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7 children injured in troops-militants battle in S. Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A battle between NATO and Afghan troops and Taliban militants Friday afternoon in southern Afghanistan on Friday afternoon left dozens of civilians killed, locals said on Saturday.
NATO Searching for Missing Troops in Afghanistan
July 24, 2010 VOA News
NATO officials in Afghanistan say they are searching for two soldiers who disappeared from their compound in Kabul City.
Armed men abduct 3 Bangladeshis in N. Afghanistan
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men have abducted three Bangladeshi employees of a South Korean construction company in Afghanistan's northern Samangan province, provincial police chief Abdul Razaq Yalkhani said Saturday.
Security Council voices support for Afghan-led transition to stability
By UN News Centre
24 July 2010 – The Security Council today welcomed the commitments made this week by the Afghan Government towards greater security, improved governance and tackling corruption, and called on the international community to support the country’s efforts.
Gen Petraeus scraps McChrystal's plan to take Kandahar
Gen David Petraeus, the new US commander in Afghanistan, has scrapped his predecessor's plan to secure the southern city of Kandahar.
Telegraph.co.uk By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent 23 Jul 2010
He has decided a full-scale military encirclement and invasion – as American troops had done in Iraq's Fallujah – was not an appropriate model to tackle the Taliban in the southern capital.
Mine explosion kills 2 Afghan policemen, wounds 2 in Taliban hotbed
KABUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A mine blast targeting police van in Taliban hotbed Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan left two policemen dead and injuring two other police officers including district police chief, Interior Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Would-be suicide bomber detained in S. Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces arrested a would-be suicide bomber and eliminated three Taliban insurgents elsewhere in the troubled southern region, officials said on Saturday.
Afghan Parliamentary Candidate In Coma After Bomb Attack
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty July 23, 2010
A bomb exploded inside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, seriously injuring a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections and at least 16 other people.
Regretful McChrystal Retires In Military Ceremony
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty July 24, 2010
General Stanley McChrystal, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who was fired over published comments that were disparaging of U.S. civilian leaders, has formally retired at a ceremony at Fort McNair in Washington.
Gen. McChrystal, former Afghan war commander, leaves the Army after 3 decades of service
Associated Press July 23, 2010
WASHINGTON - Gen. Stanley McChrystal ended his 34-year career as an Army officer Friday in an emotional retirement ceremony at his military headquarters here, marking the last chapter of his swift and stunning fall from grace.
US committed to Afghan war: Mullen
by Dan De Luce July 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen on Saturday sought to dispel doubts in Pakistan about US "resolve" in the Afghan war, saying Washington remained committed to the fight against the Taliban.
India, Iran distrustful of renewed Afghan-Pakistan ties
The Washington Post By Rajiv Chandrasekaran 23/07/2010
NEW DELHI - Recent moves by Afghanistan and Pakistan to improve their once-frosty relationship have prompted deep concern in other countries in the region and led some to consider strengthening ties to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's political rivals.
UN to cautiously review Afghan delisting request: official
by Xinhua writers Bai Jie, Cao Yiming
UNITED NATIONS, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations will cautiously review the Afghan government's request for lifting UN sanctions against 10 individuals and entities related to Taliban, a UN official told Xinhua.
Court orders 'Bookseller of Kabul' author to pay damages
July 24, 2010
OSLO (AFP) – The Norwegian author of "The Bookseller of Kabul" has been ordered to pay damages to the wife of the real-life bookseller on which it was based, the author's lawyer said Saturday.
Conditions won't get in the way of Afghan withdrawal deadline
The coalition talks of a 'conditions-based' Afghanistan withdrawal but those conditions can be changed to hit the deadline
The Guardian Richard Norton-Taylor Friday 23 July 2010
The Labour opposition and government backbenchers alike are accusing the government of "mixed messages" over its war strategy in Afghanistan. Military commanders are uneasy.
Have we made Afghanistan a better place?
Everyone's ready to leave, whatever the consequences for the populace, says Vicki Woods.
Telegraph.co.uk By Vicki Woods 23 Jul 2010
Tony Blair sent British troops into Afghanistan in 2001, only weeks after the passengered bombs flew into the World Trade Centre. His response to that mind-boggling, televised atrocity was shockingly rapid: I remember well that the nuclear submarines HMS Triumph and HMS Trafalgar
Ill-wind blows for a 'neutral' Afghanistan
Asia Times By M K Bhadrakumar 23/07/2010
Maybe there is an air about the brooding Hindu Kush mountains that lends inscrutability to politics and history. It touched Tuesday's Kabul international conference on Afghanistan, where the subtext was of far greater interest than the open agenda. In fact, when it comes to the Afghan problem, it is almost inevitably the case that the surreal takes precedence over the real.
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7 children injured in troops-militants battle in S. Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A battle between NATO and Afghan troops and Taliban militants Friday afternoon in southern Afghanistan on Friday afternoon left dozens of civilians killed, locals said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, doctors confirmed that seven injured children have been taken to the local hospital.
"All the injured children have been taken to Kandahar hospital from Sangin district of Helmand province," Abdul Qayum Pukhla , a doctor in Mir Wais hospital in Kandahar city, told Xinhua.
Another doctor in the same hospital, Abdul Jalil told Xinhua that, "Four of the injured children are boys and three others are girls. They are between five to 11 years old."
All these children received injuries from air bombardment, he further said.
A crying villager Abdul Ghafar, 60, who brought his son and three nephews to the hospital told Xinhua that over 30 civilians, mostly women and children were killed in the incident.
"Members of seven families were gathered in a house in Regi village in Sangin district to escape the clash between Taliban and Afghan and NATO-led troops. Suddenly we came under attack from air and artillery, and resultantly over 30 people including women and children lost their lives," the crying Ghafar said.
