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Muslims End Ramadan With Eid al-Fitr Holiday
By VOA News 20 September 2009
Many Muslims around the world are celebrating the first day of Eid al-Fitr, a festival marking the end of a month-long fast.
Afghan Election Official Says Weather Could Delay Runoff
By VOA News 20 September 2009
Afghanistan's approaching winter weather may join threats of violence and allegations of election fraud as a major problem in choosing a president.
Afghan Election Woes Raise Taliban's Stock
Electoral Mess Plays Into Propaganda
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, September 21, 2009
KABUL, Sept. 20 -- The big winner in the fraud-ridden, never-ending Afghanistan elections is turning out to be a party not even on the ballot: the Taliban.
Obama warns of 'serious issues' in Afghan election
by Stephen Collinson September 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama warned of "serious issues" over the disputed Afghan elections and said North Korea's Kim Jong-Il seemed "healthy and in control," in a media blitz Sunday ahead of a week of international summitry.
Iran's Ahmadinejad jumps the gun on Afghan poll
Reuters By Golnar Motevalli September 19th, 2009
On Friday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — accused by thousands of Iranians back in June of stealing Iran's own disputed election — congratulated Afghan president Hamid Karzai on being re-elected.
'Civilian Surge' Plan For Afghanistan Hits A Snag
by Jackie Northam NPR September 20, 2009
Speculation abounds over whether President Obama will authorize a troop increase in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the administration is expected to increase the deployment of American government civilian workers — experts who can help rebuild the country.
Obama: Strategy in Afghanistan Will Not Be Shaped by Politics
President Obama says in a series of television interviews broadcast Sunday that he will not allow politics to govern his decisions regarding the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan.
AP via Fox News - Sep 20 8:17 AM
WASHINGTON -- President Obama says he hasn't asked his top commander in Afghanistan to sit on an expected request for U.S. reinforcements in a backsliding war, but he gave no deadline for making a decision about whether
Afghanistan's War - Waged on the Airwaves
U.S.-Backed Radio Stations Compete With Taliban Messages in Remote Regions Where Illiteracy Is High
By Mandy Clark
(CBS) U.S. forces in Afghanistan are waging a new kind of battle in their campaign to win hearts and minds. You might call it the "radio wars," as CBS News Correspondent Mandy Clark reports from eastern Afghanistan.
Vision of victory in Afghanistan - but time is on the Taleban's side
In the first of six special reports, The Times outlines the challenges facing Western forces in Afghanistan
Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor The Times September 21, 2009
Nadali and Wootton Bassett are 3,550 miles and several centuries apart. The latter is the comfortable Wiltshire village near RAF Lyneham that has become the symbol of public mourning at the terrible loss of life among British forces fighting in Afghanistan.
Former soldier still fight to protect Afghan boys from abuse
By David Pugliese, The Ottawa CitizenSeptember 20, 2009 9:02 PM
Travis Schouten lives with the image of the rape of an Afghan boy at a Canadian base every day of his life.
Al Qaeda threatens Germany in second online video
Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:05am EDT
BERLIN (Reuters) - Militant Islamist group al Qaeda threatened Germany with attacks for the second time this weekend in an online video criticizing the country for its deployment of troops in Afghanistan, authorities said on Sunday.
Afghan Commandos Try to Persuade Countrymen to Turn Against Taliban
Saturday, September 19, 2009 Associated Press
GHOWS KALAY, Afghanistan — The village is little more than a handful of mud huts surrounded by wheat fields, but the runway at NATO's main air base in Afghanistan's south is visible from the town center.
Bloody Afghan rescue puts journalism in the dock
by Andrew Beatty – Sun Sep 20, 6:25 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The bloody rescue of a New York Times reporter in Afghanistan has spurred accusations of media recklessness, a charge the paper's editor denies but one that has prompted some soul searching.
Pakistan's security gains contrast Afghan turmoil
By Robert Kennedy, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 20, 11:38 am ET
ISLAMABAD – A successful army offensive, a shift in public opinion against the militants and the killing of top Taliban leaders have given grounds for cautious optimism in Pakistan as progress across the border in Afghanistan
Three Afghans held over US 'plot'
Sunday, 20 September 2009 BBC News
Three men have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to launch an attack in the United States, the US Justice Department says.
Three U.S. soldiers die in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- One soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed during a hostile incident Saturday in eastern Afghanistan while two other ISAF servicemen were killed
Captured Pakistan Taliban commander dies in jail
By Robert Kennedy, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 20, 1:16 pm ET
ISLAMABAD – A feared Taliban commander known for beheading opponents died in custody Sunday from wounds sustained during a fierce firefight with Pakistani security forces last week, the military said.
Afghanistan's drug problem may 'kill a generation'
CTV.ca - Sep 20 9:14 AM
Janis Mackey Frayer, South Asia Bureau Chief
KABUL -- He nudged the needle into his groin and marveled at how his own blood swirled into the syringe. Then, with the precision of a skilled and hungry junkie, he injected himself over and over in an arc between his bony hips
Several militants arrested in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces backed by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) during separate operations in eastern and southern Afghanistan detained several suspected
Afghan President Calls on Taliban to Join Peace Process
By VOA News 19 September 2009
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has marked the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr with a call for peace.
Foreign troops in Afghanistan to honour Peace Day
September 20, 2009
(AFP) – KABUL — Afghan and foreign troops will cease offensive operations in the intensifying war against Taliban-led insurgents to observe the UN's International Day of Peace, the defence ministry said Sunday.
Japan's new FM hints at more aid for Afghanistan
by Kyoko Hasegawa Sun Sep 20, 8:01 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan could offer more development aid to Afghanistan in place of a naval support mission for US-led operations in the war-torn country, new Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada hinted Sunday.
U.S. Ambassador: Pakistan Not Backing U.S. Goals On Taliban
Free Internet Press - Sun Sep 20, 4:56 pm ET
Despite growing U.S. military losses in Afghanistan, Pakistan still refuses to target the extremist groups on its soil that are the biggest threat to the American-led mission there, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan told McClatchy.
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Muslims End Ramadan With Eid al-Fitr Holiday
By VOA News 20 September 2009
Many Muslims around the world are celebrating the first day of Eid al-Fitr, a festival marking the end of a month-long fast.
In Saudi Arabia Sunday, thousands gathered in Mecca for special early morning prayers marking the end of Ramadan.
Jordan's King Abdullah joined a prayer service in the Red Sea port of Aqaba. And Islamic faithful joined services in Egypt and Iraq.
In Washington, President Barack Obama released a statement greeting Muslims on the occasion, calling it a time to celebrate and remember those less fortunate.
The start of the three-day Eid holiday varies in Muslim communities and countries, depending on the sighting of the new crescent moon.
During the holiday, Muslims visit friends and neighbors, exchange gifts and enjoy lunchtime feasts.
It breaks the month-long fast of Ramadan, when Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual relations from sunrise to sundown.
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Afghan Election Official Says Weather Could Delay Runoff
By VOA News 20 September 2009
Afghanistan's approaching winter weather may join threats of violence and allegations of election fraud as a major problem in choosing a president.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Afghanistan's chief electoral officer said if a runoff election is required, it needs to happen before the third week of October.
Daoud Ali Najafi says winter snow will make a runoff later in the year impossible.
Preliminary returns released Wednesday show Afghan President Hamid Karzai with 54 percent of the vote. That is more than the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.
But a U.N.-backed electoral oversight group has ordered a partial recount because of fraud allegations. And Najafi says the group should speed up its fraud investigation, or the climate of mainly-rural Afghanistan will force a long delay of any runoff.
Meanwhile, a U.N. spokesman tells Reuters he is confident the recount can be completed in time for a runoff this year, if needed.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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Afghan Election Woes Raise Taliban's Stock
Electoral Mess Plays Into Propaganda
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, September 21, 2009
KABUL, Sept. 20 -- The big winner in the fraud-ridden, never-ending Afghanistan elections is turning out to be a party not even on the ballot: the Taliban.
A stream of revelations about systematic cheating during last month's vote has given the Taliban fresh ammunition in their propaganda campaign to portray President Hamid Karzai's administration as hopelessly corrupt. Infighting among U.S., U.N. and European diplomats over whether to accept the results with Karzai the winner or force a new round of voting has also fed the Taliban line that the government in Kabul is merely a puppet of foreign powers.
Mohammad Omar, the Taliban's reclusive leader, broke his silence Saturday to denounce "the so-called elections which were fraught with fraud and lies and which were categorically rejected by the people."
In a statement released on the Internet to mark the end of Ramadan, Omar also railed against what he called "the rampant corruption in the surrogate Kabul administration, the embezzlement, drug trafficking, the existence of mafia networks, the tyranny and high-handedness of the warlords," according to a translation by the NEFA Foundation, a terrorism research group.
The problem for the Afghan government and its chief benefactor, the Obama administration, is that the Taliban's rhetoric has been echoed in recent days by U.S. and European officials, as well as some Afghan leaders, who have characterized the Aug. 20 election as a debacle and Karzai's government as inept.
