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Security Worsens As Taliban Move Into Northern Afghanistan
September 24, 2009 By Zarif Nazar, Charles Recknagel Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
When Taliban fighters hijacked two NATO fuel tankers along the new northern supply route into Afghanistan earlier this month, they generated international headlines.
Foreign fighters penetrate into N. Afghanistan: newspaper
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of foreign fighters loyal to the Taliban outfit have penetrated into Afghanistan's peaceful northern provinces, a local newspaper reported Thursday.
Today in Afghanistan
TIME By Joe Klein 09/23/2009
Les Gelb has an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, highlighting the President's recent wobblies on Afghanistan and suggesting a middle path forward. Gelb has been a leading Afghanistan skeptic,
US Mideast Commander Endorses Afghanistan Assessment, Current Strategy
By Al Pessin VOA News Pentagon 23 September 2009
The commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, who was also the architect of the Iraq turnaround two years ago, has endorsed the grim assessment by the U.S. and NATO
German troops get the Afghan blues
By Marc Bastian September 24, 2009
(AFP) – KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Just days before elections back home, German soldiers in Afghanistan feel under siege from Taliban attacks and controversy over an air strike that killed a number of civilians.
Does the U.S. still have a vital interest in Afghanistan?
Los Angeles Times 24 Sept 2009
Obama called the war one of necessity, so why is he so reluctant to increase troop levels? Brian Katulis and Gabriel Schoenfeld debate.
Airstrike kills 5 militants, wounds a dozen others in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Air strikes against Taliban militants left five insurgents dead and injured over a dozen others in Taliban former stronghold Kandahar of southern Afghanistan, police said Thursday.
Former Jihadi commander killed in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men shot dead former Jihadi commander Mullah Abdul Rauf in Baghlan province, north of Afghanistan, on Thursday, police said.
Little Afghan appetite for more voting
09/23/2009 BBC News
The head of the commission investigating allegations of fraud in last month's Afghan presidential election says final results will not be known for another 10 to 14 days. Western governments want a thorough
Bashardost files complaint against EU team
Pajhwok By Jawad Sharifzada 09/23/2009
KABUL - Independent presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost has filed a complaint with the Attorney General's office asking for a trial of the European Union election observers.
Provincial intelligence chief escapes roadside bombing in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bombing targeted the vehicle of Abdul Samad, the chief of National Security Directorate (ANSD) in western Farah province, leaving four people wounded Thursday morning,
PM: New Zealand troops out of Afghanistan in 3-5 years
WELLINGTON, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand troops will be out of Afghanistan in three to five years, said Prime Minister John Key on Thursday.
Taliban Widen Afghan Attacks From Base in Pakistan
New York Times By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI September 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - Senior Taliban leaders, showing a surprising level of sophistication and organization, are using their sanctuary in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence in northern and western Afghanistan,
Top General Denies Rift With Obama on Afghan War
New York Times By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT September 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - The senior American commander in Afghanistan on Wednesday rejected any suggestion that his grim assessment of the war had driven a wedge between the military and the Obama administration,
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Security Worsens As Taliban Move Into Northern Afghanistan
September 24, 2009 By Zarif Nazar, Charles Recknagel Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
When Taliban fighters hijacked two NATO fuel tankers along the new northern supply route into Afghanistan earlier this month, they generated international headlines.
NATO planes detected the militants after the vehicles stalled in a riverbed, and the commander of the German troops in Konduz Province ordered an air strike that killed scores of civilians and fighters who had gathered there, possibly to siphon off fuel.
The September 4 incident was surprising not only for the number of victims, but also because of where it took place. Not in the south or east, where Afghanistan's "hot" war is being fought, but where the situation is supposed to be quiet.
Northern Afghanistan may now be on the Western radar, but the Taliban have been building up their forces there for more than a year and a half.
The northern supply route from Tajikistan is intended to supplement the main southern passage through Pakistan, which has come under increasing attack by militants. The deputy governor of Konduz, Hamdullah Danesh, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan his region is an already well-established front line in the Afghan war.
"Konduz Province was previously one of the Taliban's important strongholds, and its impact is still felt in various parts of society," Danesh said. "NATO also wants to use Sher Khan supply route, which crosses Konduz territory, so Afghanistan's enemies -- Al-Qaeda and Taliban -- have decided to undermine security in the area."
More 'Enemy Contact'
Forty percent of the population in Konduz is ethnic Pashtun. The rest comprises Tajiks, Turkmen, Uzbeks, and others. Under Taliban rule, the fundamentalist militia based in Pashtun-dominated southern and eastern Afghanistan established a bridgehead to the north that survived ongoing attack by the Tajik-led Northern Alliance (aka United Front).
When U.S. airpower enabled the Northern Alliance to sweep toward Kabul in the wake of September 11, 2001, one of the fiercest battles took place around the city of Konduz. Thousands of Taliban and foreign fighters resisted a 12-day siege before surrendering.