He also said that the bloody incident occurred at 04:30 p.m. local time on Friday.
The dejected Ghafar also said he also lost two of his sisters and two daughters in the bombardment.
Another villager Omar Khan claimed that between 50 to 60 civilians were killed in the air bombardment in Sangin district on Friday afternoon.
On the other hand, a Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi claimed that 40 civilians were killed in the air raids and there are no Taliban casualties.
Spokesman for Helmand's provincial administration Daud Ahmadi avoided commenting on the subject.
Meanwhile, NATO forces in Afghanistan have yet to comment. ISAF spokesman Josef Blotz told Xinhua that he has not had any report on the issue.
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NATO Searching for Missing Troops in Afghanistan
July 24, 2010 VOA News
NATO officials in Afghanistan say they are searching for two soldiers who disappeared from their compound in Kabul City.
NATO said Saturday that the two soldiers left the compound in a vehicle Friday and never returned.
On Saturday, Taliban officials claimed to have captured two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's eastern Logar province. Local radio stations were broadcasting offers from the United States to pay $20,000 for information leading the release of the soldiers.
A Taliban official told the Reuters news agency that a third U.S. soldier had died.
Only one U.S. soldier is known to have been captured by insurgents. Bowe Bergdahl disappeared June of last year after leaving his base in Paktika province with three Afghans. He has since appeared in videos posted on Taliban websites.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Mission in Kabul says three Bangladeshi workers and their Afghan driver have been kidnapped in the country's northern Samangan province.
Civil Affairs Officer Reza Hassan said the Bangladeshis were working for a South Korean construction company and were driving to a construction site when they were attacked.
Afghan officials blamed the incident on the Taliban but no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Earlier, NATO officials said five U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate bombings in southern Afghanistan, where international forces are stepping up their fight against the Taliban.
The International Security Assistance Force said Saturday that four of its troops were killed by the blast of an improvised explosive device, which is commonly used by the Taliban insurgency.
Later, NATO announced the death of a fifth soldier in a separate IED attack.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday the Afghan government's plan to take over the country's security by 2014, improve governance and fight corruption will be a long and challenging process.
Mr. Ban made the comments while briefing the Security Council on an international donor conference he co-chaired in Kabul earlier this week on the future of Afghanistan.
His spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said Mr. Ban was encouraged by the outcome of the conference, but added that words must be followed by deeds from both Afghan authorities and the international community.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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Armed men abduct 3 Bangladeshis in N. Afghanistan
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men have abducted three Bangladeshi employees of a South Korean construction company in Afghanistan's northern Samangan province, provincial police chief Abdul Razaq Yalkhani said Saturday.
The armed men abducted five employees, including two Afghans and the three Bangladeshis of the construction company on Thursday but later set free two Afghans on Friday and are now still holding the three Bangladesh nationals, Yalkhani said.
"The gruesome incident occurred on Thursday in Darai Suf Bala district and the armed men took the abductees to an unknown location," Yalkhani told Xinhua.
He did not say if the abductors were Taliban militants, but said they were the enemies of peace and development.
He also said that police have begun search operation to rescue the abductees.
In the past, armed men abducted a Bangladeshi national in Logar province and set free after keeping for a couple of months in captivity.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops had in the past abducted 21 South Korean nationals and after killing two of them released 19 others after Seoul agreed to stop supporting U. S.-led military mission in Afghanistan and withdrawing some 200 troops from Afghanistan.
However, a Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in talks with media via telephone denied Taliban militants' involvement in abducting Bangladeshi nationals.
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Security Council voices support for Afghan-led transition to stability
By UN News Centre
24 July 2010 – The Security Council today welcomed the commitments made this week by the Afghan Government towards greater security, improved governance and tackling corruption, and called on the international community to support the country’s efforts.
“The members of the Council looked forward to the timely implementation of these commitments,” Ambassador Joy Ogwu of Nigeria, which holds the rotating Council presidency for this month, said in a statement read out to the press.
The statement followed a closed-door meeting during which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the Council on his visit to Afghanistan earlier this week and his participation in the Kabul Conference held on 20 July.
Top officials from over 60 countries, as well as international and regional organizations and financial institutions, attended the meeting, the first international gathering on Afghanistan to be held inside the country.
It concluded with the adoption of a communiqué setting out the commitments for action that form part of what is known as the “Kabul process,” which will see a transition to greater Afghan responsibility and ownership, in both security and civilian areas.
“The members of the Council supported this Afghan-led process, which aims to accelerate Afghan leadership and ownership, strengthen international partnership and regional cooperation, improve Afghanistan’s governance, enhance the capabilities of its security forces, deliver economic growth and provide better protection for the rights of all its citizens,” said Ms. Ogwu.
Mr. Ban told the Council he was encouraged by the outcome of the conference, while adding that “words must be followed up with deeds – by the Afghan authorities and by the international community,” UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters.
In today’s statement, Council members also acknowledged the intention of the Afghan Government to engage with the 15-member body and the international community in a transparent process of de-listing individuals from the Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to UN sanctions in connection with Al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Individuals on the list, which include 137 Afghan nationals, are subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo imposed under Council resolution 1267 of 1999, and related resolutions, by which all UN Member States are required to impose sanctions on Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and those associated with them.
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Gen Petraeus scraps McChrystal's plan to take Kandahar
Gen David Petraeus, the new US commander in Afghanistan, has scrapped his predecessor's plan to secure the southern city of Kandahar.
Telegraph.co.uk By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent 23 Jul 2010
He has decided a full-scale military encirclement and invasion – as American troops had done in Iraq's Fallujah – was not an appropriate model to tackle the Taliban in the southern capital.
Gen Petraeus's decision to revise the entire strategy comes just weeks after he arrived in Afghanistan following the abrupt dismissal of Gen Stanley McChrystal for insubordination.