"They are benefiting enormously from all this," said Haroun Mir, a political analyst and director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul.
"The credibility of this election has already been highly undermined, both by the opposition and by the international community itself," he added. "Now people have lost their trust, not only with the Afghan government, but also in the NATO forces."
Taliban leaders first tried to discredit the elections by intimidating voters to stay away from the polls. It largely worked: Only 39 percent of registered voters turned out, compared to 70 percent in the 2004 Afghan elections. But self-inflicted wounds by Karzai's government in counting and policing the vote have done at least as much damage, according to diplomats and analysts in Kabul.
Public Concern
On the streets of the capital, Afghans said they were increasingly worried that the Taliban -- whose forces now control more territory than at any point since they were toppled in 2001 -- would attract more support from Afghans angry with the weak performance of the central government.
"Every day they make more propaganda against the government. This election has been a gold mine for them," said Abdul Sawad Nawabi, a 52-year-old money changer, who opposes the Taliban. "People are very concerned. It is obvious that when the government is dealing with its own problems, it just benefits the enemy."
Ghulam Abbas, 34, a clerk at a menswear store in central Kabul, said ordinary Afghans favor democracy but do not understand how an election monitored by tens of thousands of international troops and observers could have been bungled so badly.
"In every other country, the results are known in three days, five days, at least a month. It shows the weakness of our government that they still can't show a final result. And we don't know the reason. Was it too much fraud? Or something else?"
Last week, Afghan election officials released preliminary results showing Karzai with 54.6 percent of the vote, compared to 27.8 percent for his chief rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
But the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission is conducting an investigation into reports of fraud at several thousand precincts and has also ordered a recount of 10 percent of the ballots. Karzai must receive more than 50 percent of the final, certified vote to avoid a runoff.
Karzai supporters blamed the international media and foreign diplomats for exaggerating reports of fraud at the polls. They said the incumbent president will be declared the winner eventually, but worried that the uncertainty could endure for weeks or months.
"All the discussion about the fraud and the pressure will not help anyone, and it will only give the insurgents more opportunities," said Halim Fidai, the governor of Wardak province, just to the southwest of Kabul. "The longer this goes on, the more the enemy will try to exploit the situation."
Khalid Pashtun, a member of the Afghan parliament from Kandahar, said a dragged-out recount would only weaken the standing of the central government
"That's what we are trying to tell the commission: Please don't push this issue too much because the Taliban will just take advantage," he said. "They will constantly tell people that this is not a legitimate government."
More Work for NATO
Afghan officials said the investigations and recounts are also undermining attempts by U.S. and NATO commanders to persuade Taliban commanders and fighters to switch sides.
British Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, who is in charge of a NATO program to reach out to those fighting alongside the Taliban but not considered die-hard followers of the movement, said last week that many of the insurgents were "guns for hire."
"You can buy an insurgency if you have enough money," he told the Independent, a British newspaper. "It's a case of changing people's minds, changing people's perceptions.
But several Afghan officials and analysts said such an approach was doomed as long as insurgents sensed that the Afghan central government was in trouble and that NATO was losing its stomach for the war, now in it's eighth year.
"These Taliban are getting more and more powerful, so it's harder and harder to get them to come to the table," said Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban deputy minister who now serves in the Afghan Parliament. "They have better weapons than ever and they think they are stronger than the 40 countries that are fighting against them."
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Obama warns of 'serious issues' in Afghan election
by Stephen Collinson September 20, 2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama warned of "serious issues" over the disputed Afghan elections and said North Korea's Kim Jong-Il seemed "healthy and in control," in a media blitz Sunday ahead of a week of international summitry.
Obama blanketed US Sunday morning talk shows, to push his under-fire health care reform plan and cautioned that despite raging debate over a possible request by the military for more troops by Afghanistan, his decision would not be driven by politics.
The president's media offensive came a day before he is due to head to New York for his debut United Nations General Assembly as president, and the G20 economic crisis summit of developed and developing nations later in the week in Pittsburgh.
As allegations of fraud mount following Afghanistan's elections in August, complicating Obama's attempt to maintain public support for the eight-year war, Obama made his most detailed comments yet on the conduct of the polls.
"It did not go as smoothly as I think we would have hoped, and there are some serious issues in terms of how the election was conducted in some parts of the country," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The president warned that he would not make any rushed decisions about sending more troops from Afghanistan, as he digests the implications of US war commander Stanley McChrystal's classified report on US strategy.
"I am now going to take all this information, and we're going to test whatever resources we have against our strategy, which is if, by sending young men and women into harm's way, we are defeating Al-Qaeda," Obama added on ABC's "This Week."
Obama also gave his most detailed assessment yet of the priceless intelligence brought back by former president Bill Clinton from his mission from Pyongyang in August to win the release of two US journalists.
The president told CNN he had been interested by Clinton's assessment of North Korean leader Kim that "he's pretty healthy and in control. And that's important to know, because we don't have a lot of interaction with the North Koreans."
"President Clinton had a chance to see him close up and have conversations with him," Obama added.
"I won't go into any more details than that, but there's no doubt that this is somebody who I think for a while people thought was slipping away. He's reasserted himself."
Obama also made an attempt to bolster his push to pass his top priority healthcare initiative, which is facing opposition from Republicans and even reservations among some Democrats in Obama's own party.
The president dismissed the view in an interview with the ABC show "This Week" that the public furor over his plan was a symptom of racism in American life.
"Anytime there's a president who is proposing big changes that seem to (involve) the size of government, that gets everybody's juices flowing and sometimes you get some pretty noisy debate.
"I think what I'm proposing is a very modest attempt to make sure that hard-working families out there are going to have the security of health insurance that they can count on," Obama said.
"This isn't a radical plan. This isn't grafting a single payer model onto the United States. It's simply trying to deal with what everybody acknowledges is a big problem."
On the economy, ahead of the G20 summit, Obama warned that though there are signs growth may soon resume in the United States, there is little sign that the unemployment picture will improve any time soon.
"I want to be clear, that probably the jobs picture is not going to improve considerably and it could even get a little bit worse over the next couple of months," Obama, who has already predicted the jobless rate will hit 10 percent, told CNN.
"We're probably not going to start seeing enough job creation to deal with the, you know, a rising population until some time next year."
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Iran's Ahmadinejad jumps the gun on Afghan poll
Reuters By Golnar Motevalli September 19th, 2009
On Friday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — accused by thousands of Iranians back in June of stealing Iran's own disputed election — congratulated Afghan president Hamid Karzai on being re-elected.
It was a bit premature: even Karzai himself hasn't actually claimed victory in last month's presidential poll.
While in Iran, the election results were announced swiftly after polls closed, in Afghanistan there is still no official result a month after the vote, and a second round run-off could now be delayed until next year.
A preliminary count of votes shows Karzai with a majority, but the election has been marred by accusations of fraud, most levelled at Karzai's supporters.
The U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” and has ordered a recount of 10 percent of polling stations, which could mean ballots are nullified and Karzai may face a second-round run-off.
Afghanistan has not experienced the kind of post-election protests that ran in Iran after the election there, but diplomats in Kabul fear that a disputed election result could undermine the government and increase instability.
Comparisons between Karzai's election and Ahmadinejad's are awkward for Western leaders, especially U.S. President Barack Obama, who has already sent thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan and is considering whether to send more.
A few months ago I asked Karzai as he left a press conference in Kabul if he had spoken to Ahmadinejad about the elections in Iran when the two men met at a summit.
At that time anti-Ahmadinejad protests were at their height in Iran. Karzai simply replied, “we just met and exchanged greetings”.
I asked Karzai if he had sought any advice or tips from his Iranian counterpart about how to conduct an election campaign. Karzai laughed-off my question and continued his way out of the room, surrounded by security and the usual scrum of photographers.
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'Civilian Surge' Plan For Afghanistan Hits A Snag
by Jackie Northam NPR September 20, 2009
Speculation abounds over whether President Obama will authorize a troop increase in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the administration is expected to increase the deployment of American government civilian workers — experts who can help rebuild the country.
But there are problems persuading civilians with the requisite skills to go to Afghanistan.
When Obama unveiled his administration's strategy for Afghanistan in March, he emphasized that civilian experts were just as critical as the tens of thousands of additional U.S. military personnel he was sending at that time.
"We need agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers," he said. "That's how we can help the Afghan government serve its people, and develop an economy that isn't dominated by illicit drugs. That's why I'm ordering a substantial increase in our civilians on the ground."
To that end, the administration announced it would send about 450 civilians from several branches of the government by March 2010. The timetable was then accelerated to December of this year. But so far, only about a quarter of that number have been deployed to Afghanistan.
"We have to remember that decisions were made in the spring, funds were appropriated in July, programming is being implemented, you know, August/September," says Jacob Lew, deputy secretary of state for management and resources. "We're just now seeing the program go into place."
Troubles With Recruitment And Security
Lew says the administration expects to reach its target numbers by the beginning of next year. Other State Department officials, and analysts, say that's optimistic — because it's difficult to find enough people who have the right skills and who are willing to stay in Afghanistan for a yearlong deployment.