Now they're back. Taliban fighters are setting up fake checkpoints along the northern road and launching suicide attacks. And they're increasingly engaging German and Afghan security forces in firefights.
"I was in the office of the press officer at Konduz base, and I saw a huge calendar of 2009 where the enemy contact incidents were written down with a pink marker," says Clemens Wergin, chief foreign policy editor for Germany's "Die Welt" magazine, recently visited the German base near Konduz. "It was very impressive to see that from April on you had the whole calendar covered by pink, by firing incidents, by suicide bomb attacks, by ambushes. It is a huge increase in enemy contact."
Frightened Public
German forces, now numbering some 4,500, first arrived in northern Afghanistan in 2002, when the region was relatively quiet and appeared only to need reconstruction.
The Germans welcomed the chance to show the world they could bolster peace by improving the economy. And they made measurable progress, building roads and bridges and providing almost 2,000 households in Konduz with access to clean water.
But today, Taliban attacks have all but stopped the German reconstruction effort.
"Because of the worsening security situation, the German Ministry of Development has moved out of Konduz, the NGOs have moved out of Konduz, and what [the German forces] tell me is that connecting to people is getting more difficult in the villages," says Wergin. "I talked to a unit that was in the Konduz area a year ago and came back again in July and they told me that the security situation worsened 100 percent. They said that before they would go with normal cars, normal jeeps into the villages, talk to the villagers, get information, connect with people, and they say that today they can only go into the villages with heavy armored cars."
Wergin says villagers still welcome German soldiers when they arrive. But locals say night-time reprisals for cooperating with NATO forces has spread a climate of fear over the province.
Working Together?
Three Germans were killed during a clash with the Taliban in June. Since then, the Germans have launched several joint operations with the Afghan Army to try to sweep the Taliban out of a stronghold in the Chahar Dara district. Its border is just 15 minutes from the German base.
But after the operations pushed out the Taliban, militants trickled back again within days. German and Afghan government officials blame each other for the lack of results.
Konduz Governor Mohammd Omar says the Germans aren't willing to seriously challenge the Taliban.
Speaking to Germany's weekly "Der Spiegel," he said that "the last operation in Chahar Dara was unsuccessful because the soldiers were hardly prepared to stage air strikes. They are overly cautious, and they don't even get out of their vehicles."
U.S. commanders have urged German forces to step up combat operations. But the German mission in Afghanistan was never conceived for that purpose and the German military lacks essential combat equipment, says Wergin.
He says that one of the fundamental problems for the Germans is that they "don't have attack helicopters and they are not going to have them for a couple of years."
"The mobility of the forces is not as good as it could be with attack helicopters," says Wergin. "The German army doesn't have those capabilities, and...a whole political process needs to be done in order to have them, first in Germany and then maybe in Afghanistan -- [which] is a very tiresome and very long one."
Caught In The Middle
Defending their actions, the Germans accuse Afghan troops of failing to keep areas secure after they've been cleared of militants. But Afghan forces say they don't have enough soldiers and police to secure areas cleared by foreign troops.
As tensions increase, people in Konduz say they're being forced to take sides. Some families are reported to have sent one son to join the Taliban in case the militants gain control of the region.
Locals also say former warlords are re-arming, and that money allocated for the reconstruction effort in Konduz is contributing to rampant corruption. "People are disappointed," Konduz resident Abdukhaleq -- who like many Afghans uses just one name -- told Radio Free Afghanistan. “And it's contributing to support for the Taliban.”
Radio Free Afghanistan's correspondent in Konduz, Noor Mohammed Sahim, contributed to this report
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Foreign fighters penetrate into N. Afghanistan: newspaper
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of foreign fighters loyal to the Taliban outfit have penetrated into Afghanistan's peaceful northern provinces, a local newspaper reported Thursday.
A senior police officer in the northern Balkh province of Mujtaba Patang, according to the daily Rah-e-Nejat, has insisted that hundreds of militants from Pakistan's lawless tribal areas have shifted to Kunduz, Baghlan and Faryab provinces in north Afghanistan.
These militants, the police officer stressed, are members of the Uzbekistan Islamic Movement fighting under Tahir Yaldash and Juma Namangani.
Kunduz, Baghlan and Faryab have been the scene of Taliban-led militancy over the past couple of months.
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Today in Afghanistan
TIME By Joe Klein 09/23/2009
Les Gelb has an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, highlighting the President's recent wobblies on Afghanistan and suggesting a middle path forward. Gelb has been a leading Afghanistan skeptic, so it's news that he's now in favor of adding two more brigades (about 10,000 troops) to the fight, as well as another 5-10,000 trainers.
This is less than the U.S. military wants--the rumor is 4 to 6 additional brigades (about 25,000 troops)--but it is still a substantial commitment, which Gelb says should last another three years--to transition to Afghan control of the war and an enhanced U.S. counter-terrorism capability, mostly special operations and intelligence forces, to continue the fight against Al Qaeda.
