announce the deployment of a further 30,000 US troops soon, even though the Obama administration is waiting to evaluate the reviews.
"The commander on the ground has asked for additional forces and meeting those requirements against the overall strategy is something that I have an expectation to get directed to do," he said.
The anticipation in military circles is that the president will agree not only to the extra troops but to the adoption of the approach that worked well in Iraq, whereby US forces concentrate less seeking out and killing insurgents. Instead they followed a "clear, hold, build" strategy designed to consolidate gains and prevent captured towns falling back into enemy hands.
Col Nagl, an Iraq veteran who helped devise the successful strategy there under the aegis of Gen David Petraeus, told The Daily Telegraph that the gains made by the Taliban over the past two years need to be reversed by the end of the traditional fighting season in Afghanistan, around late September or early October, or else the Taliban will establish a durable base that would make a sustained Western military presence futile.
"Counter-insurgency campaigns have momentum. Like a football game when the crowd senses something before it happens. Right now the Taliban has that momentum," said Col Nagl, who co-authored the recently published US Government Counterinsurgency Guide.
Like other military thinkers, he believes that a change in military tactics also urgently needs to be accompanied by a "civilian surge", which will clarify the roles and goals of international agencies and governments trying to steer the impoverished country's development.
In his campaign Mr Obama committed to sending extra resources to Afghanistan and was sometimes bullish about the chances of success. But at a press conference this week he echoed his defence chiefs by downscaling expectations from ushering in a Western-style democracy to preventing the country from becoming a haven for terrorists to "act with impunity, planning attacks on the US homeland".
Col Nagl does not expect the "clear, hold, build" strategy to produce the same rapid results in Afghanistan as in Iraq. Afghanistan has never been modernised, has a weaker tribal structure that was crucial in supporting the surge in Iraq and has a booming opium trade. Militants have a safe haven across the border in Pakistan.
Like other experts and Pentagon officials, he believes the current Afghan army size of 70,000 – just a quarter of the Iraqi army – will need to double if not triple to establish itself as a convincing security force.
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A Race Against Time in Afghanistan
Washington Post, United States By John F. Kerry Tuesday, February 10, 2009
No foreign power has remained welcome in Afghanistan for a sustained period, and the British and the Soviets paid a bitter price for trying. Our goal has never been to dominate Afghanistan but, rather, to eliminate al-Qaeda's haven and to empower Afghans to govern their country in line with their best interests and our national security.
We shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that we are in anything but a race against time in a region suspicious of foreign footprints. The United States is not in Afghanistan to make it our 51st state -- but to make sure it does not become an al-Qaeda narco-state and terrorist beachhead capable of destabilizing neighboring Pakistan.
We must renew our original mission -- and President Obama has rightly pledged to recommit to Afghanistan as the center of our global counterinsurgency campaign, beginning with the deployment of as many as 30,000 additional troops. In 2006, I argued that more troops were needed. I still believe that. But troops alone will not bring victory. Our military commitment must be matched with realistic goals, beginning with a comprehensive new bottom-up strategy acknowledging Afghanistan's history of decentralized governance and recognizing the capabilities of our NATO and Afghan allies.
Last year was the deadliest since we arrived in Afghanistan in 2001. A senior U.S. commander warned recently that "it's going to get worse before it gets better." We will succeed only by maintaining bipartisan support and public backing at home and winning back the Afghan people through a sustained commitment of additional civilian personnel, reconstruction funds and diplomatic engagement. Equally important, we need to execute this commitment without raising the stakes and turning Afghanistan once again into a magnet for the world's jihadists.
Our NATO allies have to shoulder a bigger burden, and we should continue to seek more combat troops with fewer restrictions. Jawboning reluctant allies has its limits; we will need to persuade countries unwilling to take on expanded combat roles to contribute more toward other aspects of the mission, including development and police training.
Afghanistan is not Iraq, and we should not expect the same results from a troop increase as occurred in Iraq. There, a broad Sunni tribal awakening was crucial. In Afghanistan, decades of war have weakened tribal structures, and the Taliban -- unlike the brutal foreigners who comprise al-Qaeda in Iraq -- have deep roots in Pashtun society. More troops, however, can create the conditions for enhanced reconstruction efforts and increase our leverage for the political solution sought by Gen. David Petraeus. Over time, increasing the number of reliable Afghan forces will be vital to maintaining security.