"I think that quite simply there is not sufficient civilian capacity in the U.S. government to do what needs to be done. And we have not built that capacity," says John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank on defense issues. "The civilian side still needs to develop some of the doctrine, some of the organization, some of the force structure that's required to meet the demands."
But the dispatch of civilian experts remains a high priority for the administration.
In the early days of his administration, Obama approved sending 21,000 additional troops to boost the total U.S. force to 68,000 by the end of this year. The idea is that the military clears the way, secures an area, which in turn should allow civilians to move in and start working with local Afghans.
But that's not always the way it works, says John Dempsey, who has been in Kabul for several years with the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace.
"Security is such that it's so difficult for people to actually be able to move off of forward operating bases and get out into the field to actually meet with Afghans and do their work," he says. "They don't have the adequate logistical or security support to do that."
And the military often doesn't have the resources to move the civilians around the country — or provide security. As a result, military reservists and contractors fill in the gaps.
Intentions And Results
Similar problems plagued U.S. civilian efforts in Iraq and in other conflict areas. Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group says there has long been a lack of funding, focus and leadership to fully implement these so-called civilian surges.
But this time it may be different, Schneider says.
"It's better in the sense that there's a far greater emphasis [and] priority from the people in charge now, who are saying that we have to increase the presence — then actually going to the Congress and saying, 'We want more money,'" he says.
But even the best intentions can get dragged down by bureaucracy and congressional foot-dragging.
For example, in 2004, the State Department decided to create a "Civilian Response Corps," in which civilians would go on short deployments into conflict zones. The corps only received funding last year. In time, it expects to build a corps of more than 4,000 active, standby and reserve members.
Its coordinator, John Herbst, says at the moment there are about 50 active members who are ready to be sent to Afghanistan.
"Obviously, the numbers I'm describing right now are not going to make a major contribution to Afghanistan," he says. "But in six months, you know, we might be in a position where we could, if there was a need, put a hundred or more people on the ground."
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Obama: Strategy in Afghanistan Will Not Be Shaped by Politics
President Obama says in a series of television interviews broadcast Sunday that he will not allow politics to govern his decisions regarding the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan.
AP via Fox News - Sep 20 8:17 AM
WASHINGTON -- President Obama says he hasn't asked his top commander in Afghanistan to sit on an expected request for U.S. reinforcements in a backsliding war, but he gave no deadline for making a decision about whether to send more Americans into harm's way.
Obama said in a series of television interviews broadcast Sunday that he will not allow politics to govern his decision. He left little doubt he is re-evaluating whether the renewed focus on hunting Al Qaeda that he announced just months ago has become blurred and whether more forces will do any good.
"The first question is, `Are we doing the right thing?"' Obama said. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"
The war has taken on a highly partisan edge. Senate Republicans are demanding an influx of forces to turn around a war that soon will enter its ninth year, while members of Obama's own party are trying to put on the brakes.
"No, no, no, no," Obama responded when asked whether he or aides had directed Gen. Stanley McChrystal to temporarily withhold a request for additional U.S. forces and other resources.
"The only thing I've said to my folks is, 'A, I want an unvarnished assessment, but, B, I don't want to put the resource question before the strategy question,"' Obama said. "Because there is a natural inclination to say, 'If I get more, then I can do more."'
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week he expected McChrystal's request for additional forces and other resources "in the very near future."
Other military officials had said the request would go to McChrystal's boss, Gen. David Petraeus, and up the chain of command in a matter of weeks. The White House discounted that timeline, but has remained vague about how long it would take to receive the report and act on it.
Media reports Friday and Saturday said McChrystal has finished it but was told to pocket it, partly because of the charged politics surrounding the decision. McChrystal's senior spokesman, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the report is not complete.
"The resource request is being finalized and will be sent forward to the chain of command at some point in the near future," Smith said from Afghanistan.
McChrystal found security worse than he expected when he took command this summer to lead what Obama described as a narrowed, intensive campaign to uproot Al Qaeda and prevent the terrorist group from again using Afghanistan as a safe haven.
In the interviews taped Friday at the White House, Obama mentioned concerns about the "mission creep" that befell former President George W. Bush's attempt to build and prop up a viable democratic government in a country unaccustomed to central rule and sensitive to foreign meddling.
Obama said he's asking this question now of the military regarding his plan: "How does this advance America's national security interests? How does it make sure that Al Qaeda and its extremist allies cannot attack the United States homeland, our allies, our troops who are based in Europe?"
"If supporting the Afghan national government and building capacity for their army and securing certain provinces advances that strategy, then we'll move forward," the president continued. "But if it doesn't, then I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or, in some way, you know, sending a message that America is here for the duration."
Obama has ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, increasing the number of U.S. forces there to a record 68,000, and watched as Marines pushed deep into Taliban-controlled districts ahead of Afghanistan's national elections in August.
The disappointing outcome of the voting -- no definitive winner weeks later and mounting allegations that the incumbent President Hamid Karzai rigged the election -- is coloring both Obama's view of the conflict and the partisan debate.
Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has told Obama he wants no new troops request at least until the United States makes a bolder effort to expand and train Afghanistan's own armed forces.
On Sunday, Levin addressed the give-and-take over McChrystal's report.
"I think what's going on here is that there is a number of questions which are being asked to Gen. McChrystal about some of the assumptions which have been previously made in the strategy, including that there would be an election which would be a stabilizing influence instead of a destabilizing influence," said Levin, D-Mich.
The Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Obama should follow the military's advice. McConnell said Petraeus "did a great job with the surge in Iraq. I think he knows what he's doing. Gen. McChrystal is a part of that. We have a lot of confidence in those two generals. I think the president does as well."
Earlier this month, McChrystal offered this analogy suggesting he's waiting for Obama to make up his mind about a deeper involvement.
"My position here is a little bit like a mechanic. We've got a situation with a vehicle and I've been asked to look at it and tell the owner what the situation is and what it will cost to make the vehicle run correctly and I will provide that," he said.
"Now I understand that the vehicle owner then has to make a decision on what the car is worth, how much longer he intends to drive it," he added. "Whether he wants it to look good or just run."
Obama spoke on CNN's "State of the Union," ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press," and CBS' "Face the Nation." Levin and McConnell were on CNN.
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Afghanistan's War - Waged on the Airwaves
U.S.-Backed Radio Stations Compete With Taliban Messages in Remote Regions Where Illiteracy Is High
By Mandy Clark
(CBS) U.S. forces in Afghanistan are waging a new kind of battle in their campaign to win hearts and minds. You might call it the "radio wars," as CBS News Correspondent Mandy Clark reports from eastern Afghanistan.
Running a radio station wouldn't normally be considered a dangerous job, but for Sahib Dad Hamdar it could cost him his life.
"The Taliban want to kill me for what I do," said Hamdar, speaking in Pashtu.
The Taliban are angry because Radio Kalagush broadcasts programs on women's issues and education in a remote eastern province of Afghanistan. That's a challenge to the Taliban's conservative ideology.
"Questions and Answers" is the most popular show. It's educational trivia contest for both boys and girls - an idea unthinkable to the Taliban, who oppose girls' education.
In a region of Afghanistan where literary is less than 20 percent, radio is the best way to reach the people.
The U.S. funds the station and also helps build the audience by handing out radios. They've given out hundreds so far.
"We were in a village this morning and that's all they want, more radios," said Maj. Billy Siekman, an operations officer for the Army's 2-77 Field Artillery Battalion.
Village women say they liked the women's show the most. They want a segment on basic first aid and child care.
But this is a battle of the airwaves. Another villager is listening to a Taliban radio station. They have sprung up around the country as well - broadcasting threats to kill those who cooperate with international forces.
"The Taliban messages are intimidating and dangerous," the villager says. "They encourage the young to join the Taliban and kill people."
U.S. forces admit that people could use their new radios to tune into the Taliban but say given the choice, Afghans wants positive information.
"A lot of the messages that we put out are specifically to help the people, for example, drinking clean water, how to take care of your child," said Army Lt. Stacey Gross. "Those are really productive messages versus hate and discontent messages that we generally hear from the Taliban."
Hamdar is hoping to expand the reach of the station. Knowledge, he says, is the best weapon against the darkness.
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Vision of victory in Afghanistan - but time is on the Taleban's side
In the first of six special reports, The Times outlines the challenges facing Western forces in Afghanistan
Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor The Times September 21, 2009
Nadali and Wootton Bassett are 3,550 miles and several centuries apart. The latter is the comfortable Wiltshire village near RAF Lyneham that has become the symbol of public mourning at the terrible loss of life among British forces fighting in Afghanistan. The former is a primitive Afghan village in the heart of the Helmand river valley that has changed little in hundreds of years and where the deeply conservative population ekes out a meagre livelihood from growing poppy and other crops.
Yet the two places have more in common than they know. They have been thrown together by fate to decide the outcome of the battle waged by British and other Western forces against the Taleban. If the campaign proceeds along its present course, there is every indication that public support in Wootton Bassett — and, by extension, across the rest of Britain — will turn against the war. A similar public reaction is being felt in the US, Canada, Germany, Italy and the other key nations contributing to the Nato forces on the ground.
