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Karzai renews call for Taliban to reconcile
Sun Jan 31, 5:34 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday renewed his call for Taliban militants to give up fighting his government, saying he will intensify efforts to bring the rebels in from the cold.
Karzai Urges Taliban Talks Before U.S. Pullout
January 31, 2010
KABUL (Reuters) -- Taliban fighters should drop their demand that U.S. and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan before peace talks can be held, President Hamid Karzai said today, saying talks would make it easier for troops to leave.
Few see progress in flurry of Taliban talks
By Roy Gutman And Saeed Shah, Mcclatchy Newpapers – Sat Jan 30, 3:56 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite a flurry of proposals to launch talks on ending the war in Afghanistan, leaders of the Taliban insurgency have yet to show any serious interest and instead are pressing their demands to oust all U.S. forces and establish an Islamist state.
Saudis 'mediating Taliban talks'
Aljazeera.net Saturday, January 30, 2010
Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister of Afghanistan, has said that reconciliation talks with the Taliban are under way.
Pakistan checks reported death of Taliban chief
By Asif Shahzad, Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani army said Sunday that it was investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud died from injuries sustained in a U.S. drone missile strike in mid-January.
Pakistani Taliban deny report of militant chief's death
Sun Jan 31, 6:25 am ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – The Pakistani Taliban on Sunday denied fresh reports that their chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, is dead, while the army said it was investigating as rumours re-emerged of his killing by US drone missiles.
Afghan 'geological reserves worth a trillion dollars'
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.
US Marines facing a 'different war' in Afghanistan
by Jason Gutierrez – Sun Jan 31, 2:45 am ET
SOUTHEAST OF MARJAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – For the US Marines deployed to the battlefields of southern Afghanistan, life is fragile and thoughts focus on the day they see their families again, but something about this war is different.
Could deal with Taliban fighters end war?
By Tamim Ansary, Special to CNN January 30, 2010 1:30 p.m. EST
Editor's note: Tamim Ansary, an Afghan-born American writer, is the author of "Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes" and "The Widow's Husband."
Troops detain Taliban commander in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and the NATO-led forces, during a joint operation in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, arrested a Taliban commander, said a statement of the NATO-led forces released here on Sunday.
January death rate signal of tough year in Afghan war
by Lynne O'donnell – Sun Jan 31, 1:50 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The Afghan war has notched up another grisly record, with the number of international troops to die in the fight against the Taliban the highest for the month of January since the war began.
AP Interview: Months ahead key to Afghan fight
By ERIC TALMADGE The Associated Press Saturday, January 30, 2010; 10:28 AM
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan -- Bolstered by the U.S. troop surge, the commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan said Saturday he believes the allied coalition can cripple the Taliban in the country's volatile south by summer but not before hard fighting.
Afghan War Documentary, Ozark Mountain Film Win Sundance Awards
By Rick Warner
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- “Restrepo,” a documentary about U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and “Winter’s Bone,” a drama about an Ozark Mountain girl trying to find her missing father, won top jury prizes last night at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
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Karzai renews call for Taliban to reconcile
Sun Jan 31, 5:34 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday renewed his call for Taliban militants to give up fighting his government, saying he will intensify efforts to bring the rebels in from the cold.
At a news conference in Kabul, the US-backed leader hailed the support of the war-torn country's international allies last week in London for a new initiative aimed at reconciling moderate Taliban insurgents.
"We as Afghans are trying our best to reach as high as possible to bring peace and security to Afghanistan," Karzai said.
He added that a Peace Jirga, or a traditional grand assembly of tribal elders, will be convened in Kabul "soon" to discuss how to start the efforts.
Afghanistan and its international allies, mainly Western powers who have a military presence in the country, agreed at the London conference Thursday to push for peace efforts in a more comprehensive programme.
If implemented, insurgents laying down their arms will be provided with jobs, education and protection. Karzai said Al-Qaeda operatives were excluded from the scheme.
Karzai said the new approach was a "good chance for peace in the country" and called on insurgent leaders to embrace it.
Afghanistan is gripped by an Islamic insurgency being waged by the remnants of the Taliban, who are fighting to regain power and oust Karzai's government and its military Western backers.
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Karzai Urges Taliban Talks Before U.S. Pullout
January 31, 2010
KABUL (Reuters) -- Taliban fighters should drop their demand that U.S. and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan before peace talks can be held, President Hamid Karzai said today, saying talks would make it easier for troops to leave.
Karzai is hoping to launch a peace initiative this year, but Taliban fighters have long said they are willing to negotiate only if more than 110,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan leave the country first.
Karzai said the Taliban's insistence on a withdrawal of Western troops before any talks was "not a meaningful gesture."
