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Afghan cabinet minister escapes Taliban attack
Sun Sep 27, 3:44 am ET
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A roadside bomb targeting an Afghan cabinet minister exploded in the western city of Herat on Sunday, killing at least three people, officials said.
Afghan minister expresses concern over security situation
KABUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan Minister for Energy and Water Mohammad Ismael Khan on Sunday expressed concern over security situation in the country as he escaped unhurt suicide attack.
6 foreign troops killed in Afghanistan
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A suicide car bomb explosion targeting Afghanistan's energy minister killed four civilians Sunday, while attacks and a violent storm killed six international troops, including three French and two American forces, officials said.
UK soldier killed in Afghanistan
Sunday, 27 September 2009 11:45 UK BBC News
A British soldier has died following an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.
McChrystal Says Insurgents Are Winning Communications Battle
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 27, 2009
The United States and its allies in Afghanistan must "wrest the information initiative" from the Taliban and other insurgent groups that have undermined the credibility of the Kabul government and its international backers
Afghanistan, via war and election, by minibus
by Lynne O'donnell – Sun Sep 27, 2:30 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Getting caught in the crossfire of battling warlords or caught short with dysentery might not be the best selling points for the holiday of a lifetime, but in Afghanistan it's all part of the adventure.
No Deadline Set for Decision on Troops
Obama to Reassess Afghanistan War
Washington Post By Bob Woodward Sunday, September 27, 2009
President Obama has not set a deadline for determining a new strategy or for committing more troops to the war in Afghanistan, despite an urgent request from his top commander, his national security adviser said Saturday.
Afghan bread basket flung into violence
by Marc Bastian – Sun Sep 27, 1:37 am ET
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – Ethnic tensions, land disputes and a new US supply line have plunged Afghanistan's bread basket and northern province Kunduz into violence, putting German troops on the frontline.
No rift between military and White House: Gates
by Dan De Luce – 26 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday denied any rift between the US military and the White House over the war in Afghanistan, and suggested a possible radical shift in strategy was unlikely.
Diverse Sources Fund Insurgency In Afghanistan
Restricting Cash Flow Difficult, U.S. Says
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, September 27, 2009
KABUL -- The Taliban-led insurgency has built a fundraising juggernaut that generates cash from such an array of criminal rackets, donations, taxes, shakedowns and other schemes that U.S. and Afghan officials
Independent Afghan security still a long way off
By Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An army isn't built overnight and in the case of Afghanistan there's little chance its military will be ready to safeguard national security on its own any time soon.
Afghan, NATO forces detain several insurgents in South
KABUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) arrested several suspected Taliban insurgents in militants' former stronghold
Pakistan blasts show Taliban's ability to strike
By Zarar Khan, Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD – The suicide blasts that rocked northwest Pakistan over the weekend signal the Taliban remain a threat despite intensified military operations and unmanned drone attacks targeting the group's leaders, analysts said Sunday.
Three French soldiers die in Afghanistan: presidency
Sun Sep 27, 4:56 am ET
PARIS (AFP) – Three French soldiers died accidentally during an operation in a valley in northeastern Afghanistan, the French presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
Japan mulls Afghan military aircraft plan: report
Sun Sep 27, 1:39 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan is considering using military aircraft to deliver relief supplies to Afghan refugees as an alternative to its naval mission supporting US-led operations in Afghanistan, a report said Sunday.
Powell warning to Obama on Afghanistan
PETER BAKER AND ELISABETH BUMILLER, WASHINGTON The Age Australia September 28, 2009
AS US President Barack Obama weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency, a key figure from the Bush administration has questioned the usefulness of such a move.
Support for Afghanistan war lukewarm
MICHELLE GRATTAN The Age Australia September 28, 2009
FIVE in 10 Australians oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, but the proportion opposed has declined since last year, according to a new poll.
Contractors busy in southern Afghanistan; projects employing villagers
By Bruce Ward, Ottawa Citizen September 27, 2009 12:01 PM
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD -- U.S. expansion in the south of Afghanistan is creating a scarcity of contractors in the area, says Canada's top military engineer. And that's a sign of progress.
Afghan official calls for int'l community's double efforts in war against drug
September 27, 2009 People's Daily
Spokesman of the Afghan Counter Narcotics Ministry Zalmay Afzali Saturday urged the international community and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners to do more in Afghanistan to stop poppy cultivation in the war-torn country.
Afghan man kills 15 of own family
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Sep 27 2:21 AM
An Afghan man killed 15 members of his family before ending his own life in a rare such incident in Afghanistan, a government official said on Sunday. Skip related content
Taliban ratchet up fear in Kandahar city
Globe and Mail Gloria Galloway Saturday, Sep. 26, 2009
Kandahar, Afghanistan - The fast of Ramadan had ended and the feasting of Eid had begun. The little girl, who lived in Kandahar city with her family, wanted to buy some candles to give to friends as gifts. Her 12-year-old brother wanted some shoes and a haircut.
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Afghan cabinet minister escapes Taliban attack
Sun Sep 27, 3:44 am ET
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A roadside bomb targeting an Afghan cabinet minister exploded in the western city of Herat on Sunday, killing at least three people, officials said.
Energy and Water Minister Mohammad Ismail Khan, a prominent anti-Taliban commander, was not hurt, police said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Khan, a key member of the Northern Alliance whose forces helped U.S. forces in toppling the Taliban in 2001.
"The target was Ismail Khan," Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The explosion occurred outside a school in Herat, killing three people and wounding 16, residents and a doctor said.
Police in Kabul said Khan survived the attack unscathed.
"He was on his way to Kabul and is fine," a police source in Kabul said. "But civilians have been killed."
(Reporting by Sharafuddin Sharafyar and Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Maria Golovnina)
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Afghan minister expresses concern over security situation
KABUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan Minister for Energy and Water Mohammad Ismael Khan on Sunday expressed concern over security situation in the country as he escaped unhurt suicide attack.
Khan who survived life attempt in his home province Herat in west Afghanistan said that deteriorating security situation has negatively affected investment process in the country especially in the relatively peaceful Herat.
A suicide car bomb apparently targeted Khan this morning in Herat city claimed the lives of four people and injured 17 others, all of them civilians.
Khan also stressed that 60 militant groups are active in west Afghanistan undermining fragile security if the government does not take necessary steps.
Taliban insurgents who claimed responsibility of attack on Ismael Khan have speed up their attacks against government interest mostly in the shape of deadly suicide and roadside bombings.
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6 foreign troops killed in Afghanistan
By Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writer
KABUL – A suicide car bomb explosion targeting Afghanistan's energy minister killed four civilians Sunday, while attacks and a violent storm killed six international troops, including three French and two American forces, officials said.
Taliban assassination attempts against Afghan officials have intensified this year, with more than 100 officials and pro-government tribal elders attacked — half of them fatally.
The convoy carrying Energy Minister Ismail Khan, a powerbroker in the western region of Herat, was headed to the airport when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a high school, said Raouf Ahmadi, a police spokesman. Ahmadi said four civilians died and 17 people were wounded, including four of Khan's bodyguards.
He said Khan escaped unharmed and arrived safely at the airport.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility and said the explosion targeted Khan, who was once governor of Herat, a western province bordering Iran.
