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CIA base attacked in Afghanistan supported airstrikes against al-Qaeda, Taliban
By Joby Warrick and Pamela Constable Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 1, 2010; A01
The CIA base attacked by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan this week was at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency's remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials familiar with the installation said Thursday.
CIA Vows To Avenge Deadly Attack On Agents In Afghanistan
January 1, 2010
(RFE/RL) -- Security has been tightened in the Afghan city of Khost after a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers and an Afghan man inside a base in the city on December 30.
CIA agents killed in Afghanistan were in Taliban's backyard
Seven CIA agents and five Canadians were killed Wednesday in two separate incidents in Khost and Kandahar. Where they were killed gives an indication of where fighting will be the toughest in Afghanistan – and why.
By Mark Sappenfield Staff writer The Christian Science Monitor - Thu Dec 31, 11:00 pm ET
Two separate attacks in Afghanistan Wednesday that killed seven CIA agents and five Canadians – including the first Canadian journalist killed in the war – offer crucial clues about the geography of the conflict that the US and its allies are fighting.
Reports: Taliban Suicide Bombing Hit CIA Nerve Center
VOA News January 1, 2010
News reports say this week's suicide attack on a base in eastern Afghanistan struck at the heart of America's covert operations in the region.
Afghan authorities distance themselves from CIA 'black ops'
by Lynne O'Donnell January 1, 2010
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan authorities were distancing themselves Friday from investigations into a suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA agents, the US spy agency's biggest single loss of life in almost 30 years.
More civilian deaths claimed in Afghanistan
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 1, 11:25 am ET
KABUL – An airstrike by international forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand killed seven civilians, two Taliban and wounded another civilian, an Afghan official said Friday.
Kidnapped French journalists in Afghanistan alive
PARIS (Reuters) – Two French journalists seized by insurgents this week in Afghanistan are alive and well, their employer said on Friday.
Death takes 2009 British death toll in Afghanistan to 108
Fri Jan 1, 6:39 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British soldier has died in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence in London said Friday, taking the toll for 2009 to 108.
Highway 1: prime Taliban target
By Denis D. Gray, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 1, 12:00 am ET
MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan – Trucks gayly painted with hearts and doves jam up at crowded wayside bazaars. Billboards advertise cell phones and advise drivers to keep their donkeys off the road.
Is power in Afghanistan returning to ethnic fault lines?
Afghanistan was torn in the 1990s by civil war among ethnic-based warlords, but leaders now avoid directly appealing to ethnicity. Still, voting patterns in the Afghan election closely mirror the country's ethnic lines.
Christian Science Monitor By Ben Arnoldy December 31, 2009
Khan Neshin, Afghanistan - Voting patterns in Afghanistan show strong overlap with ethnic identity. (See map.) Afghanistan was torn apart in the 1990s during a civil war among ethnic-based warlords, and the outcome
Afghan militant attacks set pace for a bloody 2010
Lynne O'Donnell December 31, 2009
KABUL, Jan 1, 2010 (AFP) - Afghanistan's war exited 2009 on a sour note for an international community that has committed thousands of troops and billions of dollars into transforming the country into a peaceful, modern democracy.
Pakistan attack a warning to anti-Taliban tribes
By Riaz Khan And Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writers
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide car bombing that killed 88 people on a volleyball field sent a bloody New Year's warning to residents trying to curb spreading Taliban militancy in Pakistan's northwestern region near the Afghan border.
Man hopes AFC eateries will change Afghanistan
San Antonio Express-News
By Sig Christenson - Express-News KABUL — Colin Shepherd, a U.N. transport manager, had a sense of deja vu walking into Afghan Fried Chicken.
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CIA base attacked in Afghanistan supported airstrikes against al-Qaeda, Taliban
By Joby Warrick and Pamela Constable Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 1, 2010; A01
The CIA base attacked by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan this week was at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency's remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials familiar with the installation said Thursday.
The assailant, wearing an explosives belt under his clothes, apparently was allowed to enter the small base after offering to become an informant, according to two former agency officials briefed on the attack. The CIA declined to comment on the circumstances behind the incident, and it was unclear whether the bomber chose the base because of its role in supporting CIA airstrikes against top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in the region.
The blast early Wednesday evening in the eastern province of Khost killed seven CIA officers and contractors, including the base chief, and seriously wounded six others in what intelligence officials described as a devastating blow to one of the agency's key intelligence hubs for counterterrorism operations. It was the deadliest single day for the agency since eight CIA officers were killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
The CIA continued drone strikes Thursday. A security official in Pakistan confirmed that two militants were killed late in the day in what was described as a missile attack by a Predator drone in Pakistan's autonomous North Waziristan region, across the border from Khost.
The official said the missile destroyed the home of a man believed to be linked to the extremist group Tehrik-e-Taliban. The CIA has consistently declined to acknowledge any participation in the ongoing campaign of airstrikes that killed more than 300 people in the past 12 months.