If the bloody campaign that has marked this summer in Helmand continues to threaten the lives of villagers in Nadali and other communities in southern Afghanistan, they will reluctantly conclude that the Taleban offer a better chance of peace and stability than a weak and corrupt central Government in Kabul that is backed by foreign forces.
The populations of both countries are tired after eight years of war and impatient for a solution. The most immediate challenge facing Afghanistan is not the Taleban but its own Government; in particular, President Karzai, once seen as something of a saviour but now regarded by many as a liability.
He was re-elected last month with 54.6 per cent of the vote, enough for an outright win in the first round, but reports of massive electoral fraud and the recount of 10 per cent of the ballots could yet deny him victory and force a run-off against his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah. With winter approaching, there are fears that a new vote cannot be held until next year, further undermining the credibility of a government weakened by widespread corruption and whose authority barely stretches beyond the precincts of Kabul. Another alternative is to call a Loya Jirga, or grand assembly of Afghan leaders, to agree on a way out of the constitutional crisis.
Without a credible leader with a clear mandate to rule, the entire mission in Afghanistan is under threat. A government that can bring security and services to ordinary Afghans is by far the West’s best exit strategy. Without a respected central authority, the Western mission is doomed. That is why there is a real urgency about the US-led campaign. Mistakes may have been made by the Bush Administration, but the war is now squarely President Obama’s problem and he will be judged on the outcome.
While foreign diplomats, led by the US special envoy Richard Holbrooke, address the constitutional crisis in Kabul, the military campaign is being stepped up on a scale not seen since the Soviet invasion 30 years ago.
General Stanley McChrystal, the newly installed commander of US forces, is overseeing a surge of troops that will bring the tally to 68,000, alongside 35,000 from other Nato contributors. He is expected to request additional soldiers in a report to Washington. The American counter-insurgency tactics — revised in Iraq by General David Petraeus, now the regional commander — call for a massive force deployed on the ground to protect the civilian population and to enable development and the local economy to recover. The tactic worked well in Iraq, where the Sunni Muslim population turned against the insurgency and supported the Americans. Afghanistan, however, is more complex, the terrain more rugged and the key Pashtu-speaking population in the south less open to outsiders.
The only government institution that has been strengthened since the ouster of the Taleban in 2001 is the Afghan National Army. Much of the Nato effort is focused on training and equipping a force that should have 134,000 soldiers in uniform by the end of 2011. The rise of the Afghan military is seen as the only way that foreign forces can begin to lower their profile and gradually hand over responsibility for security to the locals — much as American forces have done in Iraq.
In Washington, London and other Western capitals there is now a sense of urgency. Defeat in Afghanistan could mean the end of Nato as an effective military alliance. Western leaders long ago gave up any hope of building a modern, democratic state in Afghanistan and are lowering public expectations at home. The best they can hope for is to stabilise security and attempt to lure or bribe moderate elements in the Taleban into negotiations.
A key figure in this delicate work is Sir Graeme Lamb, a retired British general who performed a similar role in Iraq’s restive Anbar province. “I always said in Iraq, you can buy an insurgency if you have enough money,” he said. “If somebody is on the wrong side of the wire and is inclined to come back, then I have to set the conditions, or we have to set the conditions, whereby that young man comes back in, so he is not a pariah.”
For soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan, the greatest threat to life and limb comes from the deadly roadside bombs planted along their patrol and supply routes. For the Taleban fighters, the ghostly drones that patrol the skies day and night and rain down missiles without warning are the most feared enemy.
The commanders know, however, that the ultimate weapon is something less tangible. Major-General Nick Carter, the incoming commander of 9,000 British forces in Afghanistan, acknowledged before he took up his command that time was not on his side. A few days later Mullah Omar, the fugitive Taleban commander, responded in a message marking Eid al-Fitr — the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan — by predicting another defeat of British forces in Afghanistan. “We would like to point out that we fought against the British invaders for 80 years, from 1839 to 1919, and ultimately got independence,” he said. “Today we have strong determination, military training and effective weapons. Still more, we have preparedness for a long war, and the regional situation is in our favour.”
Time is running out. Most experts accept that the Western mission in Afghanistan probably has two to three years to get it right before the battle is lost.
RICHARD BEESTON is the Foreign Editor of The Times. He has covered a dozen wars and conflicts over the past 25 years. He first reported on Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s
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Former soldier still fight to protect Afghan boys from abuse
By David Pugliese, The Ottawa CitizenSeptember 20, 2009 9:02 PM
Travis Schouten lives with the image of the rape of an Afghan boy at a Canadian base every day of his life.
Witnessing two men, one armed with a knife, sodomize the child during an incident in late 2006 helped drive the 26-year-old to the brink of mental collapse.
But the former corporal says the assault is just the tip of an iceberg and underneath lies the systemic sexual abuse of boys at the hands of Afghanistan’s police and army. It’s a practice, he says, the Canadian Forces has turned a blind eye to.
“It’s disgusting,” said Schouten, now retired after eight years in the military. “We’re telling people that we’re trying to build a nation there and we let this happen?”
“We allow rampant abuse of young boys at the hands of what is supposed to be their finest police officers and army officers, then what does that say?”
Schouten’s allegations that Afghans were sexually abusing children at a Canadian base near Kandahar made headlines in 2008 but his claims were dismissed earlier this year by military investigators as unfounded.
He is, however, not alone in voicing his concerns.
Defence Department records show military police were upset about such incidents but were told not to interfere.
Army officers also met in the summer/fall of 2007 to discuss the issue of Afghan security personnel “having anal sex with young boys” but their main concern was the media would somehow find out.
Others in the military note they were told such practices were an age-old part of Afghan culture. One soldier who emailed the Citizen stated he served at the same base at another time and troops had orders to stop any rapes. But he also noted they were told the practise of “Man Love Thursdays,” as it was called, involved consenting Afghans and no one was raped by older men. The children involved were given small gifts or money in return for sex, soldiers say.
Schouten, however, questions whether a five or six-year old child, or even an 11-year-old, can consent. “The Canadian Forces wants people to think it’s a cultural thing, that everyone is doing it, because it takes the onus of responsibility off them to stop it,” he said.
The United Nations has also questioned arguments that sex with children is a cultural issue. In July 2008, a UN special representative spoke out against the Afghan practise. “What I found was nobody talks about it; everyone says ‘Well, you know, it’s been there for 1,000 years so why do we want to raise this now?’” said Radhika Coomaraswamy. “But somebody has to raise it and it has to be dealt with.”
And not all Afghans are so accepting of what some claim is tradition. Afghan villagers this summer complained to British troops in Helmand province that Afghan police were abducting children to be used for sex.
Last year also saw an extremely rare event; three Afghan police officers who gang-raped a 12-year old boy and his father were sent to prison.
Although reports in a Toronto newspaper noted that Schouten saw the aftermath of the attack on a young boy, he says that is not accurate. He actually entered the headquarters and witnessed two Afghan security personnel sodomizing the child. “I walked in and they were raping a kid,” he recalls. “The kid was bleeding. They guy with the camo fatigues had a knife in his hand.”
He left the headquarters shaken. The Canadian unit had already been dealing with other problems with the Afghans and his immediate options were limited. “I wasn’t going to start doing something at the scene,” he recalled. “I’m in the middle of the ANP headquarters. What do I do; start shooting Afghan police? I’d get myself shot.”
Afterwards he was approached by an Afghan interpreter who worked with troops. The man had with him a couple of five-year-boys who had also been allowed on the Canadian base. “He brought up the fact he likes to rape little boys,” Schouten said. “He’s telling me how he likes to use a knife on them.”
Schouten said after the incident his life fell apart. He began drinking heavily. After returning from Afghanistan he was involved in a car accident which injured one of his passengers. He went absent without leave when he was supposed to be at a psychiatrist’s appointment.
The army’s reaction was to try to dishonourably discharge him but Schouten successfully fought that. In August he was honourably discharged on medical grounds.
Schouten wasn’t surprised the military investigation concluded his allegations were unfounded and his chain of command had not been informed of any such incidents.
Back in Canada, he told a lieutenant colonel and Defence Department officials of the incident, who in turn informed others in the army’s leadership. However, since none of those people were in Schouten’s direct chain of command, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service could conclude nothing was reported, he explained.
Other soldiers were also reluctant to come forward. “Guys have mortgages, they have kids,” explained Schouten. “If they go and get involved in this their careers will be stopped. Look what the army did to me.”
Schouten isn’t expecting anything different from an army board of inquiry launched last year. Although soldiers know Afghan security forces are having sex with kids, the issue is too explosive to deal with, he adds.
Schouten said the rape and its aftermath shook his faith in the military. “In my mind, when I signed up, it was a brotherhood to me,” he explained. “I thought I was there for an established set of values and I loved that. I was wrong.”
Schouten is now rebuilding his life and is going to university. “I’m putting myself back together,” he said. “But at the same time I do feel people should be held accountable and people should know this is what is going on over there.”