The Taliban assassination campaign is a strong sign of deteriorating security in the country, where a record number of U.S. and NATO troops have also died this year. The Obama administration is now debating whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan as its government faces allegations of widespread fraud from the disputed Aug. 20 presidential election.
An airstrike Saturday by international forces in Wardak province, bordering Kabul, killed three Afghan civilians, said Shahidullah Shahid, spokesman for the provincial governor. Civilian deaths in airstrikes have infuriated Afghans, and the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has made protecting innocent Afghans a top priority.
Two U.S. service members died Saturday in the country's south — one from a roadside bomb explosion and the other from an insurgent attack, the NATO-led force said. A British soldier died Sunday from a bomb explosion while patrolling in southern Afghanistan, Britain's Defense Ministry said.
Elsewhere, three French soldiers died in a violent storm in northeastern Afghanistan late Saturday. One soldier was struck by lightning while two were swept away by a rain-swollen river during an operation in Kapisa province, said military spokesman Christophe Prazuck.
This year has been the deadliest of the eight-year war for U.S. and NATO troops. The latest six deaths bring to 64 the number of NATO troops killed this month.
Elsewhere in western Afghanistan, three Afghan civilians died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Farah province. Gen. Mohammad Faqir Askir, Farah's police chief, said the vehicle had just turned off the main highway toward a village when the bomb exploded.
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said seven Taliban militants were killed in a gunbattle Saturday with police in Kunduz province, once a relatively peaceful region in the north of the country that has recently seen more violence as militants try to expand control.
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UK soldier killed in Afghanistan
Sunday, 27 September 2009 11:45 UK BBC News
A British soldier has died following an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The soldier served with 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, the MoD added. Next of kin have been informed.
The MoD said he was was caught in the blast while on a vehicle patrol in the Musa Qal'eh district in northern Helmand Province, on Sunday morning.
The latest fatality takes the UK armed forces death toll in Afghanistan since combat operations began in 2001 to 218.
Task Force Helmand spokesman Lieutenant Col Nick Richardson said the loss of "this brave soldier" from would be mourned by his friends and colleagues.
Col Richardson added: "We know that our loss is nothing compared to the sorrow of his family, to whom we extend our deepest sympathies."
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McChrystal Says Insurgents Are Winning Communications Battle
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 27, 2009
The United States and its allies in Afghanistan must "wrest the information initiative" from the Taliban and other insurgent groups that have undermined the credibility of the Kabul government and its international backers, according to the top U.S. and NATO commander in the country.
"The information domain is a battlespace," Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal wrote in an assessment made public on Monday, adding that the allies need to "take aggressive actions to win the important battle of perception."
As an initial step, McChrystal wants to change the goal of public relations efforts in Afghanistan from a "struggle for the 'hearts and minds' of the Afghan population to one of giving them 'trust and confidence' " in themselves and their government. At the same time, he said, more effort should be made to "discredit and diminish insurgents and their extremist allies' capability to influence attitudes and behavior in Afghanistan."
One way to accomplish that, McChrystal wrote, is to target insurgent networks "to disrupt and degrade" their effectiveness. Another is to expose what he calls the insurgents' "flagrant contravention of the principles of the Koran," including indiscriminate use of violence and terrorism, and attacks on schools and development projects.
McChrystal's approach mirrors one that U.S. intelligence operatives are taking covertly, with some success, in the Middle East, where direct and indirect support is being given to Islamic leaders who speak out against terrorists. Michael E. Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said last year that the goal is to show "that it is al-Qaeda, not the West, that is truly at war with Islam."
Echoing that idea, McChrystal recognized in his report that Afghans traditionally communicate by word of mouth. He called for better exploitation of those "more orthodox methods" -- getting "authoritative figures" such as religious leaders and tribal elders to deliver the messages "so that they are credible."
One of the main changes from the current approach should be creating "opportunities for Afghans to communicate as opposed to attempting to always control the message," McChrystal wrote.
Another element he wants changed is the military's public responsiveness to incidents involving U.S. or allied forces that result in Afghan civilian deaths. Overreliance on firepower that kills civilians and destroys homes "severely damaged" the coalition's legitimacy in the eyes of Afghans, he noted, saying the Taliban publicized such incidents.
New procedures must be developed for sharing information about such events, he wrote, so that when they happen, "we are first with the truth."
McChrystal's recommended expansion of the Afghan strategic communications program followed public calls for such a step by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and by Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to the region. Holbrooke has repeatedly complained that the Taliban has communicated more effectively than the United States, and he told a House subcommittee in June that there was a need to refine the coalition's message and use new ways to reach Afghans, suggesting cellphones, radio and other means.
Mullen, in a recent issue of Joint Force Quarterly, emphasized that the problem with communicating with people rested on "policy and execution." He added, "To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate."
McChrystal wants new emphasis put on improving the Afghan government's capacity in the information field, including better partnerships with the spokesmen of the Defense and Interior ministries. A proposed contract for 275 contractors to work in the Defense Ministry says two are to be assigned to the public affairs office to develop an "effective" media relations program.
McChrystal also called in his assessment for the coalition to develop its own print, radio and television systems, and to take steps to "partner more effectively with the Afghan commercial sector."
In addition, McChrystal lists as a goal making public relations efforts beyond Afghanistan more effective. There has already been a step-up in press material sent to U.S. journalists. On Friday, seven releases were sent to The Washington Post, including one with four photos. The caption of one photo reads: "An Afghan commando team advances toward practice targets at a Kandahar training facility Sept. 24. Afghan National Army and police training is overseen by ISAF military mentors, with a goal that the Afghans will one day independently foster peace and stability in Afghanistan."
Congress, however, has expressed concern about the rapid growth of the military's involvement in an area once under the purview of the State Department. In July, the House Appropriations Committee, in approving the fiscal 2010 defense funding bill, said it had identified 10 strategic communications programs that boosted costs from $9 million in fiscal 2005 to a "staggering $988 million request for fiscal 2010." The committee said many of the costlier programs appear as "alarmingly non-military propaganda, public relations, and behavioral modification messaging."
In Iraq, the U.S. military spent more than $500 million over six years developing a public relations campaign run mainly by American contractors. Starting with nearly $100 million for a U.S. contractor to run the newspaper, radio and television networks owned by one of Saddam Hussein's sons, the strategic communications program was expanded to include billboards, pamphlets, radio and TV spots, and programs to place articles in Iraqi newspapers and magazines.
In June, The Post's Ernesto Londo?o reported from Baghdad that the multimillion-dollar campaign ultimately did not help burnish the U.S. military's image, marginalize extremists, promote democracy or foster reconciliation.
By way of example, Londo?o quoted Ziyad al-Aajeely, director of Iraq's nonprofit Journalistic Freedom Observatory, as saying while he flipped through an issue of the U.S.-subsidized newspaper Baghdad Now: "The millions spent on this is wasted money. Nobody reads this."
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Afghanistan, via war and election, by minibus
by Lynne O'donnell – Sun Sep 27, 2:30 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Getting caught in the crossfire of battling warlords or caught short with dysentery might not be the best selling points for the holiday of a lifetime, but in Afghanistan it's all part of the adventure.