Gen McChrystal had planned a summer conquest of the Taliban in Kandahar to reinvigorate the battle against the Taliban.
But the operation has been repeatedly delayed by concerns that it would not adequately restore the confidence of city residents in the security forces.
Gen Petraeus is reported to believe that the operation must be a broad-ranging counter-insurgency campaign, involving more troops working with local militias.
The plan he inherited was criticised for placing too much emphasis on targeted assassinations of key insurgent leaders and not enough on winning over local residents.
Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said yesterday that the US-led strategy in southern Afghanistan was undergoing sweeping changes.
"Kandahar is not a military operation like Fallujah," Mr Holbrooke said. "We have Gen David Petraeus looking at the plan, scrubbing it down, looking at it again."
President Hamid Karzai has bolstered Gen Petraeus's efforts by agreeing to a US proposal to pay defectors from the Taliban to form local defence militias.
Mr Holbrooke, who oversees the civilian component of the American campaign in Afghanistan, has been described by Gen Petraeus as his "wing man" in the effort to reverse Taliban gains.
He said that the changes of strategy in the area also included a decision not to destroy poppy crops this year, an action that had in the past "driven" farmers into alliance with the Taliban.
He also said that the Afghan police force in Marjah – which now numbers 60 – could not yet replace thousands of US Marines. Efforts to stabilise Helmand's Marjah have been bogged down by stronger resistance.
Gen Petraeus recruited prominent military experts who assisted him in the surge of forces that brought stability to Iraq.
Stephen Biddle, a military strategist at the US Council for Foreign Relations, coauthored as suggestion that the US would be successful in Afghanistan if it could set up a strong local government in places like Kandahar.
Defections from the Taliban are crucial to the goal of ending the war within four years but Mr Holbrooke said only insurgent groups that had split with al-Qaeda, and willing to work within the framework of the Afghan constitution would be approached.
More effort was being put into recruiting local allies on a district by district basis.
"The reintegration policy is the key to a successful counter-insurgency campaign," he said. "As for reconciliation, it's out there somewhere. We've talked about it. The US will support Afghan-led reconciliation and by that we mean we need to know what's going on. Not much is going on now, and nothing is going on with the United States."
Mr Holbrooke said Pakistan had dramatically increased its co-operation with the US in the battle against the Taliban but he criticised Islamabad's continuing support for the Haqqani network of insurgents.
"Without Pakistan's participation, this (Afghan) war could go on indefinitely," he said. "There's much more co-operation at every level
"But I don't want to mislead you, it is not yet where we hope it will be. What we talk about is the Haqqani network. Let's be very specific. It's a real problem."
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Mine explosion kills 2 Afghan policemen, wounds 2 in Taliban hotbed
KABUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A mine blast targeting police van in Taliban hotbed Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan left two policemen dead and injuring two other police officers including district police chief, Interior Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
"A mine blast targeted a police van in Sra Khundi area of precinct eight in Kandahar city the capital of Kandahar province on Friday as a result two policemen were martyred and two other officers including police chief of precinct eight were injured," the statement added.
Kandahar the spiritual center of Taliban militants has been experiencing security incidents almost daily since the hard-liner militia announced to launch a spring offensive against the Afghan government and NATO-led forces early May this year.
Taliban militants have yet to make comments.
Despite the presence of over 130,000-strong NATO and U.S. forces stationed in Afghanistan the insurgency has been on constant rise in the militancy-hit country.
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Would-be suicide bomber detained in S. Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Afghan security forces arrested a would-be suicide bomber and eliminated three Taliban insurgents elsewhere in the troubled southern region, officials said on Saturday.
"Police in Kandahar city, the capital of Kandahar province, arrested a suicide bomber in 9th precinct Friday night and thus foiled a terrorist attack," a senior police officer in Kandahar city Ahmad Shah Farooqi told Xinhua.
A suicide vest and explosive device were recovered from his possession, Farooqi said.
Furthermore, spokesman for Helmand's provincial administration Daud Ahmadi said that three Taliban militants were killed on Friday elsewhere in the restive province.
Conflicts and Taliban-linked insurgency have been on constant rise since spring onset.
Spring and summer are traditionally known as fighting season in Afghanistan as warring sides attempt to consolidate their positions and hold more territories.
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Afghan Parliamentary Candidate In Coma After Bomb Attack
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty July 23, 2010
A bomb exploded inside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, seriously injuring a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections and at least 16 other people.
The candidate, Mawlvi Saydullah, was making a speech at the mosque in the Mando Zayi district of Khost Province -- about 15 kilometers west of the provincial capital -- when the explosion occurred.
He reportedly was in a coma after the attack.
Mubariz Zadran, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said Saydullah was the target of the attack.
Saydullah was running for a seat in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of the Afghan parliament, in elections scheduled for September.
RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, with agency reports
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Regretful McChrystal Retires In Military Ceremony
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty July 24, 2010
General Stanley McChrystal, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who was fired over published comments that were disparaging of U.S. civilian leaders, has formally retired at a ceremony at Fort McNair in Washington.
McChrystal received full military honors, including a 17-gun salute, at the July 23 ceremony that was attended by dignitaries including U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Said Tayeb Jawad.
McChrystal told the ceremony that he was leaving his post with the mission in Afghanistan still uncompleted.
"With my resignation, I left a mission I feel strongly about," McChrystal said. "I ended a career I loved that began over 38 years ago. And I left unfulfilled commitments I made to many comrades in the fight -- commitments I hold sacred. My service did not end as I would have wished."
Afghan Ambassador Jawad told the audience that McChrystal had helped lay the foundation for Afghanistan's eventual victory over terrorists and militants, and thanked McChrystal and U.S. soldiers for their sacrifices to help make Afghanistan safer.