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Al Qaeda threatens Germany in second online video
Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:05am EDT
BERLIN (Reuters) - Militant Islamist group al Qaeda threatened Germany with attacks for the second time this weekend in an online video criticizing the country for its deployment of troops in Afghanistan, authorities said on Sunday.
The interior ministry identified al Qaeda's messenger in the latest video as Bekkay Harrach, a German-Moroccan who also appeared in a separate clip on Friday warning Germany faced a "rude awakening" if it did not end its "war" in Afghanistan.
Television footage showed Harrach, who is 32 according to German media, wearing a mask in the latest video.
Harrach was clean shaven and wearing a suit and tie in the previous recording in which he directly addressed German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying that attacks could follow Germany's federal election on September 27.
"In a democracy, only the people can order its soldiers home," Harrach said in German in the first video.
"If the German people decides for a continuation of the war, then it has passed judgment upon itself and showed the whole world that in a democracy civilians are not innocent after all."
Germany stepped up security at airports and train stations this weekend due to the heightened risk of attack, fearing that militant groups could use the election as a stage for strikes to punish Germany for its troop deployment in Afghanistan.
Of the five parties in Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament, only the far-left "Linke" or Left Party is calling for an immediate troop pull-out from Afghanistan.
Unlike other European countries such as Britain or Spain, Germany, which has 4,200 troops in Afghanistan, has not experienced a major attack on home soil in recent years.
Domestic pressure on Germany to rethink its mission grew this month following a NATO air strike called in by German forces which left scores of people dead.
It took Merkel two years to visit Afghanistan after taking office in 2005 and she rarely mentions the mission there unless events on the ground demand a response as they did this week.
Until now, her government has refused to call the conflict a "war," instead selling it to voters as a humanitarian mission focused on civilian reconstruction and police training.
(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
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Afghan Commandos Try to Persuade Countrymen to Turn Against Taliban
Saturday, September 19, 2009 Associated Press
GHOWS KALAY, Afghanistan — The village is little more than a handful of mud huts surrounded by wheat fields, but the runway at NATO's main air base in Afghanistan's south is visible from the town center. There, the Afghan commando, his beard still youthfully scraggly, tried to persuade a small audience of countrymen to turn against the Taliban and rebuild their country.
Aziz once hoped to be a doctor, but instead found himself in uniform, offering a formal speech carefully printed on folded white paper, as NATO cargo jets rumbled overhead to and from the Kandahar base. A surface-to-air missile in hostile hands could wreak havoc on the stream of flights.
Trained by a U.S. Special Forces team, 22-year-old Aziz and others like him are now among the best hopes for winning over people in the Taliban's southern heartland — especially in strategic towns and villages like Ghows Kalay. The crowd's gaze was fixed on the young man, the men nodding assent and the children trying not to fidget in the dust as they awaited the soccer balls and other gifts they knew would follow.
"We are a very powerful people, but we are sending our sick to Europe and India. Why? Because we don't have good doctors. We don't have engineers and teachers," said Aziz, who addressed the group with a megaphone tucked under his arm.
In the past, American psychological operations teams would have conducted the kind of meeting led by Aziz. The U.S. spends millions of dollars printing leaflets and funding radio stations in Afghanistan, but few of these programs have been as effective as the visits by the Afghan commandos, American trainers said.
The Afghan Information Dissemination Operations program is still in its infancy. Created eight months ago, American trainers are working to train teams for all six Commando Kandak units, hoping they will draw more respect than the troubled Afghan police force or army.
"They are the bridge between us and the target audience," said a Fort Bragg-based sergeant among the trainers. A native of Puerto Rico, he spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. "We are always in search of key communicators. What better kind of key communicator than a local."
At a class Wednesday at a base near Kabul, a half-dozen commandos from the 1st Commando Kandak sat in two rows, learning how to distribute aid. The outlines of their task can be learned in the classroom — with some difficulty.
"There is no word in Dari for body language," the instructor from Puerto Rico told The Associated Press. "I wasn't prepared for them not to understand what body language was."
But it is up to the Afghans to tailor the message, explain to locals how destructive the Taliban have been and show them the promise of an Afghan government. In the region of Kandahar, where the Taliban hold sway and have their own shadow government, delivering that message will be a challenge.
Col. Farid, deputy commander of the Afghan Commando Brigade, said a Taliban mullah near Kandahar once warned that international forces would not let the Afghan troops pray. Farid and his men prayed at the mosque that Friday, then Farid visited the mullah and prayed with him as well. That was all it took, Farid said, for the villagers to give him information about roadside bombs and enemy fighters.
"The enemy was using my religion, history and culture against me," Farid said. "We have to offset insurgent propaganda."
Anthony H. Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said persuading a foreign culture is always hard for soldiers.
"You can't win the information battle because fundamentally it is fought with local values," he said. "Even with good communications skills, they are going to be treated differently. The host country has to take the lead because nothing we do is going to be convincing."
Sgt. Abdullah, a 25-year-old from Bamyan Province in northern Afghanistan, passed the university entry exam and was going to study agriculture before he joined the army. Now a squad leader in the 1st Commando Kandak, he understands that force might not be enough.
"Commandos can show the people that they are here to win hearts and minds," Abdullah said. "The help we give to the people is the message we have for the people."
The program can be almost as hard to sell to the commandos. The men, trained to capture and kill bomb makers and insurgent leaders, are sometimes less interested in acting as messengers.
"The commandos consider themselves a lethal force," the instructor said.
But in Ghows Kalay, the benefit of commando teams seemed evident.
Aziz urged the villagers to warn the commandos or NATO troops about any Taliban in the area. He told them to watch for men firing rockets.
"We need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to build up again," said Aziz, who is from eastern Afghanistan hundreds of miles away. "This country is our mother and our father. Fighting does not benefit us."
When he was done, the commandos backed up a tan Ford Ranger full of soccer balls, prayer rugs and backpacks. The special operations sergeant watched in amazement as the villagers walked to the truck. In 10 minutes, most of the village was kicking a soccer ball or running home with a prayer rug or hygiene kit.
A special operations sergeant working with Aziz's unit near Kandahar looked on with a wide grin.
"Sometimes in the class I don't think they are getting it, but seeing them in action blows my mind," the sergeant said. "You put a local in there and the words go straight to their ears."
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Bloody Afghan rescue puts journalism in the dock
by Andrew Beatty – Sun Sep 20, 6:25 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The bloody rescue of a New York Times reporter in Afghanistan has spurred accusations of media recklessness, a charge the paper's editor denies but one that has prompted some soul searching.
Early on September 9, the buzz of military aircraft over northern Afghanistan gave British-Irish journalist Stephen Farrell the first inclination he was about to be rescued.
Within moments, the veteran New York Times reporter was free -- wrenched by British special forces beyond the grasp of his Taliban captors, ending four terrifying days of detention.
But Farrell's liberation cost the lives of his Afghan colleague, Sultan Munadi -- a father of two, 29-year-old British paratrooper John Harrison, an Afghan woman and child, and scores of Taliban fighters.
As details of the rescue emerged they were quickly followed by recriminations.
Four days earlier Farrell and Munadi, both dressed in local clothes, had set off to investigate a NATO air strike near Kunduz, where there were reports of numerous civilian casualties.
It was just the latest in a series of deadly coalition air strikes that killed civilians, deepening Afghan opposition to NATO's eight-year-long mission and making a mockery of a US drive to limit civilian casualties.
Munadi's brother accused the British government of being too quick to launch the raid, claiming that negotiations to the free the pair may have worked. He also lashed out at the Afghan governments, the Taliban and the New York Times.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, under heavy criticism for ordering the raid, lambasted Farrell for ignoring what he said was "very strong" advice not to travel to the area.
Richard Kemp, a former member of COBRA, the British government's top-level crisis group often called on respond to kidnappings, acknowledged the story was an important one, but said Farrell had more than his own life to consider.
"He unnecessarily risked the lives of his Afghan fellow journalist Sultan Munadi -- and those who might have to rescue him," Kemp wrote in the Daily Mail.
Con Coughlin, executive foreign editor of London's Daily Telegraph was more scathing, writing that Farrell was "gung-ho" and "increasingly seen as a reckless idiot who deliberately placed himself and others in jeopardy in pursuit of journalist glory."
In an email to AFP, Times executive editor Bill Keller defended the paper's role in the "heartbreaking" episode and described the formidable calculus of deciding whether to embark on an important, but potentially dangerous assignment.
"It was an important story -- a report of scores of dead innocents at a very sensitive period in the politics of Afghanistan -- that could not be verified by phone calls or the Afghan rumor mill," Keller wrote.
"It called out for on-the-scene reporting if possible."
"I have seen no evidence that his reporting mission was reckless or irresponsible," he said.
On the Times website, Farrell said he was comfortable with his decision to go to the area, but admitted he and Munadi may have lingered there too long.
There seems little doubt that today's conflict zones, particularly in the Islamic world are dangerous places for the western media, or locals who are linked to it.