A recent group of intrepid -- some would say ill-advised -- travellers who drove through central Afghanistan had to deal with security forces on heightened alert for insurgents bent on disrupting national elections.
For three weeks they bedded down in tiny guesthouses after days spent bouncing along war-pitted roads in an unsprung minibus, being roughed up by police at armed checkpoints and facing daily fear of kidnap.
Amid the discomfort and fear, they discovered the warmth of people who spontaneously invited them home for tea and cake, as well as breathtaking scenery and some of the world's greatest but least visited historical sites.
Geoff Hann, a Briton who specialises in travel through seemingly inaccessible parts of the world, has been bringing tourists to Afghanistan -- on and off depending on the security situation -- for 30 years.
Leading his latest group of five, he arrived in Kabul on August 2 for a tour of some of the many sites, including the minaret of Jam and the mountainside niches that once held the Bamiyan buddhas, that could make Afghanistan, once again, a tourism hotspot.
But as a Taliban-linked insurgency expands its footprint across the destitute country, the flow of tourists that reached a peak in the 1970s has slowed to barely a trickle.
European tourists first started coming to Afghanistan in 1959, when 600 came to see historical sites on horseback, said Sayed Amanuddin Baha, director of the culture ministry's Afghan Tour travel agency.
By 1977, when Afghanistan was a fixture on the hash-hazed hippy trail, the country was earning millions of dollars a year from about 120,000 foreign visitors, he said.
Since then, Afghanistan has been mired in violence and during the rule of Taliban fanatics from 1996-2001, few foreigners were granted visas.
Things began to pick up after the Taliban -- who refused to expel Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks -- were overthrown in late 2001 in a US-led invasion.
But with the insurgents having re-established a permanent presence in many parts of the country, visitors who come for pleasure are rare.
Hann's group ranged in age from 29-year-old Mark Hansel, an electrical engineer and history buff from London, to 79-year-old Jo Gilbert, an inveterate traveller from San Francisco and one of two women on the trip.
After a day spent bumping over cratered roads, the group would sometimes turn up at a remote teahouse, the only accommodation available, to find they had to share a room and, yet again, forgo a shower.
"I didn't mind the conditions at all," said Gilbert, a former prison officer who described herself as "a traveller and a blogger".
"We became tolerant of each other's foibles," she said, as Hansel mumbled: "It's not like we had a choice."
Hann said he aims for a few tours a year -- 10 travellers being the optimum number -- despite the deteriorating security situation, and finds most problems are more to do with the digestion than security.
"We get people who get dysentery. One lady broke a foot -- she stumbled along on a crutch. Three or four years ago we were caught up in a warlord's battle and we had moments in 2001 when we came up against the Taliban.
"My philosophy is that you could be in your hotel and get blown up, which is fairly unlikely. We are not in the danger area for IEDs," he said, referring to roadside bombs the Taliban deploy against foreign and Afghan troops, mostly in the south where their influence is strongest.
"When it comes to kidnapping, we don't advertise where we're going or what we're doing, we use local transport hired on the spot and I find that people look after us as their guests -- and they want the money," he said.
For those willing to risk a war-zone vacation, insurance costs 200-350 pounds (325-570 dollars) for three weeks, he said, and double that for the over-75s.
Gilbert said she has been traversing the globe since 1976, largely alone since her husband died in 2003.
She wanted to see Afghanistan "outside the urbanised bubble of Kabul", she said. Because the war-ravaged country is in such dire need of help rebuilding itself after 30 years of war, she would like to do voluntary work.
"I can teach, I was a prison officer so I can work with the police, work in jails, as a consultant," she said.
After a couple of days in noisy, dirty Kabul -- where most buildings are hidden behind massive blast-proof walls and barbed wire, and traffic follows no discernible rules -- the group headed north to Mazar-i-Sharif.
That meant driving through the Salang tunnel on what has become, just weeks later, one of the most dangerous highways in the country.
Locals report increased Taliban activity as the insurgents target a new supply line from Tajikistan for the more than 100,000 foreign troops under NATO and US command.
Mazar, a bustling trading cross-roads for Central Asia, is famous for its carpets and textiles, and the Blue Mosque, which is revered by Shiite Muslims and which is under a constant cloud of circling white doves.
From there they drove to Bamiyan, formerly home to the famous Buddhas carved into the side of a mountain 2,500 metres (8,200 feet) above sea level about a thousand years ago but destroyed by the Taliban in early 2001 as idolatrous.
The group visited some of the country's most famous landmarks, including the minaret of Jam in Ghor province, a region so poor that even the capital Chaghcharan has little electricity or running water.
Not far from the minaret, the group had an unnerving encounter when their minibus was flagged down by two armed men.
"It was a nervous time for about five minutes," said Londoner Kulvinder Matharu, 44, a telecoms engineer and keen amateur photographer.
"I was thinking we'd have to get the dollars out and pay these people off," he said, the memory of his fear still fresh.
In contrast, he said, he was delighted by the charm and hospitality of the western city of Herat, regarded as Afghanistan's most cultured city and where Iran's influence is strong.
"In Kabul it's edgy and you feel slightly under siege but Herat seemed like a different country," Matharu said.
"Out of the blue, this family asked us to share cake and tea with them, and I thought that was wonderful."
Security considerations forced Hann to change some plans -- arriving by air rather than driving through the famed Khyber Pass from Pakistan and spending time in Kabul around the election rather than venturing too far from safety.
Nevertheless, Gilbert said the August 20 poll "was one of the reasons I was glad to be here at this time, to see how involved the people were everywhere we went in the election".
The vote has since descended into farce amid allegations of fraud that could force President Hamid Karzai into a run-off against his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
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No Deadline Set for Decision on Troops
Obama to Reassess Afghanistan War
Washington Post By Bob Woodward Sunday, September 27, 2009
President Obama has not set a deadline for determining a new strategy or for committing more troops to the war in Afghanistan, despite an urgent request from his top commander, his national security adviser said Saturday.
In a lengthy telephone interview, retired Gen. James L. Jones outlined Obama's plans for reassessing the war effort. Jones noted that although the administration has seen some progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it remains uncertain about the outcome of President Hamid Karzai's contentious bid for reelection.
Obama has scheduled at least five meetings with his national security team over the next weeks to reexamine the strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Tuesday marks the start of five scheduled intensive discussions with the National Security Council, as well as field commanders and regional ambassadors, on Afghanistan," Jones said.
He said he expects two of the meetings to be held the next week but stressed that there is no target date to complete the review. "I don't have a deadline in my mind. I think the most important thing is to do it right. But it is going to have a high priority in the administration to do this pretty relentlessly. We have a lot of other things on the table as well."
In his Aug. 30 classified assessment, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and International Security Assistance Force commander, said he urgently needs more troops within the next year or his mission will "likely result in failure." McChrystal advocated a full counterinsurgency strategy in which the military aggressively and systematically protects the Afghan population, and will request 10,000 to 40,000 more troops to carry out his counterinsurgency mission, according to sources.
The upcoming meetings will begin with the assumption that the McChrystal strategy is correct, Jones said, adding that the president will "encourage free-wheeling discussion" and that "nothing is off the table."