U.S. intelligence officials vowed that the Wednesday attack would only increase the agency's resolve. "This attack will be avenged through successful, aggressive counterterrorism operations," said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The CIA deaths were formally acknowledged by the agency in a statement to employees Thursday by Director Leon E. Panetta, who said the heavy toll was a reminder of the "real danger" that confronts intelligence officers on the fronts of the two wars. CIA operatives in Afghanistan volunteer for the posting and spend a year or more on assignment. Many of the slain -- including the base chief, a mother of three young children -- were seasoned hands in the agency's counterterrorism operations.
"Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism," Panetta said in his message to employees. "We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives -- a safer America." Panetta said military doctors and nurses had saved the lives of gravely wounded officers, and he announced that flags at CIA headquarters in Langley would be flown at half-staff to honor the dead.
As is customary, the CIA declined to identify the victims. Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair did not publicly comment on the deaths, but a spokesman said he sent an internal, classified message expressing his condolences.
President Obama posted a letter to CIA employees honoring those killed, whom he called "part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life."
'Sloppy' screening
U.S. personnel at the site of the attack, Forward Operating Base Chapman, are heavily involved in the selection of al-Qaeda and Taliban targets for drone aircraft strikes, according to two former intelligence officials who have visited the facility. The drones themselves are flown from separate bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of its location near a hotbed of insurgent activity, the base is also a center for recruiting and debriefing informants, the officials said, and it would not be unusual for local Afghans to be admitted to the facility for questioning.
"There's still a lot to be learned about what happened. All the facts are not in," CIA spokesman George Little said. "The key lesson is that counterterrorism work is dangerous."
A Taliban spokesman asserted responsibility Thursday for the bombing and said the bomber was an Afghan National Army officer who had joined insurgents in attacking the United States. That description could not be confirmed with U.S. military officials. But a U.S. military official in Afghanistan, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Afghan forces are posted at the base.
Forward operating bases in Afghanistan depend on locals for security. But insurgents have frequently infiltrated the ranks of Afghan security forces as well as private firms hired to guard U.S. facilities or to perform more menial tasks. CIA officials on Thursday would not discuss what guard service they had at the base.
Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said that this week's attack once again shows that there "needs to be much better screening of people joining the Afghan security forces. . . . I know from visits in Afghan provinces this is done in a very sloppy way."
The danger of infiltration, he added, could increase as the U.S. military seeks to develop "community defense forces."
Severed communication
Forward Operating Base Chapman is a former Afghan army installation and was used jointly by American and Afghan security forces during their military campaign against the Taliban beginning in 2001. In recent years, the base added an intelligence-gathering function and had a housing compound for U.S. intelligence officers. It was physically separate from the main U.S. military base nearby, Forward Operating Base Salerno.
Senior Afghan civilian officials in Khost said that they knew little about what went on at Chapman and that since Wednesday's attack, they have been unable to reach anyone inside by phone. Afghan interpreters working on the base at the time have since been incommunicado, and those who were on leave that day have not been allowed back inside, according to Khost residents and officials reached by phone.
A spokesman for the Afghan National Army in Kabul denied that the Khost attack was carried out by a member of the army, but the possibility highlights growing concerns in Afghanistan and Pakistan about whether it is possible to sustain the loyalty and unity of their respective armies. The Afghan army, a crucial element in the new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, is young, untested and ethnically diverse. It is being asked to fight fellow Muslims from the dominant Afghan tribe in an unpopular war on behalf of American forces and policies that many Afghans deeply resent.
"This attack shows that the Taliban are getting good cooperation from the locals and that they have better intelligence than the Americans do," said Talat Masood, a Pakistani security analyst and retired general in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. "It also raises the issue that has haunted the Afghan National Army from the beginning -- whether or not it is possible to build a unified army that can overcome ethnic loyalties in support of broader American goals."
Staff writers Karen DeYoung, Walter Pincus and Peter Finn in Washington, correspondent Karin Brulliard in Islamabad and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
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CIA Vows To Avenge Deadly Attack On Agents In Afghanistan
January 1, 2010
(RFE/RL) -- Security has been tightened in the Afghan city of Khost after a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers and an Afghan man inside a base in the city on December 30.
It was the second-deadliest attack in the agency's history, after a bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983.
In Washington, the CIA promised to avenge the blast. Reuters quotes an unnamed U.S. intelligence official as saying, "This attack will be avenged through successful, aggressive counterterrorism operations."
The bombing took place in Forward Operating Base Chapman, near the border with Pakistan, where the CIA has been at the forefront of a mounting battle against Islamist extremists. The base -- a former Soviet outpost now also used by military and civilian reconstruction teams -- is reported to have been central in the organization of attacks by unmanned drone aircraft on suspected militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Among those killed was the head of the CIA base. Two of the dead were contractors from private security company Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, CNN reported.
The Taliban said the attack was carried out by a sympathizer in the Afghan Army who detonated a vest of explosives at a meeting with CIA workers. The Afghan Defense Ministry denied any Afghan soldiers were involved or stationed at the base. Six CIA employees were wounded in the blast.