"The international community is here for success in defeat of terrorism, success in the defeat of extremism," Karzai told a news conference. "Therefore, they have to be satisfied that they have achieved their objective before they can leave."
The Taliban should "return to their own country and work for peace in order for us to be able to have the U.S. and other forces to be able to have the freedom to go back home," he said.
At a conference on Afghanistan in London on January 28, Karzai called on militants to take part in a "loya jirga" -- or large assembly of elders -- as a start to peace talks.
Karzai made clear today that he wants to move quickly. He said he would summon the jirga in less than six weeks, before another international conference he intends to host in Kabul, penciled in for some time in the next few months.
Karzai has consistently made overtures to the Taliban, and the West has been increasingly supportive in public of proposals to lure fighters down from the hills in a bid to end years of fighting in a war now into its ninth year.
Washington is sending 30,000 more troops this year to try to turn the tide in the war and other countries are sending some 7,000. Washington also says it wants to begin drawing down its forces in mid-2011.
Karzai said he will soon travel to Saudi Arabia, which has offered to help facilitate talks with the Taliban provided that the militants stop giving sanctuary to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He did not give dates for the trip, which palace officials say they expect within days.
Karzai has been hoping to remove insurgent leaders from international terrorist blacklists to help bring them to the table for talks. The United Nations removed five names last week, but none of them were senior Taliban figures.
"We as Afghans are trying our best to reach as high as possible to bring peace and security to Afghanistan, but it has an international aspect as well. It is a bit more complicated," he said.
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Few see progress in flurry of Taliban talks
By Roy Gutman And Saeed Shah, Mcclatchy Newpapers – Sat Jan 30, 3:56 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite a flurry of proposals to launch talks on ending the war in Afghanistan, leaders of the Taliban insurgency have yet to show any serious interest and instead are pressing their demands to oust all U.S. forces and establish an Islamist state.
With no apparent coordination, Afghan President Hamid Karzai , departing U.N. special representative Kai Eide and members of the Afghan parliament have launched separate initiatives in recent days, allowing the Taliban to choose the forum for talks if and when they decide to come to the table.
Eide's meeting in Dubai with a low-ranking Taliban commander sometime this month came in for criticism Saturday by Afghan politicians and Western military officials, who disparaged the attempt to launch a process by seeing at best a minor official.
Eide was aiming high, "but instead he saw a peon," said Daoud Sultanzoy, a member of Afghanistan's parliament who closely follows the issue. "It was a very brief meeting. The man was a 'go-fer' of some sort."
The meeting apparently took place as Eide was en route to London for Thursday's international conference on Afghanistan , where the issue of reconciliation with the Taliban was discussed.
No one has yet identified the Taliban official who met with Eide or his rank, but the Taliban's Leadership Council in a statement Saturday said it "refutes the rumors...about negotiations between the Islamic Emirate, and U.N. special envoy, Kai Eide ."
Neither the U.N. nor the U.S. Embassy in Kabul would comment publicly on Eide's trip. Privately, a senior Western military official called the effort "freelancing" and suggested Eide was trying to secure his legacy after coming under severe criticism for taking a hands-off approach to fraud-tainted Afghan presidential elections last August.
Michael Semple , a European diplomat whom Karzai expelled from Afghanistan two years ago for supposedly unauthorized contacts with the Taliban , said it looked like Eide was "trying to leverage" the U.N. into the talks process.
"I believe that international and Taliban positions are reconcilable, so political dialogue can be helpful," Semple said. "But it is probably going to require quite a bit of political dialogue before anyone makes a decisive move."
Eide's diplomatic foray overshadowed Karzai's own initiative at the London conference, where he asked Saudi Arabia to mediate between the Afghan government and the Taliban .
"We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of al Qaida or other terrorist networks, who accept the Afghan constitution," Karzai told the conference.
But Prince Saud al Faisal , the Saudi foreign minister, said his country would talk to the Taliban only if they first severed ties with al Qaida and Osama bin Laden .
" Saudi Arabia has no connection with the Taliban ," he said. "We cut connections ages ago, when they started to give sanctuary to Bin Laden, and we haven't renewed them."
In 2008, Saudi Arabia hosted a secret meeting between the Afghan government and the Taliban that produced no results. Western diplomats now regard that encounter as essentially a stunt by Karzai, carefully leaked to the media to bolster the Afghan president's image as a peace-maker.
Ten Afghan parliamentarians also held a session in the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean last weekend. The meetings included four supporters of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who heads an insurgent faction, and several scholars and clerics with close ties to the Taliban .
It was the third such informal exchange in the past year, and the participants actually registered progress by agreeing on an agenda for future talks — including a plan to discuss ways all could support parliamentary elections expected to take place later this year.