Asked why al-Qaeda, which is comparatively safe in its current sanctuaries in Pakistan, would want to return to Afghanistan, where more than 100,000 U.S. and NATO troops are stationed, Jones said, "That's a good question. This is certainly one of the questions that we will be discussing. This is one of the questions, for example, that one could come back at with General McChrystal."
Jones said it remains possible that, after a decision on strategy by the president, McChrystal might change his mind about the need for more troops. "We will ask General McChrystal, and say, 'Okay, now that you've heard what our strategy is, does this affect your thinking in terms of your resources and, if so, how?' " Jones said.
Other advisers have pushed markedly different approaches to the conflict. Vice President Biden has urged Obama to adopt a traditional counterterrorism strategy focusing on military strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Taliban in Afghanistan. This would presumably require fewer troops, possibly fewer than the 68,000 U.S. forces the president has already authorized.
Obama's calculations about how to proceed in Afghanistan are occurring as the war is presenting a political challenge at home. Congressional Democrats have become increasingly skeptical about the war; Republicans voice support for McChrystal's assessment and the likely troop request.
Jones stressed that the president and his advisers will spend the coming weeks focusing on strategy before addressing any troop request.
"The bumper sticker here is strategy before resources," said Jones, adding: "This isn't just about more troops."
Jones said the Aug. 20 Afghan election, rife with allegations of ballot stuffing and other fraud, caused the administration to pause. The president wants "to make sure this comes out as a legitimate election."
As of Saturday, Jones said, "It is hard to predict whether the results will be that Karzai will be declared a winner or there will be a runoff. . . . We don't know how it's going to turn out."
The administration hopes that there will be a resolution to the election by early October and that any possible runoff election would be carried out before winter.
On the positive front, Jones said the Pakistani military has been "proactive" and "pulled troops off their Indian border" to launch successful operations against the Taliban in Pakistan.
When Obama announced the current Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy on March 27, he also planned to review the effectiveness of the strategy after the Afghan election, Jones said.
"I don't think anybody in the allied effort seriously thinks that Afghanistan is about to fall to the Taliban," Jones said. He added that two-thirds of Afghans live in areas that are "completely under government and local control, and are doing reasonably well."
Though Obama is conducting a broad strategic review, Jones said, "Some things have already been decided. We know we're going to build the Afghan army at a faster rate. We know we're going to do the same for the police."
Jones said the challenges Obama faces in the Afghan war are more "complex" and "bigger than the surge" decision President George W. Bush faced in Iraq three years ago.
In early 2007, Bush ordered the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Iraq as a "surge" to assist in the counterinsurgency strategy of protecting Iraqis. The surge is now regarded as one of several factors that helped stabilize Iraq and reduce violence there.
"This is bigger than the surge," Jones said. "This is more complex. There are more moving parts."
Josh Boak and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.
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Afghan bread basket flung into violence
by Marc Bastian – Sun Sep 27, 1:37 am ET
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (AFP) – Ethnic tensions, land disputes and a new US supply line have plunged Afghanistan's bread basket and northern province Kunduz into violence, putting German troops on the frontline.
The Taliban insurgency plaguing the destitute country and the 100,000 NATO and US troops fighting a war increasingly unpopular at home, has expanded and now threatens the once peaceful north.
"Westerners have concentrated their attention on the south, neglecting the north. The Taliban have had the space to move in progressively," said Mariam Abou Zahab from the Centre for International Studies and Research in Paris.
Kunduz, which shares a mountain border with Tajikistan, is awash with ethnic tension and factional fighting. It is a place where land conflicts have been exploited by Islamist militants, analysts believe.
Kunduz has Tajik, Uzbek and Pashtun populations, the latter the dominant group in Afghanistan that feeds the bulk of the Taliban ranks and generally concentrated in the scorched desert terrain of the south.
But historical inter-Afghan violence is being turned on foreign troops, according to local non-profit think-tank, Cooperation for Peace and Unity.
The German military, which has lost four soldiers so far this year, had dozens wounded and estimates that one in two patrols is attacked, believes Al-Qaeda are also a presence alongside other Islamist insurgents.
"We have several Al-Qaeda fighters, sometimes foreign, who give money and orders," said Colonel Ulrich P, who is responsible for training Afghan forces and whose family name cannot be divulged for security reasons.
The security threat has mounted ahead of Germany's parliamentary elections this Sunday, which Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives are expected to win despite plunging support for the German mission among the public.
A recent message purportedly from Osama bin Laden with German subtitles demanded Europeans leave Afghanistan and a recent German-language video threatened Al-Qaeda attacks if Germans voted Merkel back in.
The insurgents want to "influence the German parliamentary elections," believes Captain Thomas K -- after threatening to disrupt Afghan presidential elections last month, which have been marred by fraud and low turnout.
Pashtuns first arrived in Kunduz, where a moderate climate makes it possible for farmers to reap harvests several times a year, in the early 20th century as part of forced re-settlements under the Afghan monarchy.
Thousands of Tajiks and Uzbeks were stripped of their lands, sowing the seeds of localised conflicts that continue to this day.
Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose Hezb-e Islami is fighting against foreign troops and the Afghan government, was born in Kunduz.
The province later became a Taliban stronghold when the Islamist movement ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the 2001 US-led invasion.
"The Pashtuns who supported them have since paid dearly," said Abou Zahab, killed in their hundreds or even thousands according to human rights groups.
A new supply line for Western forces from Tajikistan to Kabul, via Kunduz, in order to limit the dependence on dangerous routes coming from Pakistan, is also whetting insurgent appetites.
It was on this road that two oil tankers destined for NATO were hijacked and against which German troops called in a September 4 air strike that the Afghan government said killed 30 civilians on top of 69 Taliban fighters.
It is also the route north for drugs. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium and the trade finances the rebellion.
"The insurgents' strategy seems similar to the 1990s (when mujahedeen fought Soviet troops): block the routes and supply lines and besiege foreign troops in their bases," said Abou Zahab.
Afghan analyst Waheed Mujda suggested that Russia and central Asian states might increasingly ally themselves to the United States in order to counter a rising threat to their own stability emanating from northern Afghanistan.
"Central Asia countries and the Russian federation may feel the dangers close by. These countries may be obliged to further cooperate in the US war on terror, and gradually allow more American bases on their soil," he told AFP.
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No rift between military and White House: Gates
by Dan De Luce – 26 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday denied any rift between the US military and the White House over the war in Afghanistan, and suggested a possible radical shift in strategy was unlikely.
Asked if there was tension between military and civilian leaders over the pace of decision-making on the US-led mission, Gates said: "I don't think that's the case at all."
Citing "an extensive conversation on the telephone" on Wednesday with the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, Gates said the military leader supported President Barack Obama's preference to take time to review strategy before weighing a request for more troops.
"General McChrystal was very explicit in saying that he thinks this assessment, this review that's going on right now is exactly the right thing to do," Gates told ABC television's "This Week" in an interview taped Friday and broadcast on Sunday.
"He obviously doesn't want it to be open-ended or be a protracted kind of thing."
The Pentagon chief mentioned no deadline but said he expected the White House strategy review would take "a few weeks" before he would present Obama with the commander's request for more troops and resources.