U.S. President Barack Obama praised the CIA in a written statement.
"These brave Americans were part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life," he said.
CIA Director Leon Panetta said the attack would not deter the agency, saying "those who fell…were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism."
The CIA is probing security at the Khost base amid questions over how a suicide bomber was able to enter its heavily fortified premises.
Also on December 30, five Canadians -- four soldiers and a journalist -- were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by a bomb in southern Kandahar Province.
Violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest level since the overthrow of the Taliban regime by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The CIA has been expanding its operations in Afghanistan, stepping up strikes against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants along the border with Pakistan.
In the latest attack, a U.S. missile strike killed three people near the Afghan border today, according to Pakistani security officials. Officials say the attack destroyed a car carrying three men in North Waziristan. A U.S. drone missile strike late on December 31 in the same area also killed three people.
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CIA agents killed in Afghanistan were in Taliban's backyard
Seven CIA agents and five Canadians were killed Wednesday in two separate incidents in Khost and Kandahar. Where they were killed gives an indication of where fighting will be the toughest in Afghanistan – and why.
By Mark Sappenfield Staff writer The Christian Science Monitor - Thu Dec 31, 11:00 pm ET
Two separate attacks in Afghanistan Wednesday that killed seven CIA agents and five Canadians – including the first Canadian journalist killed in the war – offer crucial clues about the geography of the conflict that the US and its allies are fighting.
The location of the two attacks is a guideline for where the fighting could be the toughest during the remaining 18 months of the Afghan surge. Khost and Kandahar – along with the opium capital of Helmand – promise to be perhaps the most difficult areas to pacify.
As the homelands for Afghanistan’s two most capable insurgent groups – the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura – Khost and Kandahar are, in many ways, the cardinal points from which the will of the Afghan insurgency radiates.
Khost
The seven CIA agents were killed in US outpost near Khost, an eastern border town. Khost is linked to perhaps the single most capable militant pitted against the US: Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The Haqqani network established by Jalaluddin and now run by his son, Sirajuddin, is allied with the Afghan Taliban as well as Al Qaeda and has been responsible for some of the more daring attacks against the Afghan government and foreigners. Its operatives are alleged to have bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008, attempted to assassinate President Hamid Karzai at a military parade in April of that year, and stormed the five-star Serena Hotel three months earlier.
The network also held kidnapped New York Times reporter David Rohde for several months before he escaped earlier this year.
In its way, the Wednesday attack in Khost was similarly daring. Somehow, the bomber managed to enter Forward Operating Base Chapman before detonating his bomb. The incident represents that worst one-day loss of life for the CIA since eight agents died in the Beirut Embassy bombing in 1983, The Washington Post reports.
Until Wednesday, only 90 CIA officers had been killed in the line of duty since the agency was founded in 1947, The New York Times adds.
The secrecy surrounding the CIA means that details on the attack are scarce, and no explanation has yet been offered as to how a suicide bomber was able to enter a heavily armed compound without detection.
But Khost is in the Haqqani network’s backyard. The terrorist group is known to operate out of North Waziristan, which is directly across the border in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. If the US surge makes advances in the Afghan east, the strongest resistance is likely to center around Khost and its two neighboring provinces, Paktia and Paktika.
Kandahar
The same holds true in the south, where Kandahar is the Taliban heartland and the former home of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban. Intelligence suggests that Omar is perched across the border in Quetta, Pakistan, and his Quetta Shura (council) is the single greatest threat to US forces in Afghanistan, according to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of allied forces in Afghanistan.
The Quetta Shura’s goal is to liberate Kandahar, he said in his battlefield assessment.
It is in Kandahar that the four Canadian soldiers and one journalist were killed Wednesday.
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Reports: Taliban Suicide Bombing Hit CIA Nerve Center
VOA News January 1, 2010
News reports say this week's suicide attack on a base in eastern Afghanistan struck at the heart of America's covert operations in the region.
Former intelligence officers briefed on the incident spoke to major U.S. news outlets on condition of anonymity.
They said the base in Khost province, called Forward Operating Base Chapman, was responsible for gathering intelligence along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and then overseeing efforts to kill top militant leaders, often with the use of drones (pilotless aircraft).
The intelligence officers also said it appeared that the suicide bomber, a man wearing an Afghan army uniform, was being courted as an informant, and may not have been searched.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency confirmed Wednesday's attack killed seven of its employees and wounded six others, but the CIA provided no other details.
Former agency officials said the base chief was among the dead.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack as well as a separate incident in southern Afghanistan in which four Canadian soldiers and a journalist were killed.
U.S. President Barack Obama has offered his condolences to the CIA, and he praised what he called the agency's excellent work. The president said because of its service, plots have been disrupted, American lives saved, and U.S. allies and partners have been more secure.
On Friday, an official in Afghanistan's northern Badghis province said five people, including two women, died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
Meanwhile, international and Afghan forces conducted several operations targeting militants across the country Thursday night into Friday morning, killing one militant and capturing several others.