The Taliban's decision to boycott and disrupt presidential elections last August opened the way to massive fraud mostly by supporters of Karzai. A Taliban and Hekmatyar endorsement of the upcoming elections could mark the beginning of a real reconciliation.
The United States remains uncomfortable with talking to the Taliban's high command. On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Eide's meeting was purely a personal initiative. It "is not going to be part of our efforts going forward."
Clinton later told National Public Radio that negotiations are "not going to happen with Mullah Omar and the like."
Similarly, the Taliban is wary of negotiating with U.S. and U.N. officials.
A former Pakistani official, who is in touch with the Taliban , said: "I am sure that Mullah Omar has not formally authorized anyone to negotiate with the U.S., the United Nations or others. So there aren't authorized representatives to talk to."
A retired Pakistani intelligence official, Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar , known as Colonel Imam, said that those who went to meet Eide were "not part of the Taliban shura of 35 people". The shura is the group's leadership council.
"The people who went to Dubai don't have any major role under Mullah Omar," said Tarar, who first met Omar in the 1980s and became close to him when the Taliban stormed to power in the mid-90s.
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent. Special correspondent Nooruddin Bakhshi contributed)
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Saudis 'mediating Taliban talks'
Aljazeera.net Saturday, January 30, 2010
Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister of Afghanistan, has said that reconciliation talks with the Taliban are under way.
Ghani, currently a senior fellow for the Brookings Institution in Washington, also said that Saudi Arabia had been active in mediation.
"There are people [doing] mediation in the of kingdom of Saudi Arabia and His Majesty, the King of Saudi Arabia, has been involved and others have been involved," he told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
At a conference in London earlier in the week, officials announced that "moderate" Taliban would be urged to enter talks with the Kabul government and a new fund would be set up to encourage fighters to lay down their arms.
'Disenchanted brothers'
Ghani's remarks, as also a report from earlier in the week that suggested Afghan officials had held a meeting in the Maldives with representatives of an armed group believed to be fighting alongside the Taliban, suggests that Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is already reaching out.
At the London conference, Karzai said that Kabul and its international backers would concentrate of wooing his "disenchanted brothers" who were fighting for money rather than ideology.
Ghani said that efforts to draw Taliban elements into the political process would require the assistance of foreign powers.
"We are delighted that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and other Islamic countries will be coming increasingly forward to claim an active role," he said.
"We also need the engagement of China to make sure the regional arrangements are put in place to bring about a situation where use of sanctuary in neighbouring countries is denied.
"This is a time of high risks but simultaneously a time of high awards."
The mention of China was made in the context of the country's close relationship with Pakistan, whose border regions are believed to serve as a safe haven for several Afghan Taliban commanders and their allies.
Karzai has said that he is planning what he calls a "grand peace jirga" to open negotiations with armed fighters and tribal leaders from around the country.
Hussein Shobokshi, a Saudi-based columnist for the Alsharq Alawsat newspaper, told Al Jazeera there are wings in the Taliban that believe it is time for serious dialogue with the government to find a peaceful solution to the problems in Afghanistan.
"We are seeing another Taliban - that is more politically savvy and realistic, Other countries will be able to deal with them," he said.
"There is a sense of duty to take ownership for this problem [within other countries]. The dimensions of the problems have been realised and are being addressed."
Taliban rejection
A Taliban commander told Al Jazeera that no member of the group would be prepared to take part in talks if they were required to disarm first.
"I confirm that none of us will lay down arms even if he is paid mountains of money; none of us would abandon the right path," Doran Safi, a commander in the east of Afghanistan, said.
However, Ghani, the former minister, said that no one commander spoke for all the pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in the country and therefore it was difficult to gauge what the response to overtures from the government might be.
"We must know that it's not one insurgency but a series of insurgencies. They're not unified and they don't speak with a unified voice," he told Al Jazeera.
"Some will accept and come over. Some will come over later. We need to be patient with this process."
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Pakistan checks reported death of Taliban chief
By Asif Shahzad, Associated Press Writer
ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani army said Sunday that it was investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud died from injuries sustained in a U.S. drone missile strike in mid-January.
The militant leader's death would be an important success for both Pakistan, which has been battling the Pakistani Taliban, and the U.S., which blames Mehsud for a recent deadly bombing against the CIA in Afghanistan.
Mehsud's predecessor was also killed in a missile strike less than six months ago, highlighting the ability of the unmanned aircraft to target Taliban and al-Qaida leaders holed up in Pakistan's lawless tribal area.
The army's disclosure of its investigation came shortly after Pakistani state television, citing unnamed "official sources," reported that Mehsud died in Orakzai, an area in Pakistan's northwest tribal region where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries.
"We have these reports coming to us," army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. "We are investigating whether it is true or wrong."