It is notable that Gelb doesn't mention counterinsurgency (COIN), which is what the military is intending to do with the additional forces--as I reported last week, General McChrystal favors a renewed effort to secure the Afghan population in crucial areas like Kandahar city. The Washington Post reports today that McChrystal is beginning to withdraw U.S. troops from isolated rural areas to bolster the effort in more heavily populated districts.
But the most troubling aspect of the Administration's policy is, as Gelb points out, the President's own conflicting statements--hawkish a mere three weeks ago at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, more circumspect during his Sunday morning TV blitz. The circumspection makes sense; the hawkishness doesn't.
There is a need for a new strategy--or maybe just...a strategy. The rigged Afghan elections have demolished the Karzai government's credibility--and a real decision about future troop levels can't be made until the nature of Karzai's second term government becomes clear: for example, will he get rid of corrupt, drug-tainted allies like his brother Ahmed Wali in Kandahar and Sher Ali Akhundzada, who was caught with 9 tons of opium at his compound in Helmand?
Various sources have told me that the Administration now lines up this way on the troops question: Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and Jim Jones are in favor of granting the military's request. Joe Biden is more skeptical, in favor of looking at other options--like fewer troops or the slow transition to counter-terrorism strategy that Gelb suggests. The President is undecided.
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US Mideast Commander Endorses Afghanistan Assessment, Current Strategy
By Al Pessin VOA News Pentagon 23 September 2009
The commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, who was also the architect of the Iraq turnaround two years ago, has endorsed the grim assessment by the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and General David Petraeus says the only way to fight terrorism is to take the multi-dimensional approach embodied in the current strategy there.
General Petraeus says he and the top U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, both endorsed the secret assessment made late last month by the new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. Most of that largely grim assessment was made public Monday by the Washington Post. McChrystal described a situation in which the Taliban and related groups are advancing, and said he needs more resources to avoid mission failure.
Speaking to a conference of military and civilian counterinsurgency experts, General Petraeus declined to discuss the specifics of the McChrystal assessment or the ongoing deliberations, but he did repeat a point he has often made about how he believes extremists must be fought.
"To counter terrorism, and I'm talking about terrorism writ large, extremism, requires more than just your special mission unit forces. It really requires a whole of governments, counterinsurgency approach. Many different government agencies, civil-military partnerships and, again, a comprehensive approach to these problems is the answer," he said.
General Petraeus appeared to be pointedly rejecting suggestions by some analysts, and some officials and members of Congress, that the United States should scale back its ground operations in Afghanistan and focus on air strikes and special operations missions. Other senior military officers and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have made similar points.
But earlier Wednesday, Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell said senior officials are considering whether a full counterinsurgency campaign, with large numbers of troops and civilians, is the right approach. He noted that the president said he would regularly review his policy when he announced it in March. Morrell said the review does not mean that the counterinsurgency approach is over, but rather that U.S. officials want to make sure their strategy is right before committing significant numbers of additional troops.
The spokesman also said the general's specific troop request will be sent to Secretary Gates this week, as the review continues. He said Gates will hold the new troop request until the strategy review is completed. "There is no sense in complicating a discussion about strategy with the resource request. We want to do them in order. And I do not think this is going to take unduly long, nor has it taken unduly long," he said.
Morrell acknowledged that if the president decides to adjust his strategy, there may have to be changes to the troop request. "If there are adjustments, there may have to be adjustments made in terms of what is required to achieve the mission if it changes," he said.
Morrell said the general's request will contain further analysis and a range of force level options for the president to consider, along with a statement of the risks of each option. General McChrystal is expected to ask for tens of thousands more troops in an effort to bring stability to Afghan population centers.
President Obama has already increased the U.S. troop presence by more than 21,000 to about 68,000, and authorized more aggressive operations against the Taliban, which have resulted in a sharp increase in U.S. casualties.
This year, more than 360 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan. That is 25 percent of total U.S. casualties in the full eight years of the war. Morrell acknowledges the troop deployment decision is particularly difficult because of the sharp increase in casualties.
"There are no two people in government who appreciate the gravity of the decisions that are being discussed and that will ultimately be made than the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States. The secretary understands that this is a hugely consequential decision for the president, and he wants to make sure that the president, and himself frankly, are very comfortable with it before they send thousands more young men and women off to battle," he said.
Morrell says it is in the troops' interest for the leaders to come up with a strategy that works.
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German troops get the Afghan blues
By Marc Bastian September 24, 2009
(AFP) – KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Just days before elections back home, German soldiers in Afghanistan feel under siege from Taliban attacks and controversy over an air strike that killed a number of civilians.
In northern Afghanistan, German soldiers defend Colonel Georg Klein for calling in the September 4 strike on two hijacked oil tankers that inflamed the debate about NATO bombings and the battle for Afghan hearts and minds.
Clearly stressed and tight lipped, Klein understandably does not want to discuss the incident. "There are investigations under way, by NATO and by the German judiciary," he told AFP.
An Afghan government report described the attack as a mistake and said it killed 30 civilians as well as 69 Taliban fighters. German allies criticised the strike and NATO acknowledged civilians were among the dead.