Officials Friday said one of the operations took place in Khost province, where forces captured a militant suspected of distributing mines and other explosive devices.
Another raid, on a compound south of Kandahar, recovered almost 1,000 kilograms of explosive materials.
Coalition forces say $200,000 has been awarded to Afghan citizens under a new program in which local citizens are rewarded for tipping off international forces to weapons caches.
In a Friday statement, officials say "Operation Jaeza" has led to hundreds of tips in the past three months that have resulted in the recovery of mortars, rockets and other weapons.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
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Afghan authorities distance themselves from CIA 'black ops'
by Lynne O'Donnell January 1, 2010
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan authorities were distancing themselves Friday from investigations into a suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA agents, the US spy agency's biggest single loss of life in almost 30 years.
As questions swirled about how the attacker managed to penetrate security at the base in Khost province, near the Pakistani border, the Afghan defence ministry again denied reports that any ministry personnel were involved.
The government had no comment and a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said there would be no official involvement in any investigation.
The CIA agents were killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber breached the forward operating base (FOB) Camp Chapman and detonated an explosives-filled vest in a basement gym.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Zahir Azimi, defence ministry spokesman, again denied reports that the bomber was an Afghan army officer or posed as one.
"This is the Taliban talking and nothing the Taliban says should be believed," he said.
The CIA uses FOBs to collect intelligence and conduct direct drone attacks along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, said a Western diplomat, who referred to the activities as "CIA black ops".
"It should come as no surprise that the Afghan government wants nothing to do with this," he said, on condition of anonymity.
"Karzai is not interested in the security of these places. He has zero control over the FOBs that are located along the border. As far as the Afghan state is concerned it's a black hole and whatever happens is the CIA's lookout."
A Western military official who also asked not to be named said the CIA "is on its own" in conducting operations on the US FOBs dotted around Afghanistan.
"There's not a great deal of visibility for what they do except at the State Department," the official said.
CIA operations were part of the "overall plan" for eradicating the Taliban and developing the country, he said, but were not part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or US military operations.
The New York Times said CIA officers at the base recently had begun an aggressive campaign against a militant group run by Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Citing current and former intelligence officials, it said early indications were that the bomber was brought onto the base as a possible informer and might not have been subjected to rigorous screening.
Afghan political analyst Waheed Mujda said it was the focus on the Haqqani network, which is close to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, that prompted the attack.
The CIA lowered the flag to half-mast at its tightly guarded headquarters in the Washington suburbs, but did not release the names of the casualties, who died cloaked in the same anonymity in which they lived.
"Your triumphs and even your names may be unknown to your fellow Americans, but your service is deeply appreciated," President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to CIA employees.
Obama said that since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, "the CIA has been tested as never before".
The attack comes as the United States increasingly relies on the CIA and other covert forces to pursue strategic goals.
Intelligence operatives are seen as crucial in laying out the groundwork as Obama and NATO allies send in another 36,800 troops as part of a surge expected to last until late 2010.
Meanwhile, two French journalists kidnapped on Wednesday by suspected Taliban in the east of the country are thought to be alive and in good health, a source involved in efforts to free them said.
But the condition of three Afghan assistants abducted with the journalists from France's public television broadcaster was unclear, the source told AFP from Kabul.
Britain's ministry of defence said a British soldier died on Thursday of injuries from a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan, taking the British toll for 2009 to 108.
ISAF said an American soldier died of non-battle related injuries in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday.
The deaths bring to 507 the total number of foreign troops to have died in Afghanistan in 2009, according to an AFP tally based on that from independent icasualties.org website.
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More civilian deaths claimed in Afghanistan
By Amir Shah, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 1, 11:25 am ET
KABUL – An airstrike by international forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand killed seven civilians, two Taliban and wounded another civilian, an Afghan official said Friday.
Dawud Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the attack took place Wednesday after an international patrol came under fire from insurgents and called for air support. NATO said it was aware of the reports and was investigating.
It is the second claim of civilian deaths in allied attacks in a week. The Afghan government says that 10 people were killed, including eight schoolchildren, in a village in eastern Kunar province in a nighttime raid by international forces last weekend.
Claims of civilians being killed in military operations are one of the most emotionally charged issues facing international forces. Although insurgents are responsible for the deaths of far more civilians, those blamed on coalition forces spark the most resentment and undermine the fight against the militants.
The attack in Kunar sparked protests by Afghans who have demanded that foreign troops leave the country.
President Hamid Karzai on Friday met at the presidential palace with representatives from Paktia province who denounced the alleged killing of three civilians there in December. Karzai said he would raise the issue of civilian deaths at the international conference on Afghanistan that is to take place in London on Jan. 28.
On Friday, NATO said joint Afghan-international forces had captured a Taliban member in Kandahar province responsible for movement of weapons and components, and a member of the affiliated Haqqani insurgent group involved with weapons and explosives in Khost province.