A tribal elder told the AP that he attended Mehsud's funeral in the Mamuzai area of Orakzai on Thursday. He said Mehsud was buried in Mamuzai graveyard after he died at his in-laws' home. The elder spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Taliban.
Pakistani intelligence officials have said that Mehsud was targeted in a U.S. drone strike in South Waziristan on Jan. 14, triggering rumors that he had been injured or killed. The strike targeted a meeting of militant commanders in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan.
Mehsud issued an audio tape after the strike directly denying the rumors, and his voice sounded strong. But Pakistani intelligence officials told the AP on Sunday that they have confirmation that the Taliban chief's legs and abdomen were wounded in the strike.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Pakistani Taliban officials were not immediately available for comment, but low-level fighters have dismissed rumors of Mehsud's death in recent days as propaganda.
The drone strike that targeted Mehsud came about two weeks after a deadly suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees at a remote base across the border in Afghanistan. Mehsud appeared in a video issued after the bombing sitting beside the Jordanian man who carried out the attack.
The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said he carried out the attack in retribution for the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud — Hakimullah Mehsud's predecessor — in a U.S. drone strike last August.
The U.S. refuses to talk about the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan but officials have said privately that the strikes have killed several senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.
Pakistani officials publicly protest the strikes as violations of the country's sovereignty, but U.S. officials say privately they support the program, especially when it targets militants like Mehsud who the government believes is a threat to the state.
Mehsud, who has the reputation as a particularly ruthless militant, took over leadership of the Pakistani Taliban soon after Baitullah Mehsud's death.
The 28 year-old militant leader has focused most of his attacks against targets inside Pakistan, but his men have also been blamed for attacking U.S. and NATO supply convoys traveling through the country en route to Afghanistan.
Hakimullah Mehsud first appeared in public to journalists in November 2008, when he offered to take reporters in Orakzai on a ride in a U.S. Humvee taken from a supply truck headed to Afghanistan. He was the Pakistani Taliban's regional commander in the Orakzai, Khyber and Mohmand tribal areas before taking over the organization.
He has taken responsibility for a wave of brazen strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar last June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier that year. There is a 50 million rupee ($590,000) bounty on his head.
The Pakistani Taliban stepped up its attacks after the army invaded its stronghold of South Waziristan in mid-October. More than 600 people have been killed in attacks throughout the country since the ground offensive was launched.
Pakistani officials have said some of the militants have fled to neighboring North Waziristan, an area dominated by groups launching cross-border attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The army struck deals with the leaders of two of those groups, Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir, before it invaded South Waziristan, promising not to target the militants if they stayed on the sidelines.
An umbrella group that includes the two militants and the Pakistani Taliban issued a pamphlet in North Waziristan on Sunday accusing the government of violating the agreement and warning it would trigger a major war if it launched any kind of military operation in the area.
The pamphlet issued by the Shura-e-Ittehad-ul-Mujahedeen, or Council of United Holy Warriors, said the government violated the agreement in various ways, including by creating a network of spies in North Waziristan who helped the U.S. kill militants in drone attacks.
"We have tolerated all sorts of mistreatment, but now we are not going to accept any kind of military operation in even our smallest area," said the pamphlet, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.
The Pakistani army has said it cannot launch another major operation for at least six months, but it has carried out two strikes in North Waziristan in the past two weeks.
"Westerners have some regard for civilians and they do distinguish between Taliban fighters and civilians, but the Pakistani army doesn't," said the pamphlet in a rare admission for a militant group. "Instead of the Taliban, it is bombing ordinary people's homes and their bazaars and killing innocent people."
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Associated Press writers Hussain Afzal in Parachinar and Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.
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Pakistani Taliban deny report of militant chief's death
Sun Jan 31, 6:25 am ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – The Pakistani Taliban on Sunday denied fresh reports that their chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, is dead, while the army said it was investigating as rumours re-emerged of his killing by US drone missiles.
Speculation about the warlord's death first surfaced after a January 14 bombing by unmanned US spy planes in the Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan, but within days Mehsud released two audio statements denying his demise.
Security officials said at the time he may have been wounded, and on Sunday state television station PTV, citing unnamed sources, reported that Mehsud had been buried on Friday in the northwestern tribal district of Orakzai.
"I don't have the confirmation, my sources have not confirmed it, whether he is dead or alive," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP, adding that they were investigating the report.
Taliban spokesmen admitted this month that Mehsud was in the Shaktoi area where the drones hit, but said he left about an hour beforehand. US officials said they had no information about his reported death.
The chief Taliban spokesman dismissed the reports again on Sunday.
"Hakimullah is alive and safe. The purpose of stories regarding his death is to create differences among Taliban ranks, but such people will never succeed," Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.