Reporters Without Borders, a group lobbying for press freedom around the world, said 60 journalists were murdered and 29 were kidnapped in 2008. The war in Iraq has killed over 200 members of the media.
As well as being viewed as partisan, "journalists become targets in war zones because they hold information," said Clothilde Le Coz, director of the organization's Washington office.
Against this backdrop western governments have steered the media toward "embeds" -- having journalists travel with coalition forces to the front lines.
Christopher Paul, a Rand Corporation expert on military-media relations, said this option offers the military an opportunity to show its side of the story and limit the risk of causalities that could bolster opposition to the military mission at home.
But according to Paul, the fact that many journalists working in Afghanistan and Iraq, like Farrell, are from countries prosecuting the war poses additional questions of control.
"There are government advisories not to travel to certain places so it is implicit you do so at your own risk," said Paul. "Does a journalist have any more claim to protection... than a civilian from the same country?"
The debate, he said, "is about who makes the call."
For Farrell's supporters journalists must always be able to make the call, because there are always places and events that governments would rather reporters don't cover, for reasons that are far from altruistic.
They also point to the role that independent journalism has played in exposing the realities of the Vietnam War, Cambodia's killing fields, or the Cold War conflicts in Central and South America.
Marvin Kalb, a doyen of American journalism and Harvard professor emeritus, said the basic dilemma is long-standing: "It comes down to a question of what a reporter is prepared to do to get a story.
"I don't know whether Farrell should have dug so deeply on that story," Kalb told AFP, "but how are you going to say that to a journalist.
"There can't be any rules."
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Pakistan's security gains contrast Afghan turmoil
By Robert Kennedy, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 20, 11:38 am ET
ISLAMABAD – A successful army offensive, a shift in public opinion against the militants and the killing of top Taliban leaders have given grounds for cautious optimism in Pakistan as progress across the border in Afghanistan appears stalled amid spiraling violence and postelection turmoil.
The Obama administration has made it clear it sees victory in the fight against Islamist extremism as dependent on successes in both South Asian nations. Forging a common strategy for "AfPak," as the region is now dubbed in Washington, is a key priority.
Five months ago, nuclear-armed Pakistan was seen by some as on the verge of collapse, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying the country was "abdicating" to the Taliban as the movement spread from its stronghold close to the Afghan border to the northwest Swat Valley and beyond.
To the relief of the West, the army moved forcefully against the Swat militants in April in a campaign that thrived with public support. Last month, the head of the Pakistani Taliban was killed in a U.S. missile strike, and questions remain whether its new leader will be able to maintain the group's ability to launch large-scale terrorist attacks.
Still, no one is saying overall victory is in sight. In particular, the tribal region of Waziristan remains an al-Qaida and Taliban haven despite past army efforts to clear it. On Friday, a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-laden vehicle into a hotel in the northwestern town of Kohat, killing more than 30 and wounding dozens of others.
"Clearly there are victories but there are still a lot of Taliban and there are still a lot of battles to come," said Kamran Bokhari, Middle East and South Asia director for U.S.-based global intelligence company Stratfor. "But for now the government still has the upper hand."
The signs of progress come as Pakistani leader Asif Ali Zardari prepares for talks on Thursday with President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in New York on how international donors can best support the country's democratically elected government.
Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, said the public opinion shift against the Taliban combined with the political consensus on tackling the threat were "major factors for visible improvement in security" in the country.
Deadly attacks on major urban centers like the massive truck bombing on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad a year ago and the commando-style assault against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in March have decreased since the Swat Valley offensive, though near-daily violence has continued elsewhere.
Bokhari says the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has been left in disarray after the clearing of insurgents from the valley and surrounding areas in July, as well as the Aug. 5 killing of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in a CIA missile strike.
Further successes include the reported deaths of the al-Qaida operations chief in Pakistan and a top Uzbek militant in U.S. drone strikes in the northwest earlier this month, and the killing of 10 Taliban fighters attempting to infiltrate Swat's main city Mingora on Thursday.
Improved intelligence-sharing and coordination among Pakistan, the U.S. and Afghanistan have aided the effort, Bokhari said.
While the Pakistani military has at least temporarily gained the upper hand, the security situation in neighboring Afghanistan has deteriorated with increased roadside bombings, suicide attacks and ambushes. Heightened counterinsurgency efforts by the U.S., NATO and the Afghan government have so far failed to make much headway there, analysts said.
Bokhari said while "the Pakistanis have gotten their act together," efforts in Afghanistan by the U.S., NATO and the Afghan government appear "to be in disarray."
Political turmoil in Afghanistan after the Aug. 20 presidential election amid allegations of vote-fraud is also clouding perceptions of the future there. While the government in Pakistan is unpopular, the political scene has been relatively stable since Zardari became president a year ago, allowing it to concentrate on counterinsurgency operations.
Imtiaz Gul, chairman of the independent Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine last week "it's time for cautious optimism" for Pakistan, noting the interception of dozens of suicide bombers in the northwest and a drop in attacks elsewhere.
Bokhari said the uncertainty in strategy and cold feet among allies in Afghanistan has emboldened the Taliban there, and it remains unclear if the raging insurgency can be put down even with the deployment of more U.S. forces, which is now being considered in Washington.
"Even if you have all the troops you need, is it still a battle that can be won? Ultimately history has shown that Afghanistan — because of its geography and demography — is not something you can impose a military solution on," Bokhari said.
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Associated Press writer Asif Shahzad contributed to this report.
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Three Afghans held over US 'plot'
Sunday, 20 September 2009 BBC News
Three men have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to launch an attack in the United States, the US Justice Department says.
Two Afghan-born men, a father and son, were arrested in Denver, Colorado.
A third man, also from Afghanistan, was later detained in New York, the department said.
The men are accused of making false statements related to "a matter involving international and domestic terrorism", the statement said.
The FBI was investigating several people "in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere, relating to a plot to detonate improvised explosive devices in the United States", the Justice Department said in court documents related to the arrests.
US media have reported that the investigation was focusing on a possible plan to attack a public area in New York.
David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security, said the arrests were part of "an ongoing and fast-paced investigation".
"It is important to note that we have no specific information regarding the timing, location or target of any planned attack," AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
'Not true'
The arrests followed three days of questioning by federal authorities of Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado-based son.
Earlier this week officials searched the Denver home of Mr Zazi, a 24-year-old airport shuttle driver.
He and his father, Mohammed Zazi, 53, will appear in court in Colorado on Monday. Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, will appear in court in New York the same day.
In a telephone interview with the Denver Post newspaper on Saturday, Najibullah Zazi denied media reports that he had admitted any link to al-Qaeda or involvement in terrorism.
"It's not true," Mr Zazi said. "I have nothing to hide. It's all media publications reporting whatever they want. They have been reporting all this nonsense."
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Three U.S. soldiers die in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- One soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed during a hostile incident Saturday in eastern Afghanistan while two other ISAF servicemen were killed in a non-combat-related incident in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, said a statement of the alliance.
Col. Wayne Shanks, an ISAF spokesman, also confirmed the service members were from the United States.
However, it did not specify the exact locations of the incidents and provide no further information.
Conflicts and violence have left 359 international troops dead so far this year as some 10,000 foreign soldiers, including some 68,000 U.S. troops, have been deployed in war-torn Afghanistan combating insurgency and helping with reconstruction.
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Captured Pakistan Taliban commander dies in jail
By Robert Kennedy, Associated Press Writer – Sun Sep 20, 1:16 pm ET
ISLAMABAD – A feared Taliban commander known for beheading opponents died in custody Sunday from wounds sustained during a fierce firefight with Pakistani security forces last week, the military said.
Sher Muhammad Qasab died after being critically wounded in the gunbattle in Swat Valley, the army's media center said in a statement. Qasab's three sons were killed when he was captured.
Qasab is an Urdu-language word meaning "butcher." He was given the title because of his ruthlessness toward enemies.
The arrest of Qasab — who had a $121,000 bounty on his head — was the third from the army's list of 10 most-wanted Swat militants. Qasab allegedly decapitated many Pakistani troops in Swat when the Taliban was in control.
The Pakistan Taliban has been on the run since being cleared from the scenic valley, once a tourist hotspot, and surrounding areas in July after the military launched a major offensive to retake the region in April.
The military announced Sunday that security forces killed eight militants in search operations throughout Swat since Saturday. Twenty-three insurgents were also apprehended and another 22 surrendered, it said in a statement. One of the militants killed was a Taliban commander identified as Chamtu Khan, it said.
A Pakistani patrol also killed 10 Taliban attempting to infiltrate Swat Valley's main city of Mingora on Thursday.
The army offensive against Taliban fighters in Swat has killed more than 1,800 alleged militants, according to the military. It says 330 Pakistani troops also died in operations in the valley.
U.S. missile attacks have played a significant role in neutralizing the insurgency. Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in an Aug. 5 CIA missile strike, plunging the group's leadership into disarray. Officials said Thursday they believed the al-Qaida operations chief for Pakistan and a top Uzbek militant died in missile attacks in the northwest earlier this month.