Khost is the province where a suicide bomber penetrated a base and killed seven CIA employees Wednesday. A NATO spokesman said there was no immediate information on whether the Haqqani member's seizure was related to the attack, which raised concerns about the security at foreign bases.
Two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the bomber had been invited onto the base and had not been searched. One of the officials, a former senior intelligence employee, said the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp.
NATO also reported that a U.S. service member died Thursday in eastern Afghanistan of injuries not related to battle. It did not give further details.
The British Defense Ministry said that a soldier was killed Thursday in an explosion in Helmand province. The ministry's statement did not give details but said the soldier was working with a unit trying to lessen the threat of improvised explosive devices.
Such bombs have become a major element of the Taliban's strategy against foreign forces. Of the 108 British soldiers who died in Afghanistan in 2009, more than 70 percent were killed by IEDs.
Separately, five Afghan civilians — two women, two men and a driver — were killed Friday when their vehicle hit a bomb on a main road in Bala Murghab district in the northern province of Badghis, said Sharafuddin Majidi, spokesman for the provincial governor.
Also Friday, the deputy police chief of Khost province, Youqb Khan, said at least four security guards for a road construction crew were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the northern part of the province.
___
Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz in Kabul contributed to this report.
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Kidnapped French journalists in Afghanistan alive
PARIS (Reuters) – Two French journalists seized by insurgents this week in Afghanistan are alive and well, their employer said on Friday.
The reporters, their Afghan translator and driver were working for France 3 television when they were kidnapped on Wednesday while driving through Kapisa province, northeast of the Afghan capital Kabul.
Paul Nahon, a manager at France 3, said the reporters were in good condition. "They are alive and being well treated. This is very reassuring," he told France Info radio.
He gave no information about the Afghan workers.
Italy's Ansa news agency quoted the spokesman of a local Afghan governor as saying the reporters and their translator had been taken to a remote Taliban stronghold that had been surrounded by Afghan and international forces.
It added that the driver had been freed.
Spokesman Alim Ayar told Ansa that no military action had been taken since efforts were under way to secure the release of the hostages with the help of tribal elders.
The report could not be immediately confirmed and the French Foreign Ministry in Paris declined any comment.
(Additional reporting by Deepa Babington in Rome, Writing by Crispian Balmer)
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Death takes 2009 British death toll in Afghanistan to 108
Fri Jan 1, 6:39 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A British soldier has died in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence in London said Friday, taking the toll for 2009 to 108.
The soldier from 33 Engineer Regiment was working to dismantle improvised explosive devices (IED) near Sangin, Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan when he was caught in an explosion. He died of his wounds later.
"It is with deep sadness I must confirm to you that a British soldier from 33 Engineer Regiment was killed by an explosion near Sangin, in Helmand Province," said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield.
"He was part of the Counter-IED Task Force, leading the fight against the improvised explosive device in Helmand. His sacrifice and his courage will not be forgotten."
The soldier, whose family have been informed, died on Thursday afternoon. 2009 was the bloodiest year for British soldiers since the 1982 Falklands conflict.
The death takes the number of British service personnel who have died since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001 to 245.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government recently announced a 150-million-pound (240-million-dollar, 168-million-euro) programme to combat the threat from improvised explosive devices, which cause most British troop deaths.
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Highway 1: prime Taliban target
By Denis D. Gray, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jan 1, 12:00 am ET
MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan – Trucks gayly painted with hearts and doves jam up at crowded wayside bazaars. Billboards advertise cell phones and advise drivers to keep their donkeys off the road.
It's not readily evident that this is probably the world's most dangerous highway, a prime target for Taliban insurgents attempting to sever a vital, 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) artery with ambushes, executions and roadside bombs.
Widely seen as symbolic of Afghanistan's progress and security, or lack of it, Highway 1 suffered a dramatic increase in bomb attacks in 2009, but also a marked improvement along a critical 90-kilometer (55-mile) stretch after U.S. forces arrived in strength.
"Last year the insurgents were very successful in interdicting convoys. They can't stage that type of attack anymore," says Lt. Col. Kimo Gallahue, who commands a U.S. battalion guarding the highway just south of Kabul. "Since August we've been ripping through the enemy. Mass matters."
The situation is starkly different as the highway veers farther south into the Taliban heartland. Overall, roadside bomb attacks have risen by more than 50 percent — from 308 in 2008 to 469 last year. But 394 were discovered before they detonated, up from 254 the previous year, according to a command spokesman, Lt. Col. Todd Vician.
Since the U.S. invasion of 2001, this vital land link between the country's two largest cities has been hotly and violently contested. About 35 percent of Afghanistan's population lives within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the Kandahar-to-Kabul stretch, giving weight to the notion that "as the highway goes, so goes the country."
Battered by war and weather, the road got a $250 million makeover five years ago, halving the 12-hour, 483-kilometer (301-mile) drive between Kabul to Kandahar which have the two largest NATO bases. The U.S., Japan and Saudi Arabia then followed with an overhaul of the stretch from Kandahar to the western city of Herat.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar has good reason to target the road, says Col. David B. Haight, commander of U.S. forces in Wardak and Logar provinces which adjoin Kabul.