Corruption remains a powerful obstacle to progress. President Hamid Karzai promises to get tough on this chronic problem. But we need to insist on results -- where more is given in blood and money, more is expected in return. Afghanistan lacks judges, lawyers and an effective and honest police force. An illegitimate and isolated central government in Kabul would doom our efforts and drive the people into the clutches of the Taliban. We need to expand our reach beyond Kabul, empowering women and working more closely with trusted provincial leaders to ensure that funds reach the people.
Real progress must start at the local level. One promising model is the National Solidarity Program, which employs Afghans in reconstruction projects requested by village elders. A similar approach in Wardak province helps the district government hire tribal members as community guards.
One of our biggest challenges is eradicating narcotics cultivation, a major source of financing for the Taliban. We need to provide greater subsidies and technical assistance for farmers who abandon poppies, as we have done in Nangahar province. But we must also crack down on drug lords and reduce production, employing sustained force when necessary -- particularly in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province.
Our strategy must also reflect the interconnectedness of the region. This requires redoubled efforts to strengthen Pakistan's civilian government and support its efforts against militants in the lawless border areas and the factions that would sabotage its relations with India.
We went to Afghanistan to deny sanctuary to al-Qaeda and to replace the Taliban rulers who harbored it with a legitimate government strong enough to avoid destabilizing a vital and volatile region. Our goal hasn't changed. Achieving it requires a more robust commitment of coalition troops and reconstruction aid. It is not too late to turn the tide, but only a comprehensive strategy, sufficient resources and bipartisan resolve will lead to success in Afghanistan.
The writer, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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NATO says attacks on Afghan drug trade up
February 10, 2009, 9:11 pm
KABUL (Reuters) - NATO has stepped up attacks on the Afghan drugs trade since allies agreed last year they could carry out direct strikes on traffickers, but individual nations are still able to opt out of the deal, a spokesman said.
Under pressure from the United States, NATO allies agreed in Budapest last October to allow their soldiers to carry out direct attacks on Afghan drug lords and laboratories to stem a trade that helps fund the Taliban insurgency.
The international community has poured millions of dollars into counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan since 2002, but until last year's resolution, NATO forces were not mandated to launch direct attacks on those involved in the drugs trade.
"There has been an increase in activity on our side in the last four months," Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, chief spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan , said late on Monday.
"We have arrested more than 60 traffickers and destroyed four drug labs and seized around 44 tonnes of various drugs. This level of activity is higher than in the past," he said.
Despite a marginal reduction on the previous year, in 2008 Afghanistan still produced more than 90 percent of the world's supply of opium, a thick paste from poppy that is then processed to make highly addictive heroin and smuggled abroad.
But individual nations are still able to choose whether their soldiers carry out operations against drug lords or facilities.
"In Budapest there was an agreement to do more, but there has to be an agreement by the nation to use its resources, they have to opt in," said Blanchette.
Many of the 41 nations serving in Afghanistan under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) impose "caveats" on their soldiers which restrict where their troops can be deployed or their range of tasks.
Controversy emerged last month after a purported classified document from the alliance's top commander was leaked to the media calling for the targeting of all drug traffickers whether or not evidence connected them to the insurgency.
But Blanchette said a new agreement had been reached and only those with a link to the insurgency could be targeted.
"(U.S.) General (John) Craddock had given a directive that was looked at ... and now there's been an agreement," said Blanchette.
"If there has been a demonstration that this person is linked to the insurgency then he becomes a legitimate target ... and that gives us a green light to use force," he said.
At a security conference in Munich this week, Craddock told reporters operations to attack drug lords and laboratories would begin within the week.
While Afghan security forces were involved in eradicating poppy fields, Blanchette stressed ISAF forces were not involved in eradicating the drug.
(Reporting by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Iran may give India access to Afghanistan
Hindu, India 10 February 2009
NEW DELHI - Iran on Monday said India could soon have a sea-cum-land route that would give Indian goods access to Afghanistan and further on to Central Asian countries, bypassing Pakistan.
Tehran also said that as a friend of both Pakistan and India, it would “have to play a role” in reducing tensions between the two countries and ensure that differences over the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline are overcome.
Speaking to journalists here, Iran's Ambassador in India Syed Mahdi Nabizadeh said Iran was attempting to make its Chabar port viable by declaring it a free trade zone and improving the logistical infrastructure. A road or rail line from the port could take Indian goods to the Afghan border.