Despite recent successes against extremists, attacks continue. On Friday, a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-laden vehicle into a hotel in the northwestern town of Kohat, killing more than 30 and wounding dozens of others.
About 2 million civilians were forced to flee the fighting in Swat, though 1.6 million have since returned home. Aid efforts carried out by the military continue in the region.
President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will hold a meeting this Thursday in New York to step up international efforts — including aid and investment — to stabilize Pakistan and help people displaced by the conflict in Swat and surrounding areas. The "Friends of Democratic Pakistan" grouping was launched last year promising to help build dams, power stations, schools and clinics.
___
Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad and Zarar Khan contributed to this report.
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Afghanistan's drug problem may 'kill a generation'
CTV.ca - Sep 20 9:14 AM
Janis Mackey Frayer, South Asia Bureau Chief
KABUL -- He nudged the needle into his groin and marveled at how his own blood swirled into the syringe. Then, with the precision of a skilled and hungry junkie, he injected himself over and over in an arc between his bony hips until the syringe delivered the last drop of heroin and a peaceful stupor set in. Ikram closed his eyes and wavered, and with his right hand touched his left arm, repeatedly, as if to check that it was still there.
A metre away from where Ikram eventually slumped against a decaying wall, three men squatted in a cloud of opium-laced smoke. They heated white powder or paste on strips of foil and inhaled it using cigarettes or plastic tubes.
They are silent and methodical. They do not come here, to the ruins of the former Russian Cultural Centre in central Kabul, to socialize or talk. The complex is the pock-marked legacy of the Soviet occupation and more recently a haven for the city's most dedicated drug users. They smoke up and shoot up surrounded by trash and a hush that is less quiet than oblivious.
Afghanistan is the indisputable leader in feeding the world's appetite for heroin and opium. About 90 per cent of what is out there is produced here. It is harvested from fields of poppies that blanket much of the country's troubled south, then processed and transported along smuggling routes that lead to traffickers in Europe, Asia, and North America.
"Supply is a problem but so is foreign demand," according to Dr. Mohammad Zafar, the country's Deputy Minister of Counter-Narcotics. Still, he concedes that "we Afghans are more in trouble."
The lesser-publicized side of Afghanistan's notoriety is the country's own growing epidemic of drug addiction. According to the most recent survey, there are an estimated one million addicts who turn to drugs to soothe the misery of war, unemployment, and poverty.
A hit of opium costs about 20 cents. Heroin is less than a dollar. Getting drugs is a "piece of cake," according to one user. That cheap and wide availability is fuelling a growing number of addicts, and more of them are women and children. Across Afghanistan, entire families are hooked.
Karima leaned to one side and rubbed her temples with half-painted pink fingernails. The smile that was wide and infectious for her visitors had now surrendered to the internal darkness that ruled her addiction.
The day had started like most in her life: With an opium tea that she drinks to "feel happy." On bad days, she needs it three or four times.
Karima is 13.
She is bright, and confident, but left school during fourth grade. From the two narrow rooms they call home in an otherwise abandoned building, she cannot see a future that is either clean or normal -- a hard assessment for a girl who is barely a teenager.
"There is no one but me to support the family and we have nothing to live easily," she said. "I feel sad most of the time and the tea makes me feel better."
Her mother, Najiba, raised five children on a steady diet of narcotics to ease their hunger pains and winter chills and her own grief from losing a son. The whole family has been through drug treatment -- twice -- and Najiba claims to be healthy.
Karima is still addicted. She buys the drugs herself with money from her father and boils the opium tea the way her mother long did for her.
Her wild-eyed youngest sister, Raisa, is three years old and clicks her tongue while fidgeting with a red patent purse. Raisa had opium in her veins before she was born. Najiba cut her off months ago, but Raisa remembers the "dizzy" tea and craves it. I asked her why.
"Because I miss it," she said in the tiniest voice. "I like it."
Rehabilitating Afghanistan's addicts is a complex enterprise in a place where hardcore drugs are often cheaper than food. There are only 45 drug treatment centres across the country and too few beds to seriously address the burgeoning population of addicts.
At the Nejat clinic in Kabul, men lay on the floor in varying stages of withdrawal under posters of flowers and waterfalls. They resemble inmates, with shaved heads and uniforms. They spend a month between detox, treatment, and counselling.
It has been four days and Ahmad still has the shakes. Tall and gaunt, he got his first taste of hashish when he was a teenager and quickly graduated to opium and heroin. He said he abused himself for too many years, and hopes the government does more to stop the easy availability of the "poison."
"If it continues it will kill a generation," he said.
There is also now a drug treatment centre for women, who tend to smoke opium or drink it but rarely use heroin. They also almost always use drugs in the private confines of home, unlike men who show less shame by getting their fix openly. Drug counsellors say women in Afghanistan's villages use opium to control the arthritic pain they suffer from weaving carpets, and then share with their children to keep them calm while they work.
Efforts to eradicate Afghanistan's drug fields have been slow and expensive. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, opium production is down in Afghanistan -- about 10 per cent or 6,900 tons -- but farmers are extracting more opium per bulb.
It means Afghanistan still produces nearly twice as much opium as what the world demands. Yet prices have not bottomed out, suggesting drugs simply are not reaching the market.
In a recent interview with Newsweek magazine, the UNODC Executive Director, Antoniao Maria Costa, suggested, "Someone is hoarding 10,000 tons of opium -- enough to satisfy two years of world heroin addiction, or three years of morphine prescription. Where and why? We don't know. But it's strange and potentially dangerous."
Afghanistan's counter-narcotics programs are still woefully underfunded when compared with the multi-billion dollar drug industry here. Officials believe eradication alone cannot work to wean farmers from the drug profits that also finance insurgents. The Taliban apparently take about a 10 per cent cut.
Recent NATO raids have also reportedly recovered enough drug-related equipment, cash, and weapons to suggest more intimate involvement of insurgents in the actual trafficking of narcotics.
"Where there is drug production, especially in the south, there is more violence. The link between security and drug production is direct," said Dr. Zafar, the Deputy Minister.
Nobody in the smoky haze at the Russian Cultural Centre likely cares about those trends, or politics, or even the stench of garbage and urine. At this moment, what matters is that Mohammad has produced a small cloth sack from his vest pocket. He removes a frayed string and lets the cloth unfold in his palm to reveal a tiny packet of powdered treasure.
The men around him are mesmerized. The heroin shooter is still against the wall, still touching his left arm. Police do not bother to arrest the junkies here but occasionally round them up for treatment or just a shower. Yet in time, they are back. They almost always come back.
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Several militants arrested in Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces backed by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) during separate operations in eastern and southern Afghanistan detained several suspected militants on Sunday, said a statement of the alliance.
The joint forces searched buildings which were known to be used by a Haqqani element and facilitator responsible for the regional distribution of improvised explosive devices and IED-making material in eastern Khost province
In a compound search north of Kandahar City in the south, the joint force pursued Taliban suspects responsible for IED and small arms attacks, and for shipment of weapons and IEDs into the region.
During the two operations, the joint force wounded a suspected Taliban commander after he displayed hostile intent with a weapon, the statement said.
The joint force also found TNT explosives, one anti-personnel mine, seven AK-47 rifles, fragmentation grenades and communications equipment, all of which were destroyed in place, it added.
No Afghan civilians were harmed in either search, it further noted.
Conflicts and violence have left over 359 international troops dead so far this year as some 10,000 foreign soldiers have been deployed in war-torn Afghanistan.
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Afghan President Calls on Taliban to Join Peace Process
By VOA News 19 September 2009
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has marked the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr with a call for peace.
Mr. Karzai called on Taliban militants Sunday to renounce violence and join the peace process. He says insurgents can lay down their arms and help rebuild their war-torn country.
Meanwhile, the Taliban's leader has made his own statement for the festival of Eid.
Mullah Omar warns that U.S. and NATO forces will face defeat in Afghanistan. In a statement Saturday, Omar said Westerners need only study Afghanistan's history to see that they will fail.
The Taliban leader is thought to be in Pakistan but has not been seen in public for years.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
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Foreign troops in Afghanistan to honour Peace Day
September 20, 2009
(AFP) – KABUL — Afghan and foreign troops will cease offensive operations in the intensifying war against Taliban-led insurgents to observe the UN's International Day of Peace, the defence ministry said Sunday.
Afghan defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak has ordered his troops to remain on the defensive for Peace Day on Monday, and not to attack rebel positions unless attacked, his spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.
"The people of Afghanistan are more thirsty for peace than any other nation. They have experienced decades of war and they want peace now," Azimi said.
The directive follows a similar order from US General Stanley McChrystal, which falls short of a ceasefire by the more than 100,000 US and NATO troops he commands in an effort to quell the Taliban insurgency.
Troops will be on the defensive but "will not conduct offensive military operations on September 21 to observe the United Nations' International Day of Peace," McChrystal said.
"This is consistent with our intent to help the national army and police take the lead in protecting the Afghan people from the Taliban and other enemies of peace," he said in a recent statement.
The UN's International Day of Peace was created in 1981 and in 2002, September 21 was declared the permanent annual date for "commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples".