"If you were Omar, wouldn't you want to attack the country's most strategic highway, an icon of commerce economic progress? He sees traffic on the road and he doesn't like it. He has tried to disrupt it but he can't stop it," Haight said.
"There's never a day off. That road is very critical," he says, noting that the U.S. military has intercepts from Omar to subordinates stressing the importance of the two provinces because of their locations along or near the highway.
In 2008, the Taliban did unleash intense strikes against the highway's southern approach to Kabul where Gallahue's troops now operate. In a series of spectacular attacks, three U.S. soldiers died in an ambush, one of them dragged off and mutilated beyond recognition, and in a separate action an entire 50-vehicle convoy ferrying supplies for U.S. forces was set ablaze and seven of its drivers beheaded.
That year, the U.S. military deployed a skeleton force of some 600 troops to stem a resurgent Taliban at the gates of Kabul in Wardak and Logar. This was boosted to more than 4,000 in early 2009, with seemingly significant effect.
Capt. Jason Adler, one of Gallahue's company commanders, said that when the reinforcements first arrived, the ornate "jingle trucks," as troops call them, refused to travel without military escort south of Maidan Shar, the capital of Wardak near Kabul.
Since August, Adler said, the Taliban has mounted only one significant attack along that stretch, blowing up one span of a bridge.
For the first time, villagers could use the highway to export their renowned apples to India and Pakistan and there are plans to build juice factories and a plant for cleaning wool for carpets, part of an effort to funnel in more aid and develop small businesses, said Adler, of Red Wing, Minnesota.
But Gallahue, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 87th Regiment, says he wishes he had troops in the mountains overlooking his 90 kilometers (55 miles) of highway, where over the summer his troops battled well-trained insurgents prepared to face off against helicopter gunships with just their AK-47 rifles.
"Up there, we can only disrupt, not control," says Gallahue, of Frankfort, Kentucky, as his howitzers blast suspected enemy positions in the contested region. "You can't defend the highway by just sitting on it."
U.S. commanders say the 30,000 extra troops U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered into the country will also help eliminate the highway's other scourge — Afghanistan's own underpaid and ill-trained police.
"Everywhere we partner with them, they have improved. Now, in a remote district when they are on their own, are they corrupt, are they in collusion with the Taliban? Probably. It's often a survival mechanism. That's another reason for more troops," Gallahue says.
In Wardak's Saydabad district, he has fired 49 out of 100 police officers for extortion, corruption, inefficiency and smoking hashish.
No one doubts that after the snow melts the battle for Highway 1 will continue, certainly in the south and possibly again at Kabul's gates.
"The Taliban will have to make a decision in about February," Gallahue says of his sector. "If they decide to come back it will be with a realization of how costly it will be for them, especially now that we are going to have more troops in Afghanistan, and they can't afford to spread themselves too thin."
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Is power in Afghanistan returning to ethnic fault lines?
Afghanistan was torn in the 1990s by civil war among ethnic-based warlords, but leaders now avoid directly appealing to ethnicity. Still, voting patterns in the Afghan election closely mirror the country's ethnic lines.
Christian Science Monitor By Ben Arnoldy December 31, 2009
Khan Neshin, Afghanistan - Voting patterns in Afghanistan show strong overlap with ethnic identity. (See map.) Afghanistan was torn apart in the 1990s during a civil war among ethnic-based warlords, and the outcome of the controversial election in August threatens to rekindle ethnic tensions and burnish the power of the old warlords.
The present conflict already has ethnic undertones: The Taliban are almost entirely Pashtun, the dominant Afghan group. Now the fraud-ridden presidential vote has alienated the Tajiks, who largely backed the losing candidate, Abdullah Abdullah. In Tajik parts of the country, leaders openly question the legitimacy of the resulting government of President Hamid Karzai (a full-blooded Pashtun).
The election also seemingly rewarded Mr. Karzai for turning to ethnic warlords for support, thereby strengthening ethnic factional chiefs.
Karzai wound up carrying the Uzbek-dominated districts, almost certainly due to an 11th-hour deal with Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dos-tum. Karzai brought Mr. Dostum out of quasi-exile to the raucous joy of his community in exchange for Dostum's support, a man with numerous human rights complaints against him. Karzai also won over a chunk of Hazaras, thanks to a deal with ethnic strongman Karim Khalili. Those votes might otherwise have gone to Ramazan Bashardost, a Hazara.
But strong bulwarks remain against any return to outright ethnic strife. First, Afghans themselves have been conditioned through bloody history to deny the legitimacy of ethnic divisions. Political leaders avoid overt appeals to ethnicity, and ordinary Afghans will often deny that clannish behavior is linked to ethnicity.
Second, Dr. Abdullah has fastidiously avoided calling for “peaceful demonstrations,” an oxymoron in Afghan culture. Abdullah's fondness of his emerging image as a statesman may keep him as a force for peace even if Karzai does little to share the spoils of victory (something unknown at press time).