Klein's mission, which ends in several weeks, has been fraught. Four soldiers died, dozens were wounded, rockets rain down on his base in northern province Kunduz and now he fears the air strike could be his undoing.
"The situation is still very bad," he said, referring to the increased scope and sophistication of attacks in once relatively peaceful Kunduz, which now straddles a new international military supply line from Tajikistan.
One of his officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, tried to explain that the oil tankers, which were in Taliban hands six kilometres (four miles) from the base, could have been used as mobile bombs.
"The Taliban rounded up villagers so they could use their tractors to haul one of the tankers out of the river," he said.
NATO officials reportedly accused Klein of giving false information to the alliance when he ordered the air strike.
Afghan witnesses at the time said the Taliban invited villagers -- Robin Hood-style -- to siphon off free fuel in order to lighten the tankers.
Colonel Ulrich P is responsible for training Afghan forces to one day replace NATO troops. The German army bans most troops in theatre from divulging their full names for security reasons.
He said the strike followed "new rules of engagement" issued by Berlin in June that were less restrictive than in the past. "The Taliban killed people (the drivers of the tankers), it was necessary to respond," he said.
But the incident could not have come at a worse time for Germany whose citizens are increasingly hostile to the Afghan mission and whose US allies want to limit indiscriminate bombing raids to win the confidence of the Afghan people.
Nearly nine years into the war, Afghanistan has been flung into political crisis after an August election, the results of which are still unknown because of investigations into fraud largely in favour of President Hamid Karzai.
Influential former chancellor Helmut Schmidt blasted Germany's "ever blurrier target" in Afghanistan and said the original aim of depriving Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda of an operational base had failed miserably.
The unpopular Afghan mission has been an issue in parliamentary elections in Germany on Sunday and one which Al-Qaeda has sought to exploit.
The terror network threatened to attack Germany after the elections unless they vote out Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is widely expected to clinch a second term in office, and withdraw the 4,200 troops the German government says are deployed in Afghanistan.
All of Germany's main parties with the exception of the far-left Die Linke support the mission, which has cost the lives of 35 German soldiers, but calls for a timetable for withdrawal have grown louder during the election campaign.
Germany has stepped up security across the country but at the Kunduz base in Afghanistan, everyone is braced for violence -- before or after the election.
"According to our information, orders have come from Pakistan to step up attacks," said Lieutenant Colonel Mickael Weckbach at the large German base in Mazar-i-Sharif in reference to militant commanders across the border.
"The insurgents want to force us to make plans to withdraw," said Captain Thomas K, whose infantry company is often on the frontline in Kunduz.
"The coming six weeks will still be very tense, up to winter," he said.
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Does the U.S. still have a vital interest in Afghanistan?
Los Angeles Times 24 Sept 2009
Obama called the war one of necessity, so why is he so reluctant to increase troop levels? Brian Katulis and Gabriel Schoenfeld debate.
Today's topic: Does the U.S. have a vital interest in the war in Afghanistan anymore? What are we to make of President Obama's reluctance to increase troop levels there even though he has called Afghanistan a "war of necessity"?
More troops aren't a magic bullet
Point: Brian Katulis
The United States absolutely has a vital interest in making sure that Afghanistan doesn't slip into further chaos. The Bush administration took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan, and as a result, the situation there deteriorated. The fundamental question isn't the end goal; the real policy debate is about the most appropriate and effective means toward the end of stabilizing Afghanistan and achieving the goal outlined by President Obama: "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."
At this stage, Obama's reluctance to increase troop levels is not only appropriate but necessary. Asking tough questions about additional troop requests is appropriate given the serious questions about our partners in Afghanistan. Any possible new counterinsurgency strategy in dealing with Afghanistan is dependent on having a government there that not only has legitimacy in the eyes of its people but shares the same goals that we have.
After what I witnessed on the ground in Afghanistan last month as an election observer -- the elections were fraught with widespread fraud -- I have a strong skepticism that there is a partner that shares our goals. Many of the leaders in Afghanistan's government have ties to drug traffickers, and the drug trade funds the Taliban insurgents who are fighting the United States and its allies. Afghanistan is also ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world, according to several independent groups, and millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been lost due to this corruption.
Given these realities, it would be unwise for the United States to send more troops before getting a stronger commitment from Afghanistan's leaders to reduce their country's drug trade and to fight corruption. And absent a strong commitment from Afghanistan's leaders, the United States should consider all of its options for keeping Americans safe and develop a Plan B. Full-blown armed nation-building in a country awash in corruption is not the only way to keep Americans safe. We owe it to our troops and taxpayers to look at all options.
Troop levels are one important variable, but those levels are not the only variable to consider when debating how to achieve the goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States has tripled the number of its troops in Afghanistan since early 2007; simply sending more is not a magic cure.