From there, a 217-km India-built road from the Afghan border town of Zaranj will provide the last-mile connectivity to Delaram located on the “garland highway” of Afghanistan which connects most of its major cities, including Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz. Some of the offshoots of this road, also called the North-South corridor, go into Central Asia.
The link would also give Iran an all-weather access into Afghanistan . As the Iranian Ambassador noted, “Both India and Iran have tried to help in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. However, elements in Afghanistan tried to deny Iran a role in the reconstruction. But we were able to provide useful help in the construction of infrastructure and other important facilities. Our help in the form of manpower and construction material was also instrumental in the construction of the Zaranj-Delaram road.”
Observing that neighbours should tolerate each other, Mr. Nabizadeh said Iran held the view that the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan would not be able to establish peace and security in the country.
On the IPI gas pipeline, he felt the project would materialise. “Though there is the issue of security in between, we believe it can be removed by trilateral agreements and dialogue.” Iran's agreement with Pakistan has been framed in such a way that India could join it in future. “But we hope the delay will not be so long that there is no room for India. We believe the implementation of the project will help in the establishment of security in the region.”
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Poll of Afghans Shows Drop In Support for U.S. Mission
Washington Post By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A new poll in Afghanistan shows sagging support for U.S. efforts in that country, with airstrikes a chief concern. A quarter of the Afghans polled said that attacks on American or allied forces are justifiable, double the proportion saying so in late 2006.
The poll, the fourth conducted in Afghanistan since 2005 by ABC News and its media partners, also shows plummeting support for President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan government, and a sharp decline in the proportion of people who think the nation is heading in the right direction. The vast majority of Afghans consider public corruption to be a problem, and there are widespread complaints about unemployment, high prices and spotty electrical service.
But security concerns galvanize public opinion most directly.
The proportion of Afghans rating their security positively dipped to 55 percent, from 72 percent in 2005. Seventy percent of those who said the nation is on the wrong track cited security as a central concern.
At the same time, ratings of U.S. forces have declined precipitously; 32 percent said U.S. and coalition forces are performing well, down from 68 percent in 2005. And fewer than half of the respondents, 42 percent, have confidence in coalition forces to provide security in their areas.
Most troubling to the Afghans are U.S. airstrikes and civilian casualties. One in five said coalition forces have killed civilians in their area in the past year, and one in six reported nearby bombing or shelling at the hands of U.S. forces.
About eight in 10 called coalition airstrikes unacceptable, viewing the risk to innocent civilians as greater than the value of these raids in fighting the Taliban and other anti-government insurgents. More blame U.S. and coalition forces for poor targeting than blame the Taliban for keeping assets among civilians (41 percent to 28 percent); 27 percent said both sides shared the blame.
One in four Afghans said attacks on U.S. or other forces can be justified, up significantly from the past couple of years but on par with the level of October 2005.
More also blame the country's current travails on the United States, NATO or the Afghan government than on the Taliban (36 percent to 27 percent), but the Taliban is viewed as a greater long-term threat.
Fewer people say that U.S. or NATO forces have a strong presence in their areas -- 34 percent, compared with 57 percent in 2006. The survey finds these views deeply intertwined with approval ratings for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, suggesting an opportunity to sway public opinion if the proposed increase in U.S. troops boosts the impression of a more effective presence.
And despite the negative turn in public views, most Afghans continue to say the U.S.-led invasion and the ouster of the Taliban were good things for their country, and most want U.S. troops to stay.
As the Obama administration turns its focus to the conflict in Afghanistan, Afghans are ambivalent on what the new leadership will bring. In the poll of 1,534 randomly selected Afghans, conducted in late December through mid-January, about as many said Barack Obama's election will make things worse as said it will improve life there.
Most expect little to change or have yet to form an opinion. Few are hoping for the promised increase in troop levels, however -- 44 percent said they want a decrease in the number of foreign forces in the country, while 18 percent want an increase.
The poll, conducted by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research in Kabul for ABC News, the BBC and ARD German television, found that 47 percent hold a favorable view of the United States, down from 83 percent in 2005, with the steepest drop occurring in the past year.
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Afghan people 'losing confidence'
By Ian Pannell BBC News, northern Afghanistan Monday, 9 February 2009
Is Afghanistan going in the right or wrong direction?