In his remarks, Defense Secretary Gates praised McChrystal as an innovative commander who broke new ground in combining intelligence-gathering with military operations.
President Barack Obama charged McChrystal with turning around the fight against Taliban militants and overseeing a surge of thousands more troops into Afghanistan.
But McChrystal was fired by Obama last month after an article in "Rolling Stone" magazine quoted McChrystal and his aides as making belittling remarks about U.S. civilian leaders, including Vice President Joe Biden and the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.
McChrystal was replaced in his Afghan role by General David Petraeus.
compiled from agency reports
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Gen. McChrystal, former Afghan war commander, leaves the Army after 3 decades of service
Associated Press July 23, 2010
WASHINGTON - Gen. Stanley McChrystal ended his 34-year career as an Army officer Friday in an emotional retirement ceremony at his military headquarters here, marking the last chapter of his swift and stunning fall from grace.
Before a crowd of a few hundred friends, family and colleagues on the Fort McNair parade grounds under an oppressively hot July sun, McChrystal said his service didn't end as he hoped. But he regretted few decisions he had made on the battlefield, cherished his life as a soldier and was optimistic about his future, he said.
"I trusted and I still trust," McChrystal said. "I cared and I still care. I wouldn't have it any other way."
The former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan was fired last month after Rolling Stone magazine published an article titled "The Runaway General" that quoted scathing remarks he and his aides made about their civilian bosses.
McChrystal complained President Barack Obama had handed him "an unsellable position" on the war. The general's closest advisers mocked other government officials, including Vice President Joseph Biden, as fools who were ignorant of the complexities of war.
"Biden? Did you say, 'Bite me?'" one aide is quoted saying.
Shortly after the article was published, McChrystal was sent packing.
In his 18-minute farewell tribute before the VIP-studded crowd, McChrystal made light of the episode. He warned his comrades in arms: "I have stories on all of you, photos of many, and I know a Rolling Stone reporter."
But McChrystal also sounded a more serious note, when he talked about the pain of leaving behind unfulfilled commitments in Afghanistan and watching colleagues ensnared in the scandal.
"There are misconceptions about the loyalty and service of some dedicated professionals that will likely take some time, but I believe will be corrected," he said.
Still, he said he was approaching the future with optimism.
"I need to celebrate," said McChrystal, who inspired intense loyalty among many of those who served under him.
McChrystal spent much of his speech paying tribute to his wife of 33 years, Annie, who watched tearfully from the front row. He described her endless support, as he repeatedly headed off to war, and as inspiring him during dark times following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"She's here, like she's always been there when it matters, always gorgeous," he said.
Soldiers attending the ceremony were allowed to forgo their formal dress uniforms in lieu of combat fatigues — an apparent tribute to a war commander fresh from battle and whose career was marked by more secret operations to snatch terror suspects than by pomp and circumstance.
Wearing his own Army combat uniform for the last time, the four-star general received full military honors, including a 17-gun salute and flag formations by the Army's Old Guard.
He smiled and nodded at members in the crowd and appeared to joke with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who appeared to fight back tears as he gave McChrystal a hero's tribute.
"Over the past decade, arguably no single American has inflicted more fear, more loss of freedom and more loss of life on our country's most vicious and violent enemies than Stan McChrystal," Gates said.
Afghanistan's top representative to the United States said his country would remember McChrystal for generations to come.
"We will never forget the sacrifices that you and those under your command have made to make Afghanistan safer for our children," Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad said.
A close aide to the general, Col. Charles Flynn, says McChrystal plans to live in the northern Virginia area after moving out of his home in Washington's Fort McNair.
"Presently, the general is concentrating on his transition, the move, his family and remains undecided about future employment options," Flynn wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Senior military and defense officials, including Gates, have said they agreed with Obama's decision to fire McChrystal but were crestfallen by the loss of a gifted colleague.
During his rise to one of the nation's top military jobs, McChrystal made many allies — including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen — who saw him as an honest broker with extraordinary self-discipline.
Mullen was among those who said he was crushed by the episode. He was unable to attend Friday's ceremony because he was traveling overseas.
"He is a friend," Mullen said of McChrystal shortly after McChrystal was fired. "He's an extraordinary officer. He made a severe mistake."
McChrystal was a seasoned special operations commander who made his reputation hunting down members of al-Qaida in Iraq, and helping turn around the course of that war. Last year, he was picked as top commander in Afghanistan to replace Gen. David McKiernan, who was removed from his post by an Obama administration anxious to chart a new course in the war.
The White House is allowing McChrystal to keep his four stars in retirement, even though Army rules would have required him to serve another two years at that rank.
___
Associated Press Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report from Washington.
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US committed to Afghan war: Mullen
by Dan De Luce July 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen on Saturday sought to dispel doubts in Pakistan about US "resolve" in the Afghan war, saying Washington remained committed to the fight against the Taliban.
After meeting top military officers in Islamabad, Mullen told reporters that a mid-2011 deadline for the start of a withdrawal of US troops did not signal a retreat from Afghanistan.
"Finally, I want to be very clear about one thing, for I have heard that some in this country doubt our resolve in Afghanistan. You should not.
"America's military mission there will not end in July of 2011," he said.
Mullen said the target date represented the beginning of a handover to Afghan security forces, but the transition would move "only as fast and as far as conditions on the ground permit."
His comments marked the latest attempt by the Obama administration to reassure governments in the region about the mid-2011 deadline, amid speculation in Pakistan and elsewhere about US intentions in the war.
Mullen spoke a day before setting off for Afghanistan, where he plans to visit troops in the south and east and hold meetings with the newly appointed commander, General David Petraeus.
His scheduled two-day visit coincides with a spike in casualties for NATO-led troops and growing public doubts in the United States about the war, now in its ninth year.