Finally, any strategy must also deal with what is an even bigger challenge, the country to Afghanistan's east. Pakistan is where key Al Qaeda leaders migrated over the last eight years. Its territory is used by terrorist networks for training and plotting attacks; two recent alleged terror plots in the United States involved people traveling to Pakistan for training.
Obama is doing the right thing in carefully weighing his options in Afghanistan, and as he does so, he should keep in mind the challenges next door in Pakistan. The threats are real, the interests are strong and the real debate is over the means to achieve our goals in both countries.
Brian Katulis is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where his work focuses on U.S. national security policy in the Middle East and South Asia.
As Obama hesitates, victory becomes less likely
Counterpoint: Gabriel Schoenfeld
Thanks, Brian; I completely agree with you about the vital interests at stake in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I am not nearly as sanguine as you are that the Obama administration shares our assessment. Indeed, to judge by some of Obama's recent pronouncements, a deep fog of war seems to have settled over the White House.
To my mind, our two overriding military objectives should remain as they were: to keep the Taliban out of power and on the run, and to destroy any and all remnants of Al Qaeda. The Bush administration must certainly bear historical responsibility for its shortcomings and mistakes. It did not succeed at either objective over an eight-year slog. But neither did it completely fail.
Yet now we are approaching that dangerous point. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commands U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has just offered a grim assessment: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term [the next 12 months] ... risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible." Obama now occupies the Oval Office. If we do fail in Afghanistan over the next year, the responsibility will be his.
As a presidential candidate, Obama called Afghanistan "the central front in the war on terror," and he pledged to supply the resources needed to turn things around and "defeat" Al Qaeda in a "war of necessity." Now, as president, the rhetoric has remained the same; but the policy, as it appears to be shaping up, does not match his utterances.
Indeed, it was clear to all concerned when he put McChrystal in command that the president thought a counterinsurgency strategy involving more troops offered the best chance to reverse the deteriorating war effort. Yet by calling at this juncture for a review of his own fundamental strategy and declaring that no decisions have been made, he appears to be getting cold feet.
If Obama reverses course because of the tainted reelection of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the corruption of his government, then he is breathtakingly naive about the nature of governance in that portion of world. To agonize, as you do, Brian, about whether we have a worthy partner in the government of Afghanistan, is to be blithely indifferent to the real choices before us. Abandoning Afghanistan to its fate under the Taliban because its present government is less than pure would be a foreign policy blunder of the first magnitude, with catastrophic effects on Pakistan and the entire region.
Unfortunately, leading Democrats in Congress are suggesting that the United States should cut its losses. Polls show that Obama's base in the Democratic Party is ready and eager to say farewell to a distant war in a faraway land. I fear that these opinion trends explain what Leslie Gelb, in an important Wall Street Journal Op-Ed article, has called Obama's shift from "confident policy proclamations" to "temporizing statements."
The harsh reality is that temporizing statements can themselves do immense harm. One of McChrystal's observations about Afghanistan is quite pertinent: The "perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents." Hesitation in the White House is thus a critical element in the strategic equation, one that could lead to a rout.
"On the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions who, at the dawn of victory, sat down to wait ... and waiting died," poet George Cecil said in 1923. As Obama ponders away precious time, he should contemplate the poet's words.
Gabriel Schoenfeld is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a resident scholar at the Witherspoon Institute. His latest book, "Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law," will be published by W.W. Norton in 2010.
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Airstrike kills 5 militants, wounds a dozen others in S Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Air strikes against Taliban militants left five insurgents dead and injured over a dozen others in Taliban former stronghold Kandahar of southern Afghanistan, police said Thursday.
"The attack by international troops occurred in Faqiran villageof Arghandab district late Wednesday night as a result five rebelswere killed and 15 others sustained injures," deputy to provincialpolice chief Fazal Mohammad Shirzad told Xinhua.
Meantime, some locals believed that six of the injured men are innocent villagers, but Shirzad insisted that all injured in the air raids are Taliban fighters.
"There were no casualties on civilians," Shirzad stressed.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan government have yet to make any comment.
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Former Jihadi commander killed in N Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men shot dead former Jihadi commander Mullah Abdul Rauf in Baghlan province, north of Afghanistan, on Thursday, police said.
"Mullah Abdul Rauf was on his way to provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri when unidentified men opened fire on his car in Ainal area, killing him on the spot and injuring two others including his son," a police officer Abdul Hai Ramzi told Xinhua.
However, he did not rule out old enmity behind the incident.
Rauf, a pro-government Jihadi commander was among those who had already handed over his arms to government and supported durable peace in the country.
Dozens of former Jihadi leaders who fought the former Soviet Union and resisted Taliban onslaught have been assassinated over the past couple of years.
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Little Afghan appetite for more voting
09/23/2009 BBC News
The head of the commission investigating allegations of fraud in last month's Afghan presidential election says final results will not be known for another 10 to 14 days. Western governments want a thorough investigation to ensure that whoever wins is seen as a credible victor. But it's not a view shared by ordinary Afghans - as Allan Little reports from Kabul.