The Taliban have reportedly said their fighters will also remain on the defensive for peace day, but foreign forces in Afghanistan are sceptical the rebels will keep their word.
"The Taliban said they would not conduct any operations during Ramadan, but six Italian soldiers are dead and a lot of people have been killed in suicide bomb attacks across the country," an ISAF spokesman said.
A massive suicide car bomb attack on an ISAF convoy in Kabul on Thursday killed six Italians, whose bodies were repatriated to Rome Sunday, and at least 10 Afghans.
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Japan's new FM hints at more aid for Afghanistan
by Kyoko Hasegawa Sun Sep 20, 8:01 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan could offer more development aid to Afghanistan in place of a naval support mission for US-led operations in the war-torn country, new Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada hinted Sunday.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has said he would end the naval refuelling mission early next year, and his foreign minister Okada reiterated Sunday "we won't simply extend the mission" beyond January when it expires.
The Indian Ocean mission -- which began in December 2001 and was periodically renewed by Japan's ousted conservative government -- provides fuel and other logistical support to the US-led coalition.
But when asked about alternative contributions, Okada said he hoped to help stabilise the situation through financing development and aid programmes.
"If Japan can generate the situation where Taliban soldiers on the frontline would be able to feed their family members and offer education, then the situation in Afghanistan will change," he said.
"There is a significant number of people who work for Taliban to earn money."
The activities of Japanese aid organisations are at a minimum, he added, due to the deterioration in the security situation.
"The areas where we can send civilians are limited to places where security is guaranteed," Okada said.
While in opposition, Hatoyama's centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) had criticised the Japanese government for supporting "American wars", vowing not to renew the naval mission.
The DPJ would seek to placate Washington by launching new humanitarian aid projects for Afghanistan instead, media reports have said, with Kyodo News reporting Japan will host an international aid meeting in November.
Meanwhile, Hatoyama has a busy week ahead in the United States, where he is due to attend the UN General Assembly and the G20 summit and will meet President Barack Obama on Wednesday.
It will be the first meeting between the two world leaders, two weeks after Hatoyama ended more than half a century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Foreign Minister Okada will also meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
On his talks with Clinton, Okada said: "I'd like to discuss the Japan-US cooperation on global issues such as global warming and nuclear (disarmament).
"The issue of the refuelling mission and aid to Afghanistan are intertwined, as the Obama administration places its weight on the Afghan issue... This should be seen as a package deal" Japan can offer to the United States, Okada said.
Okada also said "more broadly, the issue of the relocation of US military bases in Japan can be" included in the deal.
The minister has said a new base outside Okinawa would replace an old one which led to complaints by residents tired of noise and crimes committed by US servicemen.
Okada added: "I don't want to say anything more. I can't say this and that ahead of negotiations (with the United States)."
Excluding the possibility of sending Japanese troops to Afghanistan, Okada said: "What can the Self-Defence Forces do now?"
Under Japan's pacifist constitution, Japanese troops -- called the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) -- are barred from the use of weapons except for self-defence.
"I think it's unrealistic to send the SDF to Afghanistan where other countries are considering the withdrawal of troops," he said.
"Japan has been highly valued by Afghan people because Japan has not sent troops", he said, noting that the United States had not requested that Japan send troops.
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U.S. Ambassador: Pakistan Not Backing U.S. Goals On Taliban
Free Internet Press - Sun Sep 20, 4:56 pm ET
Despite growing U.S. military losses in Afghanistan, Pakistan still refuses to target the extremist groups on its soil that are the biggest threat to the American-led mission there, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan told McClatchy.
Eight years after Washington and Islamabad agreed to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Pakistan has "different priorities" from the U.S., Anne Patterson said in a recent interview. Pakistan is "certainly reluctant to take action" against the leadership of the Afghan insurgency.
As the war in Afghanistan becomes more brutal - and political and popular support for it wanes in the U.S. - Pakistan's refusal to act in support of American goals is undermining the U.S. effort to deny al-Qaeda and other extremist groups a sanctuary in Afghanistan.
The most effective Taliban fighters, the Haqqani network of veteran Afghan jihadist Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, operate out of the North Waziristan region of Pakistan's tribal territory. Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar is widely thought to be based in the western Pakistani city of Quetta, from which he directs the insurgency through the so-called "Quetta Shura," or leadership council.
Experts on the Afghanistan war think that military progress and political stability won't be possible there unless the government roots out the havens the insurgents have established in western Pakistan. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based research center, concluded in its annual review this week that "Pakistan remained the biggest source of instability for Afghanistan."
Pakistani officials, however, say that their country's priority should be to tackle Islamic militants who threaten Pakistan. They charge that the U.S. is blind to Pakistan's concerns over traditional foe India as it presses Pakistan to redeploy forces from its eastern border with India to the western border with Afghanistan.
The disagreement between Washington and Islamabad was illustrated starkly this week when former President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged in a television interview that he'd diverted American military equipment that was meant to fight the Taliban in western Pakistan for use against India. "One doesn't care who one crosses," Musharraf told Pakistan's Express News.
In testimony Tuesday before Congress, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said: "The Pakistani military ... consider their principal threat - their existential threat - to be Indian, not these extremists."
The U.S. has lavished praise on the Pakistani army for the offensive it launched in April against Taliban militants in Pakistan. The operation marked the first serious sign of determination to deal with armed extremists, but it hasn't extended to groups in Pakistan that fight exclusively in Afghanistan. Mullen said that Pakistan's recent anti-terrorism actions "had a big impact" although "it hasn't been perfect."
While Pakistan and the U.S. agree on targeting al-Qaeda and, more recently, the Taliban Movement of Pakistan ("Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan"), they strongly disagree over action against Afghan insurgents operating from Pakistani territory.
"Where we differ, of course, is the treatment of the groups who are attacking our troops in Afghanistan. And that comes down to Haqqani and Gul Bahadur and Nazir, to a lesser extent Hekmatyar, and yes, of course, there are differences there," Patterson said, naming some of the most prominent extremist leaders. "We have a very candid dialogue about this with some frequency."
Bahadur, based in North Waziristan, and Maulvi Nazir, based in South Waziristan, are Pakistani Taliban commanders who fight only in Afghanistan. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an old-time Afghan militant commander, is based near the Pakistani border.
"In my view the Pakistanis don't have the capacity to go after some of these groups. Some they do, let me stress, but say Siraj Haqqani holds territory, huge swaths of territory in North Waziristan, where he's been implanted for years," said Patterson.
"My own view is that the Haqqani group is the biggest threat (in Afghanistan). The Quetta Shura, yes, is sort of a command and control. They move in and out of Afghanistan. But the Haqqani group has ... shown the ability to reach all the way to Kabul with these huge attacks, which not only kill loads of people but are also politically destabilizing."
Nevertheless, Patterson said that Pakistan had "taken more action against some of these groups than most people are aware of."
Until 2001, Pakistan openly supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, which in turn hosted al-Qaeda's leadership. Pakistan officially abandoned the Taliban, under enormous American pressure, after the 9-11 attacks. However, many Western military officers think that the Pakistani military, which remains in charge of Afghanistan policy, continues to view Mullah Omar and Haqqani as "assets," an insurance policy it might have to rely on if the U.S. pulls out of Afghanistan and the Taliban return to power. Haqqani has been close to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency since the 1980s.
Pakistan also has grievances against the U.S. Last year, Washington signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal with India, but not with Pakistan. India also has played a significant role in Afghanistan - with an aid program worth more than $1 billion, including road-building and education assistance - which has raised suspicions in Pakistan.
"We consider India as a threat to our security; the Americans don't," said a senior official in the Pakistani administration, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
He added: "We can't go after everyone at the same time - that would destabilize our own country - but we will do it."
Pakistan says that the U.S. has failed to provide it with the right military hardware for the anti-terror fight. Islamabad also thinks that international forces in Afghanistan haven't been effective in sealing their side of the largely unmarked, porous border, so Afghan extremists infiltrate Pakistan and fight the Pakistani army in the tribal area, especially the Bajaur region.
"We have complained and informed them (NATO) that the strength they have on their side of the border (in Afghanistan) is not even a tenth of what we have on our side," said Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, who added that "obviously the threat (in Pakistan) that's more significant will be taken care of first," without specifying what it is.
Underlying Pakistan's concerns in Afghanistan is the grave doubt that top Pakistani military and civilian officials harbor - which Mullen acknowledged in his testimony - about the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, amid growing public opposition to the war there.
"What happens if America leaves? What would Pakistan's situation be the day after?" said Hasan Askari Rizvi, an analyst based in Lahore. "If we pick a fight with every group in the tribal area and Afghanistan, after the Americans leave, everybody would pounce on Pakistan."
The risk is of a self-fulfilling prophecy: that Pakistan's inaction, based on its distrust of American motives, helps lead to the very situation the country says it wants to avoid. If the Taliban retake Afghanistan, Mullen said in his testimony, "the internal threat to Pakistan by extremism will only worsen."
Intellpuke: You can read this article by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Saeed Shah, reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, in context here: www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/75690.html
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