In Islamabad, Mullen addressed concerns about US policies and military assistance to Pakistan, saying Washington stood ready to help as requested but had no interest in deploying combat troops in the country.
"I understand and I respect Pakistan's sovereignty," he said.
The United States has about 100 troops inside Pakistan providing training designed to help with Islamabad's campaign against Islamist militants in the northwest tribal belt.
Pakistanis remain sceptical of the US-led war in Afghanistan and its targeting of Islamist militants, with media coverage harbouring suspicions about Washington's designs in the region.
Pakistan has seen security drastically deteriorate since joining Washington's fight against Al-Qaeda and its allies in 2001, and baulks at complaints from US officials that it is not doing enough to tackle militant groups.
Mullen and US officials have praised Pakistan for moving against militants in the northwest but have urged the military to expand its operations to include the militant Haqqani network, which is based in North Waziristan.
Speaking in New Delhi on Friday, Mullen called the Haqqani militants "the most lethal network" faced by the US-led international force in Afghanistan and said he had repeatedly urged Pakistan to tackle the threat.
US officials have also pushed Pakistan to prosecute members of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), blamed by India for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that left 166 dead.
Pakistan has been accused of maintaining links to the Haqqani network as well as LeT as a hedge to thwart the influence of its arch-foe India.
The US administration argues that Al-Qaeda, Taliban factions and associated extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan collude with one another and pose a single, over-arching threat.
During his one-day stop in Pakistan, Mullen met General Tariq Majid, the ceremonial head of the armed forces, and then spent much of the afternoon with the country's powerful army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, whose term was extended by three years on Thursday.
Mullen has gone out of his way to cultivate ties with Kayani and aides said Saturday's trip was the admiral's 19th visit to see the Pakistani general.
Kayani took Mullen on a tour by air of K2, the world's second highest peak after Mount Everest, officers said.
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India, Iran distrustful of renewed Afghan-Pakistan ties
The Washington Post By Rajiv Chandrasekaran 23/07/2010
NEW DELHI - Recent moves by Afghanistan and Pakistan to improve their once-frosty relationship have prompted deep concern in other countries in the region and led some to consider strengthening ties to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's political rivals.
The U.S. government considers the Afghan-Pakistan overtures essential to combating insurgencies wracking both nations. But India, Iran and Afghanistan's northern neighbors fear that they are a step toward fulfilling Karzai's desire to negotiate with Taliban leaders and possibly welcome some of them into the government.
These nations believe that Karzai's plans could compromise their security and interests by lessening the influence of Afghanistan's Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic minorities with whom they have cultivated close links, diplomats and government officials say.
The apprehension, voiced pointedly by senior Indian officials in interviews this week, has emerged as yet another challenge for the U.S. government as it seeks to encourage new initiatives to stabilize Afghanistan while minimizing fallout on the already tense relationship between India and Pakistan.
In an attempt to assuage those concerns, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, traveled here Wednesday to meet with India's national security adviser and foreign secretary. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, arrived Thursday for two days of meetings with top military and civilian leaders.
The Indians have been riled by a series of recent meetings involving Karzai and Pakistan's top two security officials: the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, and the intelligence director, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha. On Sunday, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a trade agreement that allows Afghan trucks to drive through Pakistan to the Indian border. Indian officials had wanted to send their own trucks through Pakistan to Afghanistan, but the Pakistani government insisted they not be included in the negotiations. U.S. officials hailed the deal as a major step forward in the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan and a vital development for Afghanistan's economy.
Of greater concern to the Indians is Karzai's interest in reconciling with elements of the Taliban leadership. Because of the Taliban's historic ties to Pakistan's intelligence agency, Indian officials believe that such a move would give Pakistan new influence in Afghanistan.
Allowing the Taliban, which is dominated by ethnic Pashtuns, to have a role in the Afghan government is something "we don't think is a very good idea," a senior Indian government official said. "It's not that there are two equal political factions, with equal legitimacy, that have a right to political power. Karzai is the elected president. Not the Taliban. It should not be a question of negotiating a place at the table for them."
The Indian government, the official said, disputes "suggestions that come from the Pakistanis that the Taliban is legitimate, they represent the Pashtuns and therefore you need to deal with them and negotiate with them. That's the difference. We don't think they represent the Pashtuns."
Compounding India's pique is the fact that it believed it had cultivated close ties with Karzai. India has opened four consulates in Afghanistan, even though relatively few Indian citizens live there, and invested $1.3 billion in development projects -- far more than Pakistan has.
"The Indians are shell-shocked," said a Western diplomat involved in Afghanistan policy. "They went in with more than a billion dollars, and now Pakistan is eating their lunch."
U.S. officials are trying to persuade the Indians to abandon their traditional zero-sum logic that what's good for Pakistan must be bad for them. "You cannot stabilize Afghanistan without the participation of Pakistan as a legitimate concerned party," Holbrooke said at a meeting with Indian journalists here.
Speaking to reporters on his flight here, Mullen said that "the whole region has a role to play" in Afghan reconciliation but that the Kabul government must take the lead.
In his meetings, Mullen sought to assure Indian officials that the U.S.-led counterinsurgency strategy was on track and that the United States has a long-term commitment to assist Afghanistan. "India, perhaps more than any outside country, has the greatest stake in our success in Afghanistan," one U.S. official said.
The United States, Mullen told reporters, is not "looking for the door out of Afghanistan or out of this region."
But Indian officials remain deeply mistrustful of Pakistan's motivations in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis, officials here contend, have deftly capitalized on Karzai's fears of abandonment by the United States -- fueled in part by his misinterpretation of President Obama's pledge to begin drawing down forces by July 2011 -- by offering to help forge a deal with an insurgency that his army and NATO forces have been unable to defeat.