"People who are saying that Hakimullah has died should provide proof of it -- we have already proved that he is alive and we have provided two audio tapes of him to all the media."
Mehsud assumed leadership of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), blamed for the deaths of thousands of people in attacks, after previous leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone strike in August last year.
The TTP denied Baitullah Mehsud's death for weeks, apparently amid fierce infighting over who would succeed him.
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Afghan 'geological reserves worth a trillion dollars'
KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.
The war-ravaged nation could become one of the richest in the world if helped to tap its geological deposits, Karzai told reporters.
"I have very good news for Afghans," Karzai said.
"The initial figures we have obtained show that our mineral deposits are worth a thousand billion dollars -- not a thousand million dollars but a thousand billion," he said.
He based his assertion, he said, on a survey being carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), due to be completed in "a couple of months".
The USGS, the US government's scientific agency, has been working on the 17-million dollar survey for a number of years, Karzai said.
While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones.
Little has been exploited because the country has been mired in conflict for 30 years, and is embroiled in a vicious insurgency by Islamist rebels led by the Taliban.
More than 100,000 foreign troops under US and NATO command are battling the insurgents, with another 40,000 due for deployment this year.
China and India have bid for contracts to develop mines, with the Chinese winning a copper contract. An iron ore contract is due to be awarded later this year.
In 2007, China's state-owned metals giant Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a three-billion-dollar contract to develop the Aynak copper mine -- one of the world's biggest -- over the next 30 years.
First discovered in 1974, the site, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Kabul in Logar, is estimated to contain 11.3 million tonnes of copper.
The Hajigak iron ore mine in Bamiyan province, north of Kabul, is currently under tender, with one Chinese and half a dozen Indian firms bidding.
The contract is for exploitation of almost two billion tonnes of high-grade ore, involving processing, smelting, steel production and electricity production.
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US Marines facing a 'different war' in Afghanistan
by Jason Gutierrez – Sun Jan 31, 2:45 am ET
SOUTHEAST OF MARJAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – For the US Marines deployed to the battlefields of southern Afghanistan, life is fragile and thoughts focus on the day they see their families again, but something about this war is different.
They are preparing for an offensive on Marjah, one of the Taliban's big urban strongholds in the southern province of Helmand, but progress is slow with the militants apparently preferring fight to flight.
The Marines will soon be joined by tens of thousands more soldiers, the lion's share of the 30,000-strong troop surge promised by US President Barack Obama in December to try and turn around the grinding Afghan war.
A foot patrol for one platoon of Marines ends with a dash under a hail of bullets across a heavily-mined poppy field.
The soldiers have been pinned down in a muddy mound, the thorny weeds cutting through skin. They recover soon enough, however, manoeuvring away from the Taliban's crosshairs and driving them away with heavy machine-gun fire.
"I pray in the morning and at night, hoping that someone up there is looking after me," says Lance Corporal Justin Blancas, serving with the Marines 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment Alpha Company's 2nd Platoon.
"I have already made my peace with God because this war is different, it's not conventional," the 23-year-old bespectacled Chicago native says.
"These Taliban have learned their lesson. They adapt as fast as we do, but we are bound by our strict rules. They are not," he adds, panting after a 100-metre dash for cover behind an abandoned mud house.
"It can be a death run like this every day."
The US and NATO troop surge is set to swell the foreign force to 150,000 this year, but Afghan and Western officials are also talking about a political solution to end the Taliban-led insurgency as its enters its ninth year.
To force the Taliban leadership to the negotiating table however, US military officials have said there needs to be greater success on the battlefield -- and this is where the Marines come in.
But the challenges on the ground are immense. Fields are littered with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) responsible for most of the deaths of foreign troops in Afghanistan, which hit a record 520 fatalities last year. Related article: January Afghan death rate signal of tough 2010
The Taliban are also entrenched in their strongholds holding sway over the population and setting up shadow governments across the country, meaning they have the local intelligence that the Marines desperately need.
"Marjah has also been a stronghold by the Taliban for some time. They know where we are coming and can stage ambushes anytime," says one sergeant who asks not to be named.
Five Marines were killed in southern Afghanistan in two days of January alone in IED blasts and ambushes.
Platoon commander Lieutenant David Emison, a Virginia native and the first Marine in his family, still sports a busted lip and chipped teeth sustained from a recent bomb blast that killed a sergeant.
"They (the Taliban) make very powerful IEDs out here. If you step on them, you don't get a second chance," says Emison, the group's tactician, whose 25-year-old wife is pregnant with their second child back home.
He says that after the incident, he has tried to become more careful about where he treads, but knows that a blast could take any of them anytime.