After more than seven years of blood spilt, sweat poured and billions of dollars spent, it is not an unreasonable question.
This latest poll by the BBC indicates that Afghans are now evenly divided on the issue.
Of those questioned, 40% said the country was going in the right direction, down from nearly 80% just three years ago. Most would interpret that as a cause for real concern.
Publicly, the Afghan government and the international community have long insisted that things have been getting better. There is plenty of evidence to say that.
I first visited Afghanistan during the American-led war against the Taleban in 2001.
Then it took us six days to travel from the north-east of the country to the outskirts of Kabul. Six days to travel a couple of hundred miles.
There were almost no paved roads and those that did exist were mined; there was no electricity, no telephones, no drinking water, few jobs, no investment and very little expectation that things would improve.
A recent road trip to the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif took us through a very different country.
We drove along decent roads (albeit with some pot-holes), shadowing our every step were giant electricity pylons sending power to the capital. Market stalls were full of fruit and vegetables, there were new schools and hospitals and everywhere were large signs declaring areas cleared of landmines.
And this time it took six hours, not six days.
Endemic corruption
But Afghanistan is still one of the poorest, least developed nations on Earth.
Parents struggle to feed and clothe their children, a series of droughts has created terrible hardships, jobs are still scarce and subsistence farming is often the only thing that keeps hunger at bay.
Corruption is endemic and people are suspicious about where all the foreign aid money has gone.
A shopkeeper in the town bazaar expressed a common opinion, when he said: "Though we have lots of food, people can't afford it. If there were more opportunities, more jobs, then life would get better."
This BBC poll shows people have many concerns, but in the north they are primarily economic.
Another trader in the market, who wanted to remain anonymous, told me how he earns up to $6 (£4) a day but that he must give the police a $1 bribe. "Why can't the authorities stop this? I can't pay this bribe. Please make our voices heard."
Elsewhere in the country, in large parts of the south, east and west, people are worried more about security and violence.
US 'surge'
Maidan Shahr is the provincial capital of Wardak province. It is only half-an-hour's drive to the south of Kabul, but taking police protection along even for this short journey is advisable.
Like other surrounding provinces, it has become increasingly infected by a spreading insurgency and rising criminality.
Governor Halim Fedayi flicks his hand as if dismissing some annoying insect when I ask him whether control of some of the districts here has fallen to the Taleban.
"If it bleeds, it leads," he says, accusing the media of an obsession with bad news and a disregard for progress in Wardak.
But America has just deployed an additional 1,500 troops to Wardak, and a new security force - recruited from the local population - is being given a trial-run here.
Clearly, not everyone shares the governor's confidence, and a large-scale spring offensive is expected against the Taleban.
The local bazaar is just five minute's walk from the governor's office but it is tense and full of police.
"People are very worried. They want security. They want to be able to move freely from their homes and villages without fear, to be able to sleep in peace at night," one man tells me.
Another man talks about the growing antipathy to foreign forces, also revealed in the BBC survey.
"It's clear that Afghans don't want them in the country, no matter why they're here. Some people may support them because they're working closely with the government. But ordinary people don't like them."
Almost every year in the past three decades of civil conflict has been important for Afghanistan, but this year stands out.
Thousands of extra US troops are on their way here, a presidential election will be held in the summer and the pressure to produce better results is immense.
This opinion poll shows that Afghans are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the future.
There has been progress but unless the international community can produce real peace and prosperity, then its mission in Afghanistan is in serious danger of running aground.
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Taliban Haven in Pakistani City Raises Fears
By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI The New York Times February 10, 2009
WASHINGTON — Even as C.I.A. drone aircraft pound Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal region, there is growing concern among American military and intelligence officials about different militants’ havens in Pakistan that they fear could thwart American military efforts in Afghanistan this year.
American officials are increasingly focusing on the Pakistani city of Quetta, where Taliban leaders are believed to play a significant role in stirring violence in southern Afghanistan.
The Taliban operations in Quetta are different from operations in the mountainous tribal areas of Pakistan that have until now been the main setting for American unease. But as the United States prepares to pour as many as 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan, military and intelligence officials say the effort could be futile unless there is a concerted effort to kill or capture Taliban leaders in Quetta and cut the group’s supply lines into Afghanistan.