Amid reports of frustration among senior US military officers with the White House, McChrystal warned in an assessment of the war that without more troops in the next year, the NATO-led mission could fail.
The general is expected to ask for 10,000 to 40,000 additional forces to help turn the tide against Islamist insurgents, but the exact number remains unclear.
The pace for decision-making under former president George W. Bush on the Iraq war was slower, with the debate on strategy in 2006 lasting three months, said Gates, who served as defense chief under the previous administration.
He also appeared to reject a possible alternative "counter-terrorism" approach to the war that would focus on hunting down Al-Qaeda figures and rely on air power instead of a large counter-insurgency force.
"I think that the people that I've talked to in the Pentagon who are the experts on counter-terrorism essentially say that counter-terrorism is only possible if you have the kind of intelligence that allows you to target the terrorists," he said.
"And the only way you get that intelligence is by being on the ground -- getting information from people like the Afghans or, in the case of Iraq, the Iraqis.
"And so you can't do this from a distance or remotely, in the view of virtually all of the experts that I've talked to," he added.
The counter-terrorism approach has the support of some lawmakers and reportedly US Vice President Joe Biden.
Obama warned on Friday there were no "perfect answers" in Afghanistan, where an increasingly violent insurgency is challenging the Kabul government in the south and east.
The US president faces growing doubts in his own party about the war amid rising casualties, public opposition to deploying more troops and a disputed Afghan election plagued by allegations of fraud.
Gates, whose advice could be crucial for Obama's decision, has yet to publicly declare his position on sending in more troops to reinforce the US contingent that will reach 68,000 by the end of the year.
But he defended the mission, disagreeing with comparisons to the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the Cold War.
Unlike the Soviets who "conducted a war of terror against Afghans," he told CNN's "State of the Union" that "the Afghans continue to see us as their ally and partner."
The strategy for Afghanistan unveiled by Obama in March, added Gates, "is the first real strategy we have had for Afghanistan since the early 1980s."
Under the previous administration, the United States was focused on Iraq and lacked troops and a comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan, he said, noting that "the reality is, we were fighting a holding action."
Asked about calls by some members of Congress to set a deadline for a US withdrawal, Gates warned any such move would be a "strategic mistake."
"The reality is, failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States," he said.
If Obama approves reinforcements for Afghanistan, Gates said additional troops would not arrive until January.
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Diverse Sources Fund Insurgency In Afghanistan
Restricting Cash Flow Difficult, U.S. Says
By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, September 27, 2009
KABUL -- The Taliban-led insurgency has built a fundraising juggernaut that generates cash from such an array of criminal rackets, donations, taxes, shakedowns and other schemes that U.S. and Afghan officials say it may be impossible to choke off the movement's money supply.
Obama administration officials say the single largest source of cash for the Taliban, once thought to rely mostly on Afghanistan's booming opium trade to finance its operations, is not drugs but foreign donations. The CIA recently estimated that Taliban leaders and their allies received $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan.
For the past decade, the U.S. Treasury and the U.N. Security Council have maintained financial blacklists of suspected donors to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The U.N. list, originally designed to pressure the Taliban to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, requires all U.N. members to freeze the assets of designated Taliban officials and their supporters.
The U.N. and Treasury blacklists were greatly expanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since 2005, however, only a handful of alleged Taliban benefactors have been added to the lists.
Some American and Afghan officials said the U.S. government, which had been a leading nominator of names for the U.N. blacklist, paid less attention to Taliban donors after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Until recently, they said, Washington had also been preoccupied with preparing sanctions against individuals and companies doing business with the Iranian government.
Richard Barrett, the coordinator of the United Nations' Taliban and al-Qaeda Monitoring Team, said Taliban sympathizers are much more skillful today at masking their donations and ensuring that the money cannot be traced back to them.
"It's been very, very difficult to identify these people," Barrett said. "You can track the money flow and say this money came from the Gulf, but it's a lot more difficult to confirm the source."
In July, Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the Taliban was reaping the bulk of its revenue from donors abroad, especially from the Persian Gulf.
Other U.S. officials have noted that the Taliban received substantial financial help from Gulf countries during the 1990s, when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- along with Pakistan -- were the only nations that gave diplomatic recognition to the Taliban government.
U.S. officials said there is no evidence today that the Saudi, UAE or other Gulf governments are giving official aid to the Taliban. They said they suspect that Pakistani military and intelligence operatives are continuing to fund the Afghan insurgency, although the Islamabad government denies this.
As the insurgency has grown in strength, the Taliban and its affiliates have embraced a strategy favored by multinational corporations: diversification. With money pouring in from so many sources, the Taliban has been able to expand the insurgency across the country with relative ease, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
In an Aug. 30 report assessing the overall state of the war, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said the Taliban's range of financial resources made it difficult to weaken the movement.
"Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits -- even if possible, and while disruptive -- would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact," McChrystal wrote.
U.S. officials said reliable estimates of the Taliban's overall cash flow are difficult to calculate because the insurgency is a decentralized movement comprising many factions and commanders. But annual revenue is thought to total hundreds of millions of dollars.
Money skimmed from the narcotics business -- Afghanistan is the world's top opium producer -- still offers crucial support to Taliban operations, particularly in the southern provinces where opium-producing poppies grow in abundance, officials said.
The U.S. military has estimated that the Taliban collects $70 million annually from poppy farmers and narcotics traffickers. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, which monitors opium production, earlier projected that the Taliban and its affiliates earned as much as $400 million a year from the drug trade. The agency later revised the figure sharply downward, to about $100 million a year.
"The international community and the Americans have been deceiving themselves for the past seven years, saying the Taliban has been getting all of their money from drugs," said Waheed Mojda, who served as a Foreign Ministry official for the Taliban before the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
Increasingly, Taliban commanders are paying for their operations through a variety of extortion schemes, U.S. and Afghan officials said. Many insurgent leaders impose a "tax" on local Afghans or take a cut from gemstone, timber or antiquity smugglers. Ransoms from kidnappings in Afghanistan and Pakistan also have proven lucrative.
Another rich source of revenue: extortion payments from Afghan and Western subcontractors forced to cough up "protection money" to safeguard redevelopment projects, according to U.S and Afghan officials.
"The Taliban know they cannot rely on just one source of money," said Hekmat Karzai, director of the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul. "Any of these sources could potentially evaporate."
This year, the U.S. government created a special investigative unit called the Afghan Threat Finance Cell. Modeled after a similar U.S. unit in Iraq, it gathers financial information about the Taliban for law-enforcement and intelligence purposes.
The cell has about two-dozen members drawn from the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Central Command, the Treasury Department and the CIA. The FBI is expected to join soon.
Kirk E. Meyer, a DEA official who directs the cell's operations in Afghanistan, said the mission is to understand how the Taliban-led insurgency is financing its operations, as well as to find ways to put pressure on its money supply.
"I think it's possible to have an impact on certain areas," he said. "It is not going to be the silver bullet, but if it's integrated with what everybody else is doing, like DEA and the military, it's got to have an impact."