The ex-college wrestler pushes away ugly thoughts and believes the unpopular war Obama inherited from the past administration will have a positive outcome.
"It does not pay to be scared," he says.
Blancas, meanwhile, arms himself with his assault rifle, two rosaries and prayer cards stuffed in his pockets as the Marines prepare a full-on assault on Marjah in the coming weeks or months.
Marjah has a population of at least 60,000. Built in the 1950s with US government help, it was intended to be a model agricultural town with an irrigation system flowing from the Helmand river.
But instead of legitimate crops, poor farmers plant opium poppy, the trafficking and sale of which bankrolls the Taliban movement.
The Marines' mission is to show US strength, assist in installing government control in Helmand province and let the local population know they have arrived.
The challenge however is huge. Taliban militants harass the villagers at night, warning them of trouble if they help US troops. Under the cover of darkness, they also plant IEDs in fields the Marines have to cross.
For father-of-one Blancas, it all comes down to one simple thing.
"We do what we have to do, but I plan to be out of the corps soon and be daddy. I just have to stay alive till then."
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Could deal with Taliban fighters end war?
By Tamim Ansary, Special to CNN January 30, 2010 1:30 p.m. EST
Editor's note: Tamim Ansary, an Afghan-born American writer, is the author of "Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes" and "The Widow's Husband."
"Re-integrating the Taliban."
Could that be a way to end the war in Afghanistan? Representatives of 70 nations met in London, England, this week to discuss that very idea. The plan was first floated several weeks ago by a key adviser to Afghanistan President Harmid Karzai, Masoom Stanekzai, and it has two parts: One, lure low-level Taliban fighters out of the insurgency with economic incentives and two, co-opt Taliban leaders by offering them a role in governing Afghanistan.
Part one of the Stanekzai program makes sense because it might split rank-and-file fighters away from instigators of the insurgency (I prefer the word "instigators" to "leaders.") Part two, however, will only end up delivering the government of Afghanistan to a new Talibanist group and betray the millions of urban modernist Afghans who have sided with the West over the last decade.
So let's look at part one. Can the Taliban be "reintegrated" into Afghan society? Should they be? And most of all, who do we mean by "Taliban?"
The term used to mean an organization that ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, but that Taliban fragmented out of meaningful existence after U.S. bombing drove them from Kabul. Their cadre melted into the hills, their leaders fled back to Pakistan. "The Taliban" then metastasized into "Talibanism," which is an ideology and an attitude -- a vague mixture of Islamic ideas, apocalyptic jihadism, Afghan nationalism, xenophobic localism and resentment.
Jihadists from Pakistan and the Arab world have used Talibanism to stir the embers of xenophobic localism in Afghanistan, and that's the insurgency we're talking about now. And the predatory venality of the Kabul government has certainly fed the blaze.
Those who secured positions with the government saw it as a license to squeeze the locals, and those same officials were best situated to suck up foreign funds coming in for Afghan reconstruction, so they got rich, while reconstruction foundered.
Ordinary shopkeepers, farmers, traders, artisans and whatnot had no civil society to join and no neutral place to stand. Radical activists seeping across the border from Pakistan burned schools, firebombed mosques if the imams gave pro-government sermons and killed farmers who accepted Western development aid. Trapped between a hard place and harder places, many young men joined the anti-government insurgency. At least there was money in it.
The lower ranks of the Afghan insurgency are undoubtedly swelled by men such as these: Disaffected locals who have little to lose and no source of meaning in their lives, except Talibanism. Would they be open to setting down their guns if any good-looking alternatives opened up? Plenty might.
The leaders of the insurgency -- the instigators -- are another matter. Mullah Omar? The sinister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar? These guys think they have the West on the run. Conciliatory offers will only persuade them to dig in. Why accept a piece of a pie when you can have the whole thing?
Of course there are formidable problems with luring low-level fighters back into Afghan civil society. First of all, what civil society? Second, who will administer the program? Karzai's officials? Money is like DMSO to those guys. The moment it gets into their hands, it sinks into their palms. Third, donors are envisioning spending $500 million over five years to drain 30,000 fighters out of the insurgency. That comes to about $17,000 per man or about $3,300 a year. Those men could make more than that from drug-thuggery and Talibanist protection rackets.
Besides, a billion dollars distributed across southern Afghanistan thins out pretty quickly. What happens when some fighter joins the program, gets a bit of money and starts an auto repair shop, but his 25 first cousins don't? Will they not tar the one guy who profited from the program as a traitor who took foreign money to betray his own?
That said, part one of the Stanekzai program is worth a try. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothin' to lose, as the song says; and that's where Afghanistan stands. Half a billion dollars may sound like a lot to spend on an initiative that will probably achieve, at best, only a little. But compare that to the $30 billion it could cost to sustain an additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for one year.