It's hard to find Afghans with much enthusiasm for a second round presidential election run-off - or even for the drawn-out process of investigation into widespread allegations of electoral fraud.
Even supporters of the main challenger to President Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, seem sceptical at best.
"Many people are poor here," Gul Ahmad, a 53-year-old bus driver, told me.
"A second round would cost a lot of money that should be spent on other things.
"I voted for Dr Abdullah but we should accept the election result now. Everybody should compromise in the interests of the nation."
Afghans know that elections here bring violence. They can also divide the country's main ethnic groups against each other.
Taliban intimidation, together with attacks on polling stations, meant that in much of Afghanistan it took real courage to vote last month. Few want to go through it all again.
Human rights activist Ozala Ashraf Nemat said she, too, was against a second round.
"Why would a second round be any different from the first?" she said.
"Why would it be more free or more fair? Who would guarantee it?
"People feel they have already voted. If there is a second round there will be a much lower turn-out."
The result of that, she added, could be even less credible than that of the first round.
"People are fed up with the delays," she says.
"They just want to get the election over with, they have families to feed - they want to get on with their lives."
Ozala's father, Khaliq Nemat, is an architect and urban planner. He's more worried still about the risks of a second round.
"It is not political ideas that divide the main candidates," he said.
"It is a question of their tribes. There will be intimidation. People will say 'vote for this person or I will burn your house down'.
"I fear that the side that loses could turn to weapons. It could come to civil war."
It is one of the holiest times of the year in the Islamic world. Eid marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting.
At the Wazir Akhbar Khan mosque in central Kabul, the Imam Mohamed Ayaz Niazi, appealed to the faithful to show restraint and patience while the fraud investigation takes place.
He too opposes a second round.
"You cannot expect to have a Western-style election in Afghanistan," he told me.
"The conditions here are not favourable to that. We should accept the results of the election even it is only a small achievement."
Western concerns
If there is public demand for a second round it is not coming from the Afghan public.
It is coming from outside the country. Foreign governments have to keep persuading their own populations that the effort they are putting into the war is worth it.
An election that is widely perceived to be flawed beyond redemption - stolen even - stokes scepticism in Western, not Afghan, public opinion.
And if public support in the West seeps away, it will make the war against the Taliban much harder to win.
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Bashardost files complaint against EU team
Pajhwok By Jawad Sharifzada 09/23/2009
KABUL - Independent presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost has filed a complaint with the Attorney General's office asking for a trial of the European Union election observers.
The EU monitoring team has told a news conference two days back that 1.5 million votes filed for Karzai had dubious status. The team said Dr. Abdullah had 0.3 million and Bashardost had 93,000 doubtful votes in their ballot boxes.
However, speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News on Friday, Bashardost rejected the observation and said he had no observer or representative in any polling station as he could not afford their expenses.
"I filed a complaint with the AG office yesterday about the EU monitoring team," said Bashardost while presenting a copy of the written complaint to this news agency.
The complaint says that the EU monitoring team observations about him were baseless and action should be taken against the team.
He said the EU team had committed the 'crime' in Afghanistan and it must be investigated inside the country. He said there were 27,000 polling stations all over the country. How it was possible for the few observers to visit all those stations?
Bashardost said he would send the same complaint to EU, UNAMA and the foreign troops stationed in Kabul.
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Provincial intelligence chief escapes roadside bombing in W Afghanistan
KABUL, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bombing targeted the vehicle of Abdul Samad, the chief of National Security Directorate (ANSD) in western Farah province, leaving four people wounded Thursday morning, but Samad escaped unhurt, said an official.
"It was around 8 a.m. (GMT0330) as a remote-controlled roadside bomb targeted the car of Abdul Samad, leaving four people, including two bodyguards of the official, wounded," Rohul Hamin, governor of Farah told Xinhua.
"The provincial intelligence chief escaped unhurt," he added.
Taliban militants often used remote control bomb to target officials and security forces but it inflicted civilians casualties.
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PM: New Zealand troops out of Afghanistan in 3-5 years
WELLINGTON, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand troops will be out of Afghanistan in three to five years, said Prime Minister John Key on Thursday.
After talks with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in New York, Key told reporters that while NATO wanted to beef up its presence, "from New Zealand's point of view that's not on the table," the New Zealand Press Association reported on Thursday.
New Zealand's commitment is the 71 Special Air Service (SAS) troops and about 140 defense force personnel who are currently running a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Bamiyan province.
Key has previously said that contribution would be gradually wound down.
There are already more than 100,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, battling a Taliban insurgency which has taken control of many parts of the country.
Key told Rasmussen that New Zealand wanted to exit in three to five years.
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Taliban Widen Afghan Attacks From Base in Pakistan
New York Times By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI September 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - Senior Taliban leaders, showing a surprising level of sophistication and organization, are using their sanctuary in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence in northern and western Afghanistan, senior American military and intelligence officials say.