"Pakistan wants to be able to control the sequence of events in Afghanistan," a second senior Indian official said. "We don't want a situation that would entail a revision to pre-2001, with backward-looking people taking the reins of power in Kabul."
Iran, which is predominantly Shiite Muslim, is also worried about any greater political role for leaders of the almost exclusively Sunni Taliban, many of whom regard Shiites as apostates. Diplomats in New Delhi say Iran has encouraged India to send more of its assistance to provinces in northern and western Afghanistan that are under the control of warlords and other power brokers who were part of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. The diplomats said that India has not shifted its efforts, much of which were already directed at the north.
Whether the Taliban is genuinely interested in reconciliation is questionable. CIA director Leon Panetta said last month that he saw no clear indications that insurgent leaders wanted to engage in peace talks with the Afghan government.
Mullen echoed that assessment, saying he does not believe reconciliation is imminent. "We've got to be in a position of strength," he said. "We're just not there yet."
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UN to cautiously review Afghan delisting request: official
by Xinhua writers Bai Jie, Cao Yiming
UNITED NATIONS, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations will cautiously review the Afghan government's request for lifting UN sanctions against 10 individuals and entities related to Taliban, a UN official told Xinhua.
Richard Barrett, coordinator of the monitoring team of the so-called 1267 Committee on al-Qaida and the Taliban, said removing former Taliban members from the decade-old sanction list has become a key issue for both the Afghan government and the Taliban especially after the Peace Jirga (national meeting) was held in Kabul in early June.
"(Afghan President Hamid) Karzai is offering it as a possibility, (as) the Taliban is demanding it as something they need in order to be able to stop fighting ... so it is quite important," said Barrett, who has been leading the UN panel that oversees the implementation of sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaida since March 2004.
But whether to take the 10 names off the list depends on the members of the UN Security Council, Barrett said. "It doesn't depend on what the Afghan government wants, nor of course what the Taliban want."
"The Security Council has that list as part of its efforts to ensure international peace and security ... I think the council will be relatively cautious, but certainly very willing to look at any cases presented."
Last week, top UN envoy in Afghanistan Staffan De Mistura said the 10 names are in the process of being forwarded to the Security Council.
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Court orders 'Bookseller of Kabul' author to pay damages
July 24, 2010
OSLO (AFP) – The Norwegian author of "The Bookseller of Kabul" has been ordered to pay damages to the wife of the real-life bookseller on which it was based, the author's lawyer said Saturday.
The Oslo district court on Friday ordered journalist Aasne Seierstad to pay 125,000 kroner (15,600 euros, 20,200 dollars) to Suraia Rais for violation of privacy, her lawyer Cato Schioetz told AFP.
Norwegian publisher Cappelen Damm, which originally released the book in 2002, a year before it appeared in English and became an international bestseller, was also ordered to pay 125,000 kroner damages to Rais, he added.
Written in the style of a novel, "The Bookseller of Kabul" is an account of Seierstad's time living with the Rais family in Kabul shortly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
"The information (in the book) about Rais's thoughts and feelings is sensitive," the Oslo district court ruled, according a report in the Dagbladet newspaper.
"They are attributed to her as true, and neither Seierstad nor Cappelen Damm can be considered to have acted in good faith to ensure they were correct and accurate."
Schioetz said he was "very astonished" by the ruling and would strongly advise his client to appeal the case.
"Aasne is not in Oslo right now and she has not read what the court has based its decision on ... we will have a discussion in the middle of next week to take the decision to appeal or not. But my advice is very very clear," he said.
The lawyer said the case against his client and her publisher was brought to court in Oslo about two years ago by the bookseller's second wife, Suraia Rais, who has lived in Norway for about four years.
He said the main hearing in the case, at which Suraia Rais, her husband, and Seierstad were present, took place last month.
Rais' lawyer Per Danielsen told Dagbladet the sentence was in his opinion a blow to Seierstad's journalism.
"It's now been established that Seierstad wrote to make money by discussing other people's private lives," he said, describing her actions as "careless."
He added the best to come of the court's decision was that it opened the way for the rest of the family to seek damages.
Schioetz said only Suraia Rais had sued Seierstad because other family members would have had to put up a guarantee for eventual legal costs, a guarantee from which Norwegian residents are exempt.
"I think that is the main reason why it was only wife number two who sued Aasne," he said.
Seierstad has also written books based on her experiences living in Kosovo and Chechnya.
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Conditions won't get in the way of Afghan withdrawal deadline
The coalition talks of a 'conditions-based' Afghanistan withdrawal but those conditions can be changed to hit the deadline
The Guardian Richard Norton-Taylor Friday 23 July 2010
The Labour opposition and government backbenchers alike are accusing the government of "mixed messages" over its war strategy in Afghanistan. Military commanders are uneasy.
Announcing a deadline for starting to withdraw troops, let alone for ending combat operations, has traditionally been opposed on the grounds that it gives the enemy the advantage. In Afghanistan, all the Taliban and other insurgent groups need do is sit – or hide – and wait.
The coalition government's view is crystal clear. It has made it plain, virtually from the day it was formed, that it wants British troops to stop fighting there by the time of the next general election, due in 2015. It has also said that it wants British troops to begin withdrawing in July next year, the timetable first set by Barack Obama for US troops in Afghanistan.
The defence secretary, Liam Fox, more concerned than Cameron about fixing deadlines, told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday:
"It's always been our aim to be successful in the mission and the mission has always said that the Afghan national security forces would be able to deal with their own security by 2014. We recognise there will be further work to do in terms of training and improving the quality of those forces beyond that, which is why we have said training forces may be available after that date. But we have made it very clear it will not be combat forces."
He added:
"If you go back to the US's original strategy, they expected the Afghan national security forces would be able to maintain the security of Afghanistan by 2013. That was amended to 2014. David Cameron's assessment of 2015 is quite conservative."