Third, perhaps the only ethnic red line that exists in Afghanistan lies with Pashtuns who feel it is their historical and demographic right to lead the nation. The final election result returned Karzai, a full-blooded Pashtun, to power. In some ways, concerns of a coming ethnic clash would have been more serious if Abdullah had won, given that he is viewed as Tajik, despite having one Pashtun parent.
Still, the voting patterns call into question how cohesive Afghanistan has become. Aside from some educated urbanites, the country appears divided into regional ethnic enclaves committed more to self-preservation than to sacrifice for the nation.
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Afghan militant attacks set pace for a bloody 2010
Lynne O'Donnell December 31, 2009
KABUL, Jan 1, 2010 (AFP) - Afghanistan's war exited 2009 on a sour note for an international community that has committed thousands of troops and billions of dollars into transforming the country into a peaceful, modern democracy.
And there is only likely to be more violence in 2010, analysts said.
As tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians flood into Afghanistan in a surge aimed at turning the tide of the eight-year conflict, attacks such as those that killed a dozen North Americans will become more common.
"With more foreign forces, whether military or civilian, without doubt it will have a negative impact on the cost of the war, in the number of casualties as well as the financial expense," said Afghan political analyst Wahid Mujda.
The Taliban on Thursday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a US base in the east that killed seven CIA agents.
In the south, a roadside bomb detonated beneath an armoured vehicle killing five Canadians including a 34-year-old woman journalist -- an attack also claimed by the militants.
It was one of the deadliest 24-hour periods for foreigners in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion pushed the Taliban regime from power in late 2001, leading to the insurgency that claimed more than 500 foreign troops in 2009.
Over the course of 2010, the number of foreign forces battling the Taliban is set to rise to around 150,000 with the addition of 30,000 US troops and around 7,000 from NATO partners.
Thousands of civilian experts are also arriving in Kabul and fanning out to the provinces to assist in development and aid.
They are part of the counter-insurgency strategy devised by US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the international forces, to drive out the Taliban while winning over the population on behalf of the Afghan government.
Combat troops will be concentrated in populated areas where Taliban influence is greatest, military officials said.
Civilians are being billeted on military bases to ensure territory taken is held and benefits from the aid money that is pouring in.
Much of the combat will be in southern Kandahar and Helmand, long-time militant strongholds and the source of most of the world's opium and heroin, which helps fund the insurgency.
Western drugs experts say the Taliban are becoming increasingly enmeshed in the drugs trade, worth about three billion dollars a year, providing protection for smuggling routes and intimidation of farmers who grow opium poppy.
This nexus of rebellion and smuggling is helping fuel the insurgency, a Western diplomat said, with profitable commodities such as opium and sugar going one way, into Pakistan, and weaponry and militants coming the other.
A Western military official said the presence on the bases of large numbers of civilians would not exacerbate the security threat, though larger numbers of troops would attract militant attacks like "bees to honey".
"When those 37,000 troops come in we can expect more action and more casualties, but greater results -- everything grows exponentially," he said on condition of anonymity.
Kabul University law professor Nasrullah Stanakzai said if militants start habitually targeting foreign civilians, ordinary Afghans will also suffer.
This would have the double negative effect of turning Afghan public opinion against the presence of foreigners and Western public opinion even more sharply against continued commitment to Afghanistan, he said.
"If there is a rise in civilian casualties of either Afghans or foreigners, as well as a higher death rate among the foreign forces, then first, it will increase the distance between the Afghan people and their government, and second, Western public opinion will demand a withdrawal," Stanakzai said.
Military officials and Western diplomats in Kabul agreed the injection of more troops -- which has prompted Taliban promises of a surge of their own -- will inevitably lead to more deaths, on all sides.
"But I think people are already used to that idea, and that it would have been a very important factor in (US President Barack) Obama's decision" to send more troops, the Western diplomat said.
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Pakistan attack a warning to anti-Taliban tribes
By Riaz Khan And Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writers
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide car bombing that killed 88 people on a volleyball field sent a bloody New Year's warning to residents trying to curb spreading Taliban militancy in Pakistan's northwestern region near the Afghan border.
The attack in Lakki Marwat city was one of the deadliest in recent Pakistani history. As local tribesmen prepared for funerals Saturday, rescuers were still searching for bodies trapped underneath rubble.
The suicide bomber detonated some 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of high-intensity explosives on the crowded field during a volleyball tournament held Friday near a meeting of anti-Taliban elders. The elders were probably the actual target, police said.
Lakki Marwat is near South Waziristan, a tribal region where the army has been battling the Pakistani Taliban since October.
The military operation was undertaken with the backing of the U.S., which is eager for Pakistan to free its tribal belt of militants believed to be involved in attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan. The offensive has provoked apparent reprisal attacks that had already killed more than 500 people in Pakistan before Friday's blast.
Militants have struck all across the nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied country, and they appear increasingly willing to target groups beyond security forces. No group claimed responsibility for Friday's blast, but that is not uncommon when many civilians are killed.