The Taliban's expansion into parts of Afghanistan that it once had little influence over comes as the Obama administration is struggling to settle on a new military strategy for Afghanistan, and as the White House renews its efforts to get Pakistan's government to be more aggressive about killing or capturing Taliban leaders inside Pakistan.
American military and intelligence officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were discussing classified information, said the Taliban's leadership council, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar and operating around the southern Pakistani city of Quetta, was directly responsible for a wave of violence in once relatively placid parts of northern and western Afghanistan. A recent string of attacks killed troops from Italy and Germany, pivotal American allies that are facing strong opposition to the Afghan war at home.
These assessments echo a recent report by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top military commander in Afghanistan, in portraying the Taliban as an increasingly sophisticated shadow government that sees itself on the cusp of victory in the war-ravaged nation.
General McChrystal's report describes how Mullah Omar's insurgency has appointed shadow governors in most provinces of Afghanistan, levies taxes, establishes Islamic courts there and conducts a formal review of its military campaign each winter.
American officials say they believe that the Taliban leadership in Pakistan still gets support from parts of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's military spy service. The ISI has been the Taliban's off-again-on-again benefactor for more than a decade, and some of its senior officials see Mullah Omar as a valuable asset should the United States leave Afghanistan and the Taliban regain power.
The issue of the Taliban leadership council, or shura, in Quetta is now at the top of the Obama administration's agenda in its meetings with Pakistani officials.
At the same time, American officials face a frustrating paradox: the more the administration wrestles publicly with how substantial and lasting a military commitment to make to Afghanistan, the more the ISI is likely to strengthen bonds to the Taliban as Pakistan hedges its bets.
American officials have long complained that senior Taliban leaders operating from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province, provide money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, where most of the nearly 68,000 American forces are deployed.
But since NATO's offensive into the Taliban-dominated south this spring, the insurgents have surprised American commanders by stepping up attacks against allied troops elsewhere in the country to throw NATO off balance and create the perception of spreading violence that neither the allied military nor the civilian Afghan government in Kabul can control.
“The Taliban is trying to create trouble elsewhere to alleviate pressure” in the south, said one senior American intelligence official. “They've outmaneuvered us time and time again.”
The issue has opened fresh rifts between the United States and Pakistan over how to combat the Taliban leadership council in Quetta. American officials have voiced new and unusually public criticism of Pakistan's role in abetting the growing Afghan insurgency, reviving tensions that seemed to have eased after the two countries worked closely to track and kill Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, in an American missile strike in Pakistan's tribal areas last month.
General McChrystal said in his assessment, which was made public on Monday, “Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, are linked with Al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups,” and are reportedly aided by “some elements” of the ISI.
The United States ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, said in a recent interview with the McClatchy newspapers that the Pakistani government was “certainly reluctant to take action” against the leadership of the Afghan insurgency.
Pakistani officials take issue with that, adding that the United States overstates the threat posed by the Quetta shura, possibly because the American understanding of the situation is distorted by vague and self-serving intelligence provided by Afghanistan's spy service.
A senior Pakistani official said that the United States had asked Pakistan in recent years to round up 10 Taliban leaders in Quetta. Of those 10, 6 were killed or captured by the Pakistanis, 2 were probably in Afghanistan and the remaining 2 presented no threat.
“Pakistan has said it's willing to act when given actionable intelligence,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “We have made substantial progress in the last year or so against the Quetta shura.”
Pakistani officials also said that a move against militant leaders in Quetta risked inciting public anger throughout Baluchistan, a region that has long had a tense relationship with Pakistan's government in Islamabad.
Mullah Omar, a reclusive cleric, recently rallied his troops with a boastful message timed for the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr.
In the message, he taunted his American adversaries for ignoring the lessons of past military failures in Afghanistan, including the invasion of Alexander the Great's army.
And he bragged that the Taliban had emerged as a nationalistic movement that “is approaching the edge of victory.”
A half-dozen American military, intelligence and diplomatic officials said in interviews that the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan, which abuts the portion of southern Afghanistan where most of the fighting is taking place, is increasing its strategic direction over the insurgency.
The Taliban inner shura in Baluchistan is certainly trying to exercise greater command and control over the Taliban in Afghanistan,” said one American official in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his assessment involved classified intelligence.
The official said that Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a former inmate at the American military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is now a top Taliban lieutenant, was involved in replacing Taliban shadow governors and commanders, as well as reorganizing the Taliban throughout the country. “The Quetta shura — you can't knock on their clubhouse door,” a Western diplomat said. “It's much more of an amorphous group that as best we can tell moves around. They go to Karachi, they go to Quetta, they go across the border.”
American officials grudgingly acknowledge the Taliban's skill at using guerrilla-style attacks to manipulate public impressions of the insurgency. “We assess that the primary focus of attacks in northern provinces such as Kunduz is to create a perception that the insurgency is spreading like wildfire,” the American official in Afghanistan said. “But I think it's more of an ‘information operations' success than a substantive one of holding any territory.”