The official line also remains that any decision to withdraw troops is "conditions-based". Surely, there is a contradiction between that and setting dates? No, said Cameron on Wednesday, there was "absolutely no contradiction". The same day, Nick Clegg told the Commons that while no timetable could be "chiselled in stone", he said "we must be out ... by 2015".
So, there we are. There will still be conditions but, if necessary, they will be changed to meet the deadlines. Already, government officials talk about an Afghanistan "good enough". Going is talk of human rights and the welfare of women. Coming are calls for talks soon with the Taliban and anyone else who can contribute to a political settlement. And more and more fingers are being crossed in Whitehall.
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Have we made Afghanistan a better place?
Everyone's ready to leave, whatever the consequences for the populace, says Vicki Woods.
Telegraph.co.uk By Vicki Woods 23 Jul 2010
Tony Blair sent British troops into Afghanistan in 2001, only weeks after the passengered bombs flew into the World Trade Centre. His response to that mind-boggling, televised atrocity was shockingly rapid: I remember well that the nuclear submarines HMS Triumph and HMS Trafalgar started shooting cruise missiles into "the Taliban frontline" which was vaguely "up country", or "near Kabul", in early October, because it was the same week that Jo Moore was having to apologise on camera for that very crass email about September 11 being a good day to bury bad news.
After which, there was a lot of Boy's Own stuff in the papers about turbanned warriors with 19th- and 20th-century Lee-Enfields galloping through defiles and trying to escape drones – or were they frantically calling the Pentagon on their satphones and asking for drones to come and support them? One forgets. It was a decade ago.
After September 11, British involvement in Afghanistan seemed inevitable. Once Tony Blair had been to Ground Zero, once he had been greeted as a brother by George W. Bush, standing shoulder to shoulder felt like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, both in a national interest kind of a way (you can't have beardie madmen knocking down a Western metropolis when they feel like it) and in a special relationship-y kind of a way. Since Bush was obviously going to have to go and get the self-proclaimed destroyer of downtown New York, and since our nifty special forces were going to be up for chasing Osama bin Laden through the Tora Bora mountains, a short deployment in Central Asia seemed OK to me.
What I never grasped was how very messianic Tony Blair would turn out to be, nor that he meant exactly what he'd said after the apocalypse: "The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux, soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us"
He meant it literally about reordering the world; I thought it was an oratorical flight when I heard it (and committed it to memory, so as to remember never to trust the man again). But it wasn't. There's a bit at the end that I'd forgotten: "Let us reorder the world around use_SLpsand use modern science to provide prosperity for all." Deary me. In Afghanistan? He wanted a nice suburban place with midwifery colleges, drop-in needle exchanges for heroin addicts, primary schools where every girl matters and all must have their five a day? They don't have roads. Countries without roads are not easy to enrich.
A decade on, Woman's Hour is getting extremely upset about Afghan women. Ever since Laura Bush and Cherie Blair came together on the evening news (on both sides of the Atlantic) to decry the forced wearing of burqas and the proscription of nail varnish by the vicious Taliban, we have all known that the Fifth Afghan War was being fought for women. "In Afghanistan, only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women's fingernails for wearing nail polish," Mrs Bush (a woman with an immaculate manicure at all times) told America. Cherie Blair meshed her fingers over her face and mugged through them to camera, to indicate how oppressive the burqa was. That was in 2003. Perhaps women – or Woman's Hour – did feel better about warmongering and war-making if they believed that women were being rescued from oppression because of it?
Well, the nail varnish angle has worn pretty thin. Woman's Hour's concerns this week were about a report by Human Rights Watch: it is very sober reading, very worrying about how women's rights will fare under that old mountebank Karzai, very anxious that "the world" will work to deal with child marriage, forced marriage, women's access to justice and schooling (pretty non-existent, after a brief flowering) and violence.
"The world" may not be listening. Everybody wants to leave Afghanistan. Obama, Denmark, us, everybody in the Nato mission. Canada is leaving in 2011, which is in about five minutes' in miltary terms; Cameron is promising 2015. It would have been better if we – and by "we" I mean you, Tony, obviously – had passed by on the other side of that conflict, frankly.
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Ill-wind blows for a 'neutral' Afghanistan
Asia Times By M K Bhadrakumar 23/07/2010
Maybe there is an air about the brooding Hindu Kush mountains that lends inscrutability to politics and history. It touched Tuesday's Kabul international conference on Afghanistan, where the subtext was of far greater interest than the open agenda. In fact, when it comes to the Afghan problem, it is almost inevitably the case that the surreal takes precedence over the real.
Thus it was surreal that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is still not quite done, after failing to win in Afghanistan, with its first "real" war in its six decades of history as a military alliance, and it is certainly not contemplating a return to its natural habitat. NATO seems to have fallen for the adrenalin rush of the primeval tumult that people of the Hindu Kush live with and seems to loathe the dull prospect of returning to the predictability of a settled life in Europe.
NATO's longing for adventure seems to have been a key subtext of the Kabul gathering on Tuesday, which was attended by 60 countries. The big players at the conference danced around it, poking a finger or two at it to test how real it is or could be in the coming days and weeks in a setting like Afghanistan where nothing is quite certain until it physically arrives.
The statements made by the foreign ministers of the US, Russia and China at the Kabul conference assume significance in this regard.
Rasmussen's shot in the air The stage for the shadow play was duly set by none other than the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. In an extraordinary "curtain-raiser" on the eve of the conference, exuding a high degree of optimism about the war, Rasmussen wrote that NATO was "finally taking the fight to the Taliban" aimed at the "marginalization of the Taliban as a political and military force ... [which] will encourage many who joined the Taliban to quit their ranks and engage in the reconciliation effort."