"The locality has been a hub of militants. Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion," local police Chief Ayub Khan told reporters.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack.
"The United States will continue to stand with the people of Pakistan in their efforts to chart their own future free from fear and intimidation and will support their efforts to combat violent extremism and bolster democracy," she said in a statement.
Across Pakistan's northwest, where the police force is thin, underpaid and under-equipped, various tribes have taken security in their own hands over the past two years by setting up citizen militias to fend off the Taliban.
The government has encouraged such "lashkars," and in some areas they have proven key to reducing militant activity.
Still, tribal leaders who face off with the militants do so at high personal risk. Several suicide attacks have targeted meetings of anti-Taliban elders, and militants also often go after individuals. One reason militancy has spread in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt is because insurgents have slain dozens of tribal elders and filled a power vacuum.
Authorities said that about 300 people were on the field at the time of Friday's blast and that security had been provided for the games and the tribal elders' meeting.
Police official Tajammal Shah said Saturday that 88 people died and 50 were wounded. Eight children, six paramilitary troops and two police were among the dead, he said.
Omar Gull, 35, a wounded paramilitary soldier, said that the attacker drove recklessly into the crowd and that people were trying to figure out what was happening when the explosives detonated.
"It was then chaos," he said. "It was smoke, dust and cries."
The attack was the deadliest since a car bomb killed 112 people at a crowded market in Peshawar on Oct. 28.
Regional Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain reiterated the government's resolve to target militants wherever they may be, saying, "We need to be more on the offensive to fight them."
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Toosi reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Matt Lee in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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Man hopes AFC eateries will change Afghanistan
San Antonio Express-News
By Sig Christenson - Express-News KABUL — Colin Shepherd, a U.N. transport manager, had a sense of deja vu walking into Afghan Fried Chicken.
Thousands of miles from his Canadian home, the chicken tasted, well, like chicken — Popeye's, in fact, right down to a distinct and familiar burning sensation.
“It has that spicy taste,” he said, and noted it was odd to find a restaurant so familiar in a place as distant and dreary as Kabul.
That's a natural reaction for any Westerner. What most folks dining here don't know is that AFC is the kissing cousin of Kentucky Fried Chicken by design, a restaurant with ambitions of transforming Afghan culture.
This store, in its sixth year of business, still is working to get the little things just right. It's bringing in cooks from India and captains from a ritzy local hotel.
But owner Mohammad Hashem Rasoli, a one-time New York business owner, is determined to branch out. He envisions a chain of restaurants that one day will dot Afghanistan's major population centers.
Call him the Col. Sanders of Kabul, a guy with a recipe and vision.
“I want the American people to know about AFC,” said Rasholi, 46. “This is American culture, American food, and I want to introduce American good in all of Afghanistan.”
AFC actually sells much more than fried chicken, and though it has the look of a Whataburger or McDonald's, it's is not a typical fast-food restaurant.
It has a much bigger menu, serving burgers, American steak, pizza, barbecued chicken, seafood, Indian dishes like lamb biryani, Afghan courses that include mixed kabobs and such Chinese specialties as egg fried rice. Oh, and there's cream of leek soup.
Though AFC sits at a busy intersection in central Kabul's Shar-e-Nowsuburb, or “new city,” it doesn't have a drive-through window and diners don't have to order at the counter. This eatery has waiters in black bow ties and gray sweaters who expect a tip.
Things might have been different for everyone if Rasoli had continued to sell Oriental rugs in New York. After 9-11, though, the business went downhill and he moved to Pakistan. Later, after Hamid Karzai came to power in Afghanistan, a light bulb went off.
“I had one idea for fried chicken,” Rasoli said in English. “I want to open a KFC in Afghanistan, but they want $1 million for a franchise for that restaurant.”
There were other problems, ranging from the security situation to the cost of having KFC stuff shipped here. So Rasoli, who'd once worked in a chicken restaurant in New York, got a loan from a friend and started AFC.
It started small. But today, its busy ambience is a mix of Rambo, Burger King and an upscale hotel brunch. Rasoli and AFC manager Javed Rahime always are pushing to take AFC to the next level, working to improve customer service.
“Our kitchen is a little bit good, but our service is not good,” said Rahime, a hospitality industry veteran of the Marriott in Karachi, Pakistan.
It's an optimistic place in a city occasionally rocked by bombings. The two-story building includes a family room, children's play area and a garden that's stunning if only because of its manicured lawn — a rarity here.
Suggestions and critiques are welcome. A metal “complain” box is anchored to the wall with the flat-screen TV, often tuned to wrestling or cricket matches.
Ahmad Shah and Abdullah Amarkhail drop in two or three times a week. They work in a bank and can afford a family-size Sicilian fiesta (cost is 575 afghanis, or around $11.90), or the No. 3, three pieces of chicken and a Coke (249 afghanis, or about $5.18.)
Prices are well within the range of anything most Americans can afford but that's not true of Afghans, a largely impoverished people who live on $1 or so a day.
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