If those troops' mission is not linked to some plan for restoring civil society, they will actually inflame the insurgency (as they have been doing). So it's $30 billion to achieve negative results versus another half-billion to achieve something. A little. Maybe.
And maybe a great deal more. Over the last three years, "Talibanist" attacks have tripled, and most see this as a sign of growing "Taliban" strength. But there may be some tipping point to people's patience for violence.
If ordinary Afghans see a glimmer of a way to escape the endless violence and restore a normal life on their own terms, and if Talibanists continue to sabotage those options, and if the United States stops dispatching drones to bomb homes supposedly harboring terrorists, and if the Kabul government stops predatory intrusions into rural life... then a moment may come when the insurgency actually turns against the jihadists themselves as the outsiders (which many of them actually are).
There was, after all, a moment in 2001 when the rhetoric on the street spontaneously painted the Taliban that way. People referred to them routinely as "the Arabs and the Punjabis" (meaning Pakistanis). A rumor made the rounds that in the heart of Taliban headquarters, above the door to the Mullah Omar's office, hung a sign, which read: "Inside this room, there is no God, there is no Qur'an, there is no Islam."
Such a sentiment might emerge again. It's not probable but it's not impossible, and any initiative that might make it happen is worth a try.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Tamim Ansary.
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Troops detain Taliban commander in S. Afghanistan
KABUL, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Afghan and the NATO-led forces, during a joint operation in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, arrested a Taliban commander, said a statement of the NATO-led forces released here on Sunday.
"An Afghan-international security force captured a militant while pursuing a Taliban IED (Improvised Explosive Device) commander in Kandahar province yesterday," the statement said.
However, it did not mention the name of the commander, but said that during the operation in Shah Wali Kot district, the joint force came under small arms fire and the forces returned fire, suppressing the threat.
Kandahar, a former stronghold of Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, has been the scene of increasing insurgency over the past couple of months.
Editor: Han Jingjing
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January death rate signal of tough year in Afghan war
by Lynne O'donnell – Sun Jan 31, 1:50 am ET
KABUL (AFP) – The Afghan war has notched up another grisly record, with the number of international troops to die in the fight against the Taliban the highest for the month of January since the war began.
With tens of thousands more international troops being deployed to Afghanistan this year, analysts and officials are warning the deaths of 44 foreign soldiers in January is a sign of things to come.
The record death toll comes as the Kabul government and its international partners shift the war's emphasis from battleground to development, and start focusing on attempts to convince Taliban infantry to lay down their arms.
In the meantime, experts say more troops means more casualties as foreign forces take the fight to the Taliban -- with a major offensive planned for this week likely to be the first of a battle-scarred year.
"With more foreign forces, and the enhanced quality and quantity of Afghan forces, the enemy will use all its capacity to show that the surge is causing further instability," said defence ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi.
"When the fight increases, the area of the fight expands accordingly, so the casualties will increase," he told AFP.
The 113,000 troops fighting the Taliban under US and NATO command are being supplemented with another 40,000 arriving up to August, to fight with and train up Afghanistan's security forces.
January's foreign troop deaths, reported by independent website icasualties.org, which keeps a running tally, compares with 25 in January 2009.
The number of Americans who died last month in the conflict now in its ninth year was almost double the number for January last year, at 29 compared with 15, the website says.
The January death toll follows records set in 2009 for total foreign troop deaths -- 520 compared to 295 the year before -- and Afghan civilians, which the United Nations put at 2,412, against 2,118 in 2008.
"This year will be the worst fighting year in the last 30 years of war, because the soldiers being deployed here are not coming to play, they are coming to put pressure on the Taliban to accept peace talks," said Ahmad Massoud, economics professor at Kabul University.
Some 10,000 US Marines have poured into the Marjah region of Helmand province, preparing to flush the Taliban out of their major stronghold.
The offensive is expected to get under way this week, and has been preceded by minor operations in the surrounding area, where most of the world's opium is produced and which helps to fund the insurgency.
It mirrors a similar push into Helmand's Garmser region last year, seen as a major success in paving the way for development and peace.
As the nature of the fight has changed, the defence ministry's Azimi said, with the Taliban increasingly using suicide attacks and remote-controlled bombs, there had been no traditional winter hiatus in the fighting and spring was likely to be ferocious.
"We will have the most intense clashes come the spring, and will shed the most blood this year," he said.
Integral to the new strategy is President Hamid Karzai's desire to reintegrate those he calls his "disenchanted brothers" into Afghan society by offering them an alternative to the cash they earn fighting for the Taliban.
This "reconciliation" was a focus of last week's London conference attended by around 70 countries hoping to chart a roadmap for Afghanistan's future.