From Quetta, Taliban leaders including Mullah Muhammad Omar, a reclusive, one-eyed cleric, guide commanders in southern Afghanistan, raise money from wealthy Persian Gulf donors and deliver guns and fresh fighters to the battlefield, according to Obama administration and military officials.
“When their leadership is where you cannot get to them, it becomes difficult,” said Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who until June was the senior American commander in Afghanistan and recently retired. “You are restrained from doing what you want to do.”
The Taliban leaders have operated from Quetta for several years, but the increasing violence in southern Afghanistan suggests that the flow of arms, fighters and money there from the Pakistani sanctuary may be increasing.
Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province, abuts the provinces in southern Afghanistan where the war’s fiercest fighting has occurred. American intelligence officials said that the dozen or so militants who were thought to make up the Taliban leadership in the area were believed to be hiding either in sprawling Afghan refugee camps near Quetta or in some of the city’s Afghan neighborhoods.
American and other Western officials have long said they suspect that Pakistani security services do little to address the presence of senior Taliban commanders in Quetta. Many of the officials would speak only on condition of anonymity because of the delicate intelligence and diplomatic issues involved.
One former intelligence official with years of experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan likened the situation to America’s difficulties during the Vietnam War, when Vietnamese guerrillas used a haven in Cambodia to bring in fresh troops and weapons.
For the past year, the top American goal in Pakistan has been to press the national government in Islamabad for help elsewhere, in killing and capturing Qaeda fighters in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan, who intelligence analysts say pose a direct threat to the United States.
But NATO generals and diplomats have long complained that the command and control of Taliban fighters, distinct from Qaeda insurgents, trace back to southern Pakistan, and that Pakistani security services ignore the threat. Pakistani officials have said they lack good intelligence about the specific locations of Taliban leaders, assertions that some American intelligence operatives greet with some skepticism.
“We’ve made progress going into the tribal areas and North-West Frontier Province against Al Qaeda, but we have not had a counterpart war against the Quetta shura,” said a senior Obama administration official, using the term for the Taliban’s ruling council. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said the Obama administration will adopt a tough love approach to Pakistan: threatening to cut off military aid to Islamabad unless it carries out a crackdown on militants operating throughout the country.
“Pakistan will act against any individuals involved with Al Qaeda or the Taliban about whom we have actionable intelligence,” Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in an interview. “The problem is we do not always get actionable intelligence in Quetta in particular. It’s a very messy area.”
Some current and former American intelligence officials are sympathetic to difficulties that the government in Islamabad faces in rounding up Taliban leaders. Baluchistan has long been an area hostile to government control, and even Pakistani spies have difficulty building a network of sources there, they said.
Last week, gunmen in Quetta kidnapped an American working for the United Nations in the city and killed his driver, leading Pakistani security officials to lock down transit routes in and out of the city.
Aides to Richard C. Holbrooke, Mr. Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American military commander in the region, said the issue of crippling the Taliban leadership was getting more attention from their bosses. Mr. Holbrooke is paying his first visit to the region this week in his new job.
The influence of the Taliban leadership over operations on the ground in Afghanistan is a matter of some debate among American commanders and intelligence analysts.
“The Quetta shura is extremely important,” said Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, a retired former commander of American forces in Afghanistan who is advising General Petraeus on a strategic review of his region, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. “They are the intellectual and ideological underpinnings of the Taliban insurgency.”
But Gen. David D. McKiernan, currently the top military commander in Afghanistan, said in a speech in Washington in November that any assessment that said the Quetta shura’s dictates were closely followed by field commanders “gives the Taliban far too much credit for coherency at the operational and strategic level.”
“They don’t have that,” the general added.
That may be true, intelligence analysts say, but few disagree that weakening the Taliban leadership in Pakistan, coupled with achieving battlefield gains with the larger American-led force on the ground in southern Afghanistan, could begin to reverse the adverse momentum in the war.
“It would remove the ideological standard-bearer, which also provides links to external financing in the gulf,” a senior administration official said. “It wouldn’t erase the rural-based insurgency and narcotics trade in Afghanistan, but the notion is, if you can disrupt them at the top levels, it will have an impact at the bottom, down in the provinces.”
Even more intriguing, American officials say, is this prospect: diminishing the Taliban leadership in Quetta and weakening its influence over Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan might open the way to engage more moderate Taliban politically.