Afghanistan, which has only a handful of banks, lacks a modern financial system. Tools commonly used to combat money laundering, such as freezing bank accounts or monitoring electronic wire transfers, are largely useless, U.S. officials said.
Most money transfers in Afghanistan are made under the hawala system, an informal network of money brokers who traditionally keep few, if any, records about their customers. With help from U.S. officials, the Afghan government has begun to regulate its hawala brokers for the first time. Brokers in seven provinces are now registered with the government and are required to report all transactions each month to the central bank, which conducts audits to ensure compliance.
Some hawala brokers have become informants, notifying authorities of suspicious or unusually large transfers. Accustomed to the traditional anonymity of hawala networks, Taliban supporters sometimes fill out their customer slips by plainly stating that the payment is for "heroin" or "five vehicles for Taliban commander so-and-so," said a senior U.S. law-enforcement official.
"Right now, they're at the point where they're not used to having anybody harass them," the official said. "I think we'll start to see more coded-type documents. It will start to say, 'For the Boy Scouts' or something."
The Taliban and its affiliates also move large amounts of cash via human couriers, both domestically and internationally, U.S. and Afghan officials said. Foreign recruits who travel to Pakistan to train in Taliban-sponsored camps are regularly asked to bring $10,000 in cash with them, the U.S. law-enforcement official said.
In Washington, the U.S. government recently established a group to devise an overall strategy for restricting the flow of money to the Taliban. The Illicit Finance Task Force is directed by the U.S. Treasury but draws on personnel from different agencies.
"We're going after this with a great deal of urgency and a huge amount of effort to even more effectively disrupt the networks that fund the Taliban," said David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for terrorist financing.
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Independent Afghan security still a long way off
By Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An army isn't built overnight and in the case of Afghanistan there's little chance its military will be ready to safeguard national security on its own any time soon.
There has been plenty of talk and even more optimism in this war-torn country that Canadian and NATO troops will be able to eventually leave here - guilt-free and with the satisfaction of a job well done.
But the training is slow. Even though the words 'tough' and 'fearless' are inevitably used to describe the members of the Afghan National Army - the fact is they are too few and too inexperienced in the ways of war to come close to taking control of Afghan security needs.
Some of it appears to be cultural as the Afghan outlook on life tends to be a bit more laid back than in Canada or the United States.
Mentors from the Canadian Operational Liason Mentoring Teams spend weeks and months teaching the rudiments of soldiering to Afghan troops. Extra training is given to promising Afghan soldiers as engineers or in explosive ordnance disposal. But it is hard to say when the Afghans will be ready to take over.
"You know, they're not a western army. They're their own army so we have to manage expectations of that. So they've got their own way of doing things and their own way of training, their own way of planning so you can't impose a western way on them," said Lt.-Col Dave Gowdy, chief engineer for Regional Command South and the commanding officer of the Canadian contingent at RC South.
"You can try and understand how they want to do things and eventually they will get there but it's going to take time," he admitted.
General Rick Hillier, the former Chief of Defence Staff for the Canadian Forces, raised the matter two years ago on a visit to Kandahar.
"I think most Canadians, living in the incredible country that we have, don't always see all the complexities of trying to rebuild a country and, in some cases, build a country from the 25 years of destruction that took place in Afghanistan," Hillier told reporters at Kandahar Airfield in Oct., 2007.
"You just don't build that overnight and the international community will have to be involved for some time to see this through to the final level where you've got a government that works effectively," Hillier said.
"It's going to take 10 years or so just to work through and build an army to whatever the final number that Afghanistan will have, and make them professional and let them meet their security demands here."
Gowdy said the Afghan army has made progress but more so in some areas than others.
"Absolutely. You've heard of transfer of lead security responsibility? That's when they take over. In some regions they are probably already at that level to do that," he said.
Lt.-Gen. Marc Lessard, the head of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command addressed the matter of Afghan security when he wrapped up a visit to Kandahar last week.
"Do we have complete Afghan lead for all operations? No. It's one thing to have more ANP, more Afghan National Army, but for me the critical thing is having Afghans take the lead," Lessard told reporters.
"I think Canadians don't realize what Afghanistan is. It's a non-developed country, one of the poorest countries on this planet, that went through 30 years of war," he explained. "All at once we wanted to reconstruct Afghan security forces, governance and development. I think we had high ambitions and maybe we were overly optimistic."
One area that remains a problem is the progress being made by the Afghan National Police. The police lag far behind the Afghan army in terms of training, leadership and there's still plenty of corruption.
Until the Afghan National Army is up to snuff said Lessard - the police will fail to reach expectations.
"The police were used and still are used as paramilitary - supplementing the ANA," said Lessard.
"What we have to do is to train them to be able to survive, to be able to do military tasks and gradually as we expand the Afghan National Army it will permit the police to do certain tasks."
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Afghan, NATO forces detain several insurgents in South
KABUL, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) arrested several suspected Taliban insurgents in militants' former stronghold Kandahar in south Afghanistan Sunday,a press release of the military alliance said.
"An Afghan and international security force detained several suspected militants today, after searching a compound in Kandahar province, known to be used by a Taliban facilitator and his element," the press release added.
The operation was conducted without incident, and no Afghan civilians were harmed, the press release emphasized.
Taliban militants have sped up their activities throughout the country as over 100,000 international troops, with some 62,000 U.S. soldiers, have been deployed here.
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Pakistan blasts show Taliban's ability to strike
By Zarar Khan, Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD – The suicide blasts that rocked northwest Pakistan over the weekend signal the Taliban remain a threat despite intensified military operations and unmanned drone attacks targeting the group's leaders, analysts said Sunday.
Twenty-two people were killed and more than 150 wounded Saturday in two attacks hours apart in North West Frontier Province. The Taliban claimed responsibility for one of the strikes.
Pakistan is battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants close to the Afghan border blamed for scores of attacks over the last two years. The insurgents are linked to those in Afghanistan, where violence against NATO and U.S. troops is running at record levels.
The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a CIA missile strike in the northwest last month. While the militants have named a new leader, some have speculated the group may have lost some of its ability to stage attacks.
A retired former intelligence chief of the region, Asad Munir, said Saturday's attacks were a reminder of the threat from Islamist extremists.
"That area is the safe haven for the al-Qaida and Taliban leadership and they don't want to lose it," Munir told The Associated Press. "Yesterday's attacks were a show of strength and indicated the potential threat from militants in those areas."
Two explosives-packed vehicles driven by suicide attackers leveled a police station in the rural district of Bannu, killing 11, and tore through a commercial area in the main city of Peshawar, killing 11. More than 150 people were wounded, officials said.
The killing of Mehsud followed a largely successful army offensive in the Swat Valley region against the Taliban, which to some extent had reassured Western governments of Pakistan's ability and intent to fight the insurgency.
"In spite of the reverses they have suffered in Swat, and the death and arrest of some of their ringleaders, the Taliban have demonstrated tenacity and proved they are capable of sowing terror whenever and wherever they wish," the Dawn daily newspaper said in a Sunday editorial. "Their command structure is still intact and their sources of funding and arms remain virtually unscathed."
A senior Peshawar police officer said Saturday's bombings were in response to government pressure. "The security forces' offensive against militants is on, and in desperation they are now targeting innocent citizens," said Liaquat Ali Khan.