Taliban foot soldiers, many of whom are poor and unemployed, are to be offered jobs in return for renouncing violence as part of a project that will be funded with 140 million dollars in pledges in the first year.
Political analyst Ahmad Saedi said the plan is not likely to pay a peace dividend as he expects many people will pose as militants to get the cash.
"I think this idea of making payments will see people such as criminals suddenly becoming 'Taliban', and others travelling from one part of the country to another to be paid, and that essentially this money is going to be wasted and will not serve any purpose in bringing peace," he said.
Afghanistan needed a political solution, he said, and the London conference had failed to come up with an effective way of folding neighbours, including Iran, Pakistan and China, into the country's future.
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AP Interview: Months ahead key to Afghan fight
By ERIC TALMADGE The Associated Press Saturday, January 30, 2010; 10:28 AM
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan -- Bolstered by the U.S. troop surge, the commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan said Saturday he believes the allied coalition can cripple the Taliban in the country's volatile south by summer but not before hard fighting.
Brig. Gen. Daniel Menard, who also commands NATO's Task Force Kandahar which includes U.S. forces, told The Associated Press in an interview that the next four months will be crucial in the battle against the Taliban, which was born in Kandahar in the 1990s. Kandahar remains the Taliban's spiritual home and a center of Afghanistan's insurgency.
"I think that everything is going to happen in 2010," Menard said. "With the number of troops and resources right now that have been given to me, I believe I can break their back this summer. But more importantly, I can also ensure that the population understands that there is something else for them."
"I'm not after killing every single insurgent," he said. "I don't really care about the insurgents. What I do care about is to make sure the population understands they don't need to be threatened by them, and this is not the way that they should be living."
Canada has about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, primarily in and around Kandahar, a city of about 800,000 and Afghanistan's second-largest urban center.
Task Force Kandahar is the command with overall responsibility for NATO operations in the province. It includes combat units, provincial reconstruction teams and liaison teams. It used to be overwhelmingly Canadian but there's now a substantial American component.
With the surge, the number of troops under Menard's command are likely to increase significantly. He already commands more U.S. than Canadian soldiers.
Menard said his forces are establishing a ring of stability around Kandahar, which is still subject to insurgent attacks, so the people of the city can return to normal life, a key factor in isolating and alienating the Taliban.
"The ring of stability will be in position before the fighting season," he said. Taliban leaders often retreat during the winter and return to step up their offensives in the spring.
Menard said he believes the upcoming surge of 37,000 U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan will be a huge factor in turning the fight around.
"This summer, I think it can happen," Menard said. "It's certainly not going to be over this summer. But we can set the stage for the next round. ... Now I think we are at the stage where it is very clear we have the resources. I am extremely grateful to have those four American battalions under command."
But Menard added that establishing stability in the areas of Panjwayi and Arghandab, to the south and north of Kandahar city, will be challenging.
"This is where I plan to fight the insurgents in the coming fighting season. And I plan to fight them very hard," he said.
Canada, which has been dug in here for four years, is to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011. But Menard said he is concentrating on the fight ahead to set the best conditions for the transition beyond that.
"For me, the focus is 100 percent on the fight," he said.
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Afghan War Documentary, Ozark Mountain Film Win Sundance Awards
By Rick Warner
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- “Restrepo,” a documentary about U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and “Winter’s Bone,” a drama about an Ozark Mountain girl trying to find her missing father, won top jury prizes last night at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
“Restrepo,” directed by journalists Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, was voted best U.S. documentary. “Winter’s Bone,” directed by Debra Granik, was named best U.S. drama.
“Animal Kingdom,” David Michod’s story of an Australian teenager taken in by criminal relatives after his mother dies, won the jury prize for foreign drama. The jury award for foreign documentary went to “The Red Chapel,” Mads Brugger’s film about a fake Danish theater troupe that infiltrates North Korea’s secretive regime.
Unlike the past two years, Sundance audiences selected different winners in all four categories.
“Waiting for Superman,” Davis Guggenheim’s look at the problems of American public education, won the audience award for U.S. documentary. The audience prize for U.S. drama went to “happythankyoumoreplease,” Josh Radnor’s directorial debut about six young New Yorkers searching for love and happiness.
“Waste Land,” Lucy Walker’s film about a Brazilian artist taking photographs of people recycling garbage from a Rio de Janeiro landfill, was the audience favorite for foreign documentary. The audience’s top foreign drama was ‘Contracorriente,” Javier Fuentes-Leon’s story of a married Peruvian fisherman in love with a gay painter.
The juries are made up of directors, producers, writers and performers. The audience awards are determined by a vote of Sundance filmgoers.
To contact the writer on the story: Rick Warner in New York at rwarner1@bloomberg.net.
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