“The challenge has always been to exploit some cleavages between the top leadership, which we’ve ruled out of bounds in terms of reconciliation, and the layers one or two layers beneath them,” said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former South Asia specialist for the State Department.
In recent years, there have been some significant successes in the hunt for Taliban leaders. Pakistani operatives tracked Mullah Dadullah, a senior aide to Mullah Omar, as he crossed the Afghan border in May 2007, and he was later killed by American and Afghan troops.
Yet most of the arrests in Pakistan have coincided with visits by senior American officials.
The arrest of Mullah Obeidullah, the former Taliban defense minister, in Quetta in February 2007 coincided with the visit of Vice President Dick Cheney to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is unclear whether Mullah Obeidullah is still in Pakistani custody or was secretly released as part of a prisoner exchange to free Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, who was kidnapped last February and released three months later.
Mullah Rahim, the Taliban’s top commander in Helmand Province, was arrested in Quetta last summer two weeks after Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a top C.I.A. officer visited Islamabad to confront Pakistani leaders with evidence of ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas. But an American intelligence official said last week that Mullah Rahim was no longer in custody.
“The dilemma at the moment,” said Seth Jones, a terrorism analyst at the RAND Corporation, “is that some elements of the Pakistani government continue to support the Taliban as a proxy organization in Afghanistan.”
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Pakistan kills 11 militants near Afghan border: military
Tue Feb 10, 5:43 am ET
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships killed 11 rebels and pounded suspected militant hideouts in a tribal town on the Afghan border, the military said Tuesday.
The operation was launched Monday in Inayat Killi town in the Bajaur region, a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants, after a rebel rocket attack, local military official Mustaqim Shah told AFP.
The rocket attack gutted a shop but caused no casualties, he said.
"Troops backed by helicopters retaliated with artillery and mortar fire, and destroyed several suspected locations today. At least seven militants were killed," the official said.
Residents and security officials said exchanges of fire continued overnight and into Tuesday.
In a gunbattle, troops killed a further four militants firing from a fortress-like house in Inayat Killi, the official said.
A curfew has been imposed from Khar, the main town in Bajaur, to Inayat Killi 10 kilometres (six miles) north and authorities have issued a three-day ultimatum to residents to expel any militant in hiding, an AFP reporter said.
Residents of Khar were left without electricity after a rocket attack cut off the main power cable, the reporter said.
Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar, in telephone calls to journalists Monday, said militants killed five security officials in a multi-pronged attack on Inayat Killi. One tank was also destroyed in the attack, he said.
Security officials denied the claims.
Pakistani forces launched a massive, two-month operation in Bajaur last August. Military officials said the offensive left more than 1,500 Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants dead and that more than 70 troops were also killed.
Security forces had also captured more than 300 foreign militants, mainly from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the military said.
The operation was launched in the troubled region bordering Afghanistan after hundreds of militants captured the strategic town of Loisam in August.
Islamabad hailed the Bajaur operation as proof that it is responding to US and Afghan demands to take action against extremists in Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal areas.
Pakistan's tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.
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Afghan dog finds new life in Britain
By Melissa Gray
LONDON, England (CNN) -- His life has never been easy. Born into poverty and war, his ears and tail were chopped off when he was just a few months old in preparation for dog-fighting. He escaped to find a better life, only to be trapped in lonely, sterile quarantine for six months.
But all that changed Monday when Bear the dog stepped out of British quarantine and through the doors of a London animal shelter.
"He's absolutely a loving dog," said former British Royal Marine Paul "Penny" Farthing, who helped bring Bear to England. "He just loves people. It's a good thing he was brought back to the U.K. when he was quite young, so he's never gone through having to fend for himself in the street and be made to dogfight."
An unknown soldier in Afghanistan first found Bear last year and brought him to a local Afghan animal shelter. The shelter wasn't able to care for Bear, so it contacted Farthing, who now runs a charity for stray and abandoned animals, primarily dogs from Afghanistan. Farthing's Nowzad Dogs is named for the Afghan town where he was based for a few months in 2006. He asked Mayhew International, an arm of London's Mayhew Animal Home, to help find Bear a new home.
Mayhew International says Bear is one of the few dogs it has brought back to Britain. Usually it tries to find animals new homes within their own countries.
"Although Mayhew International does not encourage people to bring dogs to the U.K. from abroad as a general policy, we made an exception in this case as it was the perfect opportunity to highlight the plight of thousands of stray animals in Afghanistan," the organization said in a statement.