Another American intelligence official who follows Pakistan closely said the insurgents had sought to exploit allied countries' political vulnerabilities, like elections in Germany on Sunday. “The Taliban have proven themselves capable of strategic planning,” the official said.
General McChrystal said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that he had been surprised by “the growth of the shadow government, the growth of its coercion and its growth into the north and west.”
Germany, which has suffered 33 combat deaths in Afghanistan, has remained committed to the Afghan mission, although it has placed strict limits on where its soldiers can serve, refusing to send them to the south.
But that commitment is now being hotly debated in the coming parliamentary elections, after an airstrike called in by a German commander this month. The NATO airstrike, directed at two tanker trucks carrying alliance fuel that had been hijacked by the Taliban, killed scores of people; the number of dead civilians remains unclear.
Other allies are also rethinking their presence in Afghanistan. A bomb that killed six Italian soldiers in Kabul last Thursday prompted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy to declare that his nation had begun planning to “bring our young men home as soon as possible.” Italy has 3,100 troops in Afghanistan.
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Top General Denies Rift With Obama on Afghan War
New York Times By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT September 23, 2009
WASHINGTON - The senior American commander in Afghanistan on Wednesday rejected any suggestion that his grim assessment of the war had driven a wedge between the military and the Obama administration, but he warned against taking too long to settle on a final strategy.
The commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said in an interview that he welcomed the fierce debate that had emerged this week over how to carry out the war.
“A policy debate is warranted,” General McChrystal said in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Kabul.
“We should not have any ambiguities, as a nation or a coalition,” he added. “At the end of the day, we're putting young people in harm's way.”
President Obama's top advisers are rethinking the strategy that Mr. Obama unveiled in March, amid a growing political divide in the United States over how to proceed and confusion among allies that have fighting forces in Afghanistan.
General McChrystal would not address how many additional combat troops he would seek in a request he is preparing to send to the Defense Department. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Wednesday that the commander's request would be submitted this week, even though no decisions would be made until the administration had finished its newest review of Afghanistan policy.
In his confidential assessment delivered on Aug. 30, General McChrystal warned that he needed more troops within the next year or else the conflict most likely would result in failure.
“I had absolute freedom to put in a candid assessment, and I did that,” he said in the interview, his first since submitting his 66-page classified report. “I have not been limited in any way in identifying resources that might be required.”
General McChrystal said he agreed to speak to The New York Times on Wednesday after he became increasingly concerned about reports of rifts between the military and the civilian leadership, and about rumors he was considering resigning if his assessment was not accepted.
The general denied that he had discussed — or even considered — resigning his command, as had been whispered about at the Pentagon, saying that he was committed to carrying out whatever mission Mr. Obama approved.
“I believe success is achievable,” he said. “I can tell you unequivocally that I have not considered resigning at all.”
The general said that after submitting his report, he had been directed to provide more information and respond to several questions, including on perhaps the thorniest issue: the impact of the flawed Afghan presidential election. Allegations of widespread ballot fraud have raised serious doubts about the legitimacy of President Hamid Karzai as a partner in the counterinsurgency campaign.
“We are doing an assessment almost on a constant basis,” General McChrystal said, speaking of both the twists and turns of the military mission and the political developments in Afghanistan.
He would not address various proposals for reshaping the mission that differ from his, including an approach supported by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back the military operation in Afghanistan to focus instead on terrorists seeking haven in Pakistan.
The commander said that he welcomed alternative proposals for how to stabilize Afghanistan and stressed that he did not feel that his analysis had been diminished in the view of senior administration officials because of its blunt tone.
“This is the right kind of process, and the way I see duty,” he said. “I have been given the opportunity to provide my inputs to the decision. Then it is my duty to execute that decision.”
General McChrystal, who assumed command of the American and NATO operations in Afghanistan in June, said that he had not spoken directly to Mr. Obama since he submitted his assessment, but that he expected he would after the president and his advisers had time to digest it.
Separately, at a conference in Washington, Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American forces in the Middle East, said that both he and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had endorsed General McChrystal's broad assessment of the situation in Afghanistan.
Asked to evaluate the impact of possible delays on endorsing a new strategy and considering troops requests, General McChrystal said, “Obviously, from a strictly military standpoint, time is always important, but it also is relative in this case.”
The general said he never was told to delay his troop request because of political concerns in Washington.
“My prognosis probably did exactly what it should have done: It got people to stop and say, ‘Wait a minute. Let's look at the basic premise,' ” he said. “To me, there's no rift. There's no boxing anybody in.”
Even in advance of any decisions by the Obama administration, General McChrystal said he was taking steps to reshape the war effort in Afghanistan, including changing the way coalition forces develop Afghanistan's own security forces.
While there are a range of opinions in Congress on whether to send more combat troops, there is broad support for making a priority of building up Afghanistan's army and police force.
General McChrystal said he had ordered allied forces working with Afghan soldiers and police officers to go beyond organizing, training and equipping local forces; American and NATO units now try to build “a full-time partnership” with local forces, expanding the relationship to include living side by side, combining their planning efforts and going out on operations together.
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