But tucked away more than halfway down in his highly-publicized article was a curious sub-text:
Starting the transition does not mean that the struggle for Afghanistan's future as a stable country in a volatile region will be over. Afghanistan will need the continued support of the international community, including NATO. The Afghan population needs to know that we will continue to stand by them as they chart their own course into the future. To underline this commitment, I believe that NATO should develop a long-term cooperation agreement with the Afghan government.
Very little ingenuity is needed to estimate that Rasmussen would never venture into the public airing of such a profound thought regarding NATO's future in the post-Afghan war Central Asian region - the hidden agenda of this Clausewitzean war all along - without checking out in advance with Washington, nay, except at the bidding of the Barack Obama administration.
By a coincidence, Rasmussen's idea has appeared on the eve of the expected award of a contract by the US Defense Department to build a sprawling US Special Forces base in northern Afghanistan near Mazar-i-Sharif. The US is undertaking the project on a priority footing at a cost of as much as US$100 million. The base, in the Amu Darya region straddling Central Asia, will become operational by the end of 2011, or at the latest by early 2012.
According to available details, the 17-acre (6.8 hectare) site of the new American military base is hardly 35 kilometers from the border of Uzbekistan and it seems set to become the pendant of a "string of pearls" that the US is kneading through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan along the "soft underbelly" of Russia and China's Xinjiang.
How would the countries in the region size up the startling prospect that the US and NATO are possibly quitting the Afghan war by 2014 and yet preparing to settle down for a long stay in the Hindu Kush?
Moscow reacts The only forthright reaction so far has come from Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointedly underlined in his statement at the Kabul conference the importance of recognizing Afghanistan's future "neutral status", which would preclude any sort of permanent foreign military presence. To quote Lavrov:
The restoration of the neutral status of Afghanistan is designed to become one of the key factors of creating an atmosphere of good-neighborly relations and cooperation in the region. We expect that this idea will be supported by the Afghan people. The presidents of Russia and the US have already come out in favor of it.
Indeed, what is surprising is that Obama not merely seemed to favor the idea of a "neutral" Afghanistan but explicitly referred to it as a "commitment" as recently as last month when he received Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Washington. The US-Russia Joint Statement of June 24 on Afghanistan, in fact, began with the following opening statement:
The United States of America and the Russian Federation confirm our commitment to Afghanistan becoming a peaceful, stable, democratic, neutral and economically self-sufficient state, free of terrorism and narcotics, recognizing that further significant international support will be needed to achieve this goal.
Has Obama backtracked? The point is, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton uttered not a word about a "neutral" Afghanistan in all of her intervention in the Kabul conference on Tuesday, whereas she seemed to deliberately circle around Rasmussen's thought process, preferring to dilate on issues such as the importance of upholding women's rights in a future Afghanistan.
Interestingly, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi chose to visit the idea of a "neutral" Afghanistan, but somewhat tangentially. He said on Tuesday:
The international community must give continued attention to Afghanistan and follow through on the commitments made in London [conference in January] and the previous international conferences on Afghanistan. We should respect Afghanistan's sovereignty and work together towards the early realization of 'Afghanistan run by the Afghans'. We want to see a peaceful, stable and independent Afghanistan ... [Emphasis added.]
US holding breath At the end of the day what really matters is Clinton's silence. It needs to be carefully weighed.
It indicates the US seems to be wary of a rebuff from the region and is gingerly going about with the unveiling of the idea of setting up permanent US/NATO bases in Afghanistan? Of course, it has been fairly well known for quite a while among regional observers that the Pentagon has been feverishly beefing up the US military bases in Afghanistan, including construction of some new ones, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars and equipping them with facilities that enable the American troops to maintain a familiar lifestyle far away from home, which is of course conducive to the presence of long-staying GIs into a distant future among people famous for their hostility toward foreign occupation.
This was exactly what the US has done in Iraq, too, despite the end of the "combat mission" as such by September.
The US diplomats have been gently persuading capitals in the region in recent months that, contrary to what Afghan history might suggest, the idea of a "neutral" Afghanistan isn't all that good for regional security and stability in a milieu where violent Islamist radicals are at large. Washington hopes to capitalize on the visceral fears in those capitals of a radical Islamist avalanche once the Taliban is co-opted in the power structure in Kabul.
New Delhi, for instance, has explicitly used the term "neutral" Afghanistan in its past policy pronouncements, but the Indian minister S M Krishna used a noticeably milder variant in his statement on Tuesday - and that too, rather as a barb aimed at Pakistan than as a well-thought out stance regarding Afghanistan's neutral status - by merely observing that "India is committed to the unity, integrity and independence of Afghanistan underpinned by democracy and cohesive pluralism and free from external interference."
The idea of concluding a Status of Forces Agreement with President Hamid Karzai's government, which the US officials have been considering with the active encouragement from London, now seems doable. Compared with the past year or two, the Afghan leader nowadays gets on fairly well with his Western patrons. And he may even find physical advantages in having the US and NATO provide him with a security umbrella to safeguard against any nasty surprises that the Pakistani intelligence may spring on him in the downstream of the "reconciliation" with the Taliban.
The fact of the matter is that despite exuding confidence regarding a future beyond 2014, by when he wanted the foreign troops to end the combat mission and withdraw, in his heart of hearts Karzai cannot be having the sort of requisite faith in the performance of the Afghan Army - indeed, whether the army would even hold together as an entity in the foreseeable future - if there is a determined, well-crafted putsch by the Taliban with the able backing from its Pakistani mentors once Western forces withdraw from the battle field in 2014.
Significantly, Lavrov appealed to the "Afghan people" - and not to Karzai's government, which hosted the Kabul conference - to voice the demand for the neutrality of their country and the rejection of long term foreign military presence.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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