Bear's story may be unique, but he is certainly not alone. Mayhew International, which works around the world to educate people about animal welfare, says there are countless dogs in Afghanistan that are homeless or trapped in a life of dogfighting -- an increasingly popular pastime in Afghanistan.
"Animal welfare is not looked so highly upon in Afghanistan," said Christopher Sainsbury, Mayhew's international projects officer.
"In war-torn areas, people tend to forget the animal welfare side of things. [We want to] make people aware that this is a key side of things that needs to be assessed, needs to be worked on."
Bear is a Koochi dog, a large breed common in Afghanistan, according to Dr. Mohammadzai Abduljalil, a Mayhew veterinarian from Afghanistan. While no one knows Bear's exact age, Abduljalil said they believe he is just about a year old.
You wouldn't know it by Bear's size. He's already a large dog nearly 3 feet high with large paws to match.
Stepping into the Mayhew play area Monday for the first time, Bear made sure to sniff every corner of the room and mark his territory a few times before settling in to play. He had a puppy's curiosity and quickly started playing fetch and tug-of-war with Farthing, wagging enthusiastically the small part of his tail which is left.
Bear is lucky. He escaped a violent and uncertain future in Afghanistan.
Not so for many other dogs left behind. It is those dogs that Farthing hopes to help with his charity.
"They need someone to look after them, so why not me?" Farthing said.
It began when the Royal Marines arrived in the war-torn town of Now Zad, in Afghanistan's Helmand province, in October 2006. They found stray dogs wandering the streets, scavenging for food, dodging bullets and seeking shelter from the hot days and cold nights. Many were also being used for dogfighting, with their ears and tails docked to make the fights last longer and give their opponents less to bite.
Farthing and other Marines began to feed and care for a few dogs that wandered into their camp. At first they had three dogs, but other strays soon figured out the camp was a source of food and shelter, and before long the Marines found themselves caring for seven dogs and 14 puppies.
Time was running out, however. The Marines were due to leave Now Zad in February 2007 and knew they couldn't take the dogs with them. They looked for some way to make sure the dogs would be taken care of after they left.
That's when Farthing first contacted Mayhew International. They put him in touch with a small shelter in northern Afghanistan that Mayhew had assisted since its inception, providing advice and veterinary support.
The shelter offered to take the dogs on one condition: The Marines had to arrange for the dogs' transfer to Kabul, a difficult and dangerous three days' drive away.
Finding a taxi willing to accept dogs was the first hurdle; the second was that the drivers refused to allow the dogs to be transported in Western-style cages, which would give away to the Taliban that the car was carrying foreigners.
Instead, the dogs had to be tied with ropes, the Afghan way, and the puppies had to be stashed in small crates -- in this case, a bird cage.
"A lot was done on trust," Farthing told CNN. "The Afghans did it as a favor to us. We paid for some of their fuel and their costs, but it was fantastic. It was them helping us out. They didn't have to do it. It shows that the people of Afghanistan and us, we can work together."
In the end, most of the dogs made it to Kabul, but not without casualties. Two were left behind for lack of room in the taxi, and two more escaped along the way when a car door was accidentally left open. Three of the largest puppies were stolen, probably for dog fighting.
Three dogs and eleven puppies finally made it to the shelter, but nine of the puppies later died due to an outbreak of disease and shortage of vaccines.
Sainsbury, of Mayhew International, says the story of the Now Zad dogs and of Bear shows their efforts can help animals, even if it's just one at a time.
Mayhew International works with organizations already established in developing countries to plan mass sterilization drives that reduce the number of unwanted animals. They also train veterinary surgeons in modern neutering techniques that are quick and humane.
"The way that war makes looking after animal welfare harder is quite clear," Sainsbury said. "Animal welfare gets forgotten and it becomes a back-burner because organizations ... that were working in those war-torn countries will probably be unable to operate any longer. They'll be unable to aid the populations of stray and community animals which would rely on their help originally."
Mayhew CEO Caroline Yates said staff have no idea how long it will take for Bear to find a new home. They hope the publicity surrounding his arrival in Britain will encourage people to think about adopting him.
Yates said they hope to have him adopted within a month.
Said Farthing, "To be able to help just one [dog] is a reward in itself and a huge step to highlighting the undocumented suffering that animals in all war zones are subjected to."
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