The Taliban called The Associated Press after the first bombing outside the police station to claim responsibility and warn of more attacks. Taliban spokesman Qari Hussain Mehsud said the militants had been holding back but the "pause" was now over. He urged civilians to stay away from police and security force installations.
Munir said with the recent killing of the Taliban chief, it is an opportune moment for the military to launch a major offensive in the northwest to eliminate the militants.
"This is the right time for a comprehensive and detailed operation in Waziristan and adjoining areas as they are still in disarray after the death of Baitullah Mehsud. I think the army is determined to do it in October," he said.
Targets in the North and South Waziristan tribal regions have been hit by Pakistani airstrikes, but the military has yet to launch a major ground offensive there. The government has said it will begin army operations in the region at the "appropriate" time.
Some 500 tribesmen gathered Sunday in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan to discuss how to bring peace to the area. Tribal elders urged the government to ensure safe passage for those who flee if it launches an offensive in Waziristan, and financial assistance for people who already left because of airstrikes, local official Maulana Hassamuddin said.
Also Sunday, the military announced a 5 million rupee ($60,000) bounty had been placed on the head of Mangal Bagh, a top militant leader in the Khyber region near the Afghan border. Bounties of 2 million rupees ($24,000) were offered for four other commanders in the area.
___
Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.
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Three French soldiers die in Afghanistan: presidency
Sun Sep 27, 4:56 am ET
PARIS (AFP) – Three French soldiers died accidentally during an operation in a valley in northeastern Afghanistan, the French presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
The soldiers, serving with a French parachutist regiment stationed in northeastern Kapisa province, "died accidentally during an operation taking place at night," said a statement from the presidency.
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Japan mulls Afghan military aircraft plan: report
Sun Sep 27, 1:39 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan is considering using military aircraft to deliver relief supplies to Afghan refugees as an alternative to its naval mission supporting US-led operations in Afghanistan, a report said Sunday.
Newly elected Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plans to end the Indian Ocean naval refuelling mission, which expires in January.
The alternative plan would use C-130 transport aircraft to deliver food, tents and other supplies to the estimated 1.8 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the Japanese business daily Nikkei reported, without naming sources.
After talks with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 summit in the United States, Hatoyama said he would move quickly to find a way to provide support to Afghanistan as it is a top goal of Obama's.
"I'm aware that the Afghan issue should come first," Hatoyama said. "Our coalition government needs to show a reasonable course on Afghanistan -- one of the two biggest subjects."
Obama is currently considering a request from the military to send more US troops to Afghanistan.
During a meeting with Obama on Wednesday, Hatoyama proposed fresh support for Afghanistan such as job training for former soldiers in the country as a possible alternative to the refuelling mission.
While in opposition, his party briefly forced a halt to the naval mission, arguing that Japan -- officially pacifist since World War II -- should not abet "American wars."
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Powell warning to Obama on Afghanistan
PETER BAKER AND ELISABETH BUMILLER, WASHINGTON The Age Australia September 28, 2009
AS US President Barack Obama weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency, a key figure from the Bush administration has questioned the usefulness of such a move.
Mr Obama has discovered that the military is not unanimous in its support of the plan and that some of the civilian advisers he respects most have deep reservations.
Colin Powell, former secretary of state and retired four-star army general, visited Mr Obama in the Oval Office this month and expressed skepticism that more troops would guarantee success, according to people briefed on the discussion.
General Stanley McChrystal's troop request, which was to be submitted to the Pentagon this past weekend, has reignited a long-standing debate within the military about the virtues of the counter-insurgency strategy popularised by General David Petraeus in Iraq and now embraced by General McChrystal.
The top US commander in Afghanistan is expected to ask for as many as 40,000 more soldiers for the eight-year-old war, a number that has generated concern among top officers such as General George Casey, the army chief of staff, who worry about the capacity to provide more soldiers at a time of stress on the force, officials said.
While Mr Obama is hearing from more hawkish voices, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr Powell reminded the President of his long-standing view that military missions should be clearly defined.
Mr Powell is one of the three people considered by White House aides to be most influential in this current debate, along with Democrat senators John Kerry and Jack Reed.
All three have expressed varying degrees of doubt about the prospect of sending more forces to Afghanistan.
Senator Kerry, chairman of the Senate's foreign relations committee, has warned of repeating the mistakes of Vietnam, where he served, and has floated the idea of a more limited counter-terrorist mission.
In Vietnam, he said, ''the underlying assumptions were flawed and the number of troops weren't going to make a difference''.
Mr Reed, an army veteran, has not ruled out supporting more troops but said ''the burden of proof'' was on commanders to justify it.
General Casey has a stated goal by 2012 to increase a soldier's time at home from the current one year for every year of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan to two years at home for every year served. He recently told reporters that ''if there is an increase of forces in Afghanistan, then that could slow that down''.
''The question the President has to answer is 'What will more troops do?' '' Mr Powell told reporters in California this week.
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Support for Afghanistan war lukewarm
MICHELLE GRATTAN The Age Australia September 28, 2009
FIVE in 10 Australians oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, but the proportion opposed has declined since last year, according to a new poll.
The UMR poll found only 26 per cent in favour of Australia becoming more involved, with 51 per cent against.
Last November, 60 per cent were against sending more troops (24 per cent in favour), while in March 54 per cent opposed and 30 per cent supported.
Earlier this year, the Federal Government increased the Australian contingent.
The polling, done last month, pre-dates last week's leak of the report by General Stanley McChrystal, the top American and NATO commander in the field, who argued that unless more troops were sent, the war would likely result in failure.
US President Barack Obama has said he wants to examine strategy before considering resources and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said Australia's commitment is ''about right''.
The poll found women are adamantly against more troops, with two-thirds opposed, and no age group was in favour.
Labor voters were strongly against - 57 per cent to 19 per cent in favour of a greater commitment, while slightly more Coalition voters were in favour than were against more troops (42 to 39 per cent).
UMR is Labor's pollster but this research was not done for the Labor Party.
Australia's current involvement has solid although not majority support: 35 per cent opposed the Australian involvement; 41 per cent were in favour.
Labor voters were about evenly split - 35 per cent in favour and 37 per cent against.
Most people expect the Australian troops commitment will be over within five years.
UMR managing director John Utting said the poll showed ''lukewarm support for where we are in Afghanistan, very little support for additional troops and expectations among most voters we would be out in five years''.
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Contractors busy in southern Afghanistan; projects employing villagers
By Bruce Ward, Ottawa Citizen September 27, 2009 12:01 PM
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD -- U.S. expansion in the south of Afghanistan is creating a scarcity of contractors in the area, says Canada's top military engineer. And that's a sign of progress.
"In general, the capabilities for the contractors in the region are being stretched because of the increased demand," said Lt.-Col. David Gowdy, chief engineer and the commanding officer of the Canadian contingent at Regional Command (South).
"The contractors are hard to come by. It's difficult to get material in here, it's hard to get tradespeople in here," he told reporters at a briefing Sunday.
"I think you're aware of the increased U.S. inflow into the region. We're approaching the maximum for local capacity,"
Gowdy cited Operation Kalay, a Task Force Kandahar project that brings employment to the villages, as a solid example of contractors working with locals.
"That's a good example of cash for work where the contract-management company is going out and getting several hundred people working on projects in a village," he said.
Canada's military is also training engineers in the Afghan National Army.
"We're looking for opportunities to help them out and one of those is an engineering training area at Camp Hero - it's something we wanted to move forward in the October time frame and we see the ANA taking ownership of that. We're just trying to encourage this to go ahead. This would be a good example of ANA engineering development and partnering, if you will. This is something you might see in October."
The engineering training is conducted in Kabul, he said.
"When they come down to the region, we find they need to have additional training to bring them up to a standard. But in general, the ANA engineers are very motivated - they want to be employed as engineers. One of their key challenges is they are employed sometimes as infantry and they end up having to provide security instead. So we're trying to educate the ANA on the proper use of employment on engineers - we're trying to help them develop a baseline for engineer training."
While the Afghan National Army is improving under Canada's mentorship, some critics say progress is painfully slow. But Gowdy said the goal is not to attempt to replicate Canada's army.
"They're not a western army. They're their own army, so we have to manage expectations of that. So they've got their own way of doing things and their own way of training, their own way of planning so you can't impose a western way on them. You can try and understand how they want to do things and eventually they will get there but it's going to take time."
Gowdy said he's seen signs of solid progress. "You've heard of transfer of lead security responsibility - that's when they take over. In some regions they are probably already at that level to do that."
Gowdy was asked to envision an Afghanistan after Canada and the NATO allies pull out.
"Military cannot win it. Military has a key role and all these other elements will see it through to the end state - the golden age - the reconstruction and development. I guess you would want to look at how it was before all the fighting started and I guess that would be the end state - before the Soviets. And I think that's where they want to get back to."
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Afghan official calls for int'l community's double efforts in war against drug
September 27, 2009 People's Daily
Spokesman of the Afghan Counter Narcotics Ministry Zalmay Afzali Saturday urged the international community and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners to do more in Afghanistan to stop poppy cultivation in the war-torn country.
Afzali told newsmen in a press conference that Afghan farmer had been faced with three big challenges, i.e. hunger, countering opium and threats of drug smugglers, but they have not received any help.
The official pointed out "the massive income from drug finances insurgency that has been rising in the past couple of years."
"We once again called on the international community and NATO to help us in our successful program GPI (Good Performance Initiative) to stop poppy cultivation," he said.
According to the GPI, any province which is announced free of opium would be allocated one million U.S. dollars.
Twenty out of 34 provinces are free of opium, according to the official, and the opium cultivation has dropped by 22 percent while its production dropped 10 percent in the insurgency-plagued country.
Source:Xinhua
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Afghan man kills 15 of own family
Reuters via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Sep 27 2:21 AM
An Afghan man killed 15 members of his family before ending his own life in a rare such incident in Afghanistan, a government official said on Sunday. Skip related content
The government will investigate why Amanullah shot dead his family members with a rifle on Saturday in Andar district of Ghazni province, which lies to the southwest of Kabul, an interior ministry spokesman said.
"They included his mother, sisters, wife, brothers and his children," Zemarai Bashary said.
The motive behind the killing was not immediately clear, nor was Amanullah's age or profession.
Disputes, even over minor issues, involving family members and tribes can sometimes lead to bloody clashes in Afghanistan, but Saturday's incident, in which the victims were killed by a family member, are rarely heard of.
Suicide is also considered a taboo in conservative, Muslim Afghanistan.
(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Golnar Motevalli)
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Taliban ratchet up fear in Kandahar city
Globe and Mail Gloria Galloway Saturday, Sep. 26, 2009
Kandahar, Afghanistan - The fast of Ramadan had ended and the feasting of Eid had begun. The little girl, who lived in Kandahar city with her family, wanted to buy some candles to give to friends as gifts. Her 12-year-old brother wanted some shoes and a haircut.
So they squeezed into the back of a wagon being towed by a motorcycle that two male neighbours were driving into a shopping district in the heart of the dusty city. Their father followed behind them.
Suddenly the street exploded. A bomb that had been planted on a bicycle was detonated as a group of Afghan National Army soldiers walked by. The motorcycle and its wagon were between the bike and the soldiers.
The children's father arrived at the scene to find his son and daughter lying dead in the road, along with the two men. An ANA soldier was also mortally wounded.
Local Afghans were outraged at the taking of innocent lives in the heart of Kandahar city. But they were not surprised.
In the past year, and especially since the spring, they say, the city has become a far more dangerous place.
“They were good people,” a local businessman named Assadullah said Friday of those killed in last Saturday's bombing.
He paid a visit to the victims' homes after the attack. “Instead of going there to say Eid Mubarak, we went to offer our condolences,” said Assadullah, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name.
A recent report for the Canadian Parliament says the influx of American troops to Kandahar has allowed the Canadian troops to focus their efforts on Kandahar city, which is home to 75 per cent of the province's population, and those villages that are in close proximity.
But, despite their efforts, emboldened Taliban fighters are now nightly visitors, especially in the southern and western neighbourhoods that border insurgent strongholds.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan fears for the safety of the residents of the ancient city that was the seat of Taliban power.
“The deterioration of security in and around Kandahar city is of great concern,” UNAMA wrote in its June report. “Security incidents reported within the city itself and the Daman district, where the airport is located, increased by 80 per cent compared with 2008.”
Canadian Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, who heads the NATO force in Kandahar province, said last night that attacks by armed insurgents in the city are rarely successful.
But there is intimidation, Gen. Vance said. “People are afraid Good police, that will respond and give the population a sense of confidence that they will deal with the matter thoroughly and in a timely matter, are in many ways absent.”
On the positive side, he said, a large battalion of U.S. military police has just been deployed in Kandahar to mentor the local force, a measure that he said will go a long way toward instilling the needed confidence and quelling the fears.
“I also believe that it's necessary in Kandahar city for legitimate governance to prevail,” Gen. Vance said. “They must have confident in their government, and that is something that will take some time.”
There has been no spectacular attack in 2009 like the raid on the Saraposa prison last year that freed hundreds of Taliban prisoners. But there have been high-profile incidents. The local police chief was killed in an attack. And, in April, three suicide bombers stormed the provincial council building, killing five civilians, along with a police officer.
Kandaharis say the Taliban enter their neighbourhoods every night and stay for a couple of hours. If the Canadian troops arrive with their helicopters and their dogs, the insurgents quickly disperse.
When the Taliban are allowed to linger, they often get into gun battles with local police.
One shopkeeper said that Taliban armed with machine guns regularly show up at his house asking for food and blankets, which he gives them in exchange for his life. But he is worried that the government will find out and accuse him of offering sustenance to the enemy.
“This year has been much worse than last year. It has been a very bloody year,” said Assadullah of the security situation in Kandahar city.
He worries that his daughters will be attacked on the way to or from school. He worries about suicide bombers. He worries about kidnappings, which are becoming far more frequent, and sometimes involve the Afghan police as accomplices of the Taliban. And he worries about shootings.
“Last year there was no fighting in Kandahar city,” said Assadullah. “Now, every night we hear the sound of fighting. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot.”
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