 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Kandahar’s mayor killed in suicide attack
By Joshua Partlow and Sayed Salahuddin, The Washington Post July 27
KABUL — Ghulam Haider Hamidi had been warned. Friends and relatives had for months urged the mayor of Kandahar city to leave his treacherous post and return to his quiet life as an accountant in Northern Virginia.
109 Afghan army personnel killed in one month: official
KABUL, July 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 109 personnel of the Afghan National Army (ANA) had been killed in one month period in the insurgency-hit country, a Defense Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
Afghan security forces say foiled Kabul airport plot
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni Tue Jul 26, 2011
KABUL - Afghan security forces foiled a plot by insurgents to attack Kabul International Airport after finding a cache of weapons and five Afghan army uniforms just days after a deadly attack on the city's Intercontinental hotel, officials said on Tuesday.
How Afghanistan civilian deaths have changed the way the US military fights
Civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan rose by 20 percent between the spring of 2010 and the spring of 2011, according to a UN report. Training and technology are two ways to address that.
By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer The Christian Science Monitor July 27, 2011
Bagram, Afghanistan - In Afghanistan, the accidental killing of civilians by the US military has repeatedly put America’s war strategy at risk.
Rory Stewart: How the West stumbled into Afghanistan, and why it needs to end the war
Washington Post By Jason Ukman 26/07/2011
Rory Stewart — he who walked across Afghanistan — still isn’t buying the argument that the United States and its allies needed a large military footprint to beat back the Taliban and al-Qaeda, or to help Afghanistan.
Afghanistan disputes US audit report on aid money
Afghan government disputes US report it's hampering banks program, not protecting aid money
Patrick Quinn, Associated Press, On Tuesday July 26, 2011, 10:13 am EDT
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Afghan government on Tuesday disputed findings from a scathing U.S. report that said Kabul officials are thwarting U.S. efforts to protect American aid money from being stolen.
In Afghanistan, US military officials say it's now or never
In the weeks ahead in eastern Afghanistan, US commanders expect violent clashes between Taliban and US soldiers. It could be a key time for American forces, before US troops start exiting.
Christian Science Monitor By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer July 26, 2011
Bagram, Afghanistan - US military officials in Afghanistan warn that it’s now or never to make key advancements against insurgent fighters, with the surge of US forces at its zenith and the summer fighting season in full swing.
Taliban Must Renounce Violence after Transition: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday said that if the Taliban still continue causing violence after security is handed over to Afghan forces, it would mean they are looking for presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan: three British soldiers murdered over a bottle of water
Three British soldiers were murdered by an Afghan colleague weeks after a row over a water bottle led to the vandalism of a Gurkha religious shrine, an inquest has heard.
Telegraph.co.uk By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 26 Jul 2011
The deaths of Major James “Josh” Bowman, 34, Lt Neal Turkington, 26, and Cpl Arjun Purja Pun, 33, of 1st Bn The Royal Gurkha Rifles, also came a few weeks after a Gurkha accidentally shot dead an Afghan soldier.
Back to Top
Kandahar’s mayor killed in suicide attack
By Joshua Partlow and Sayed Salahuddin, The Washington Post July 27
KABUL — Ghulam Haider Hamidi had been warned. Friends and relatives had for months urged the mayor of Kandahar city to leave his treacherous post and return to his quiet life as an accountant in Northern Virginia.
When his son-in-law told him this year that he was crazy to stay, Hamidi, 65, recounted a story. He had visited his home village the day before, he said, escorted by U.S. troops willing to die for Afghanistan.
“It would be shameful for me to leave Afghanistan,” Hamidi said. It was his duty to stay, he said, no matter what.
On Wednesday morning, a suicide bomber with explosives hidden in his turban killed Hamidi inside his downtown office, according to Afghan officials. His death raised to new heights the fear among Kandahar officials and served as another in a quick succession of blows this year to President Hamid Karzai’s grip on southern Afghanistan.
Insurgents have waged a killing spree in Kandahar, not in large formations to fight U.S. troops but in stealthy acts of assassination. The attacks have unraveled the governing structure and weakened Karzai’s hold on a city that was once the Taliban’s heartland and remains the nerve center of southern Afghanistan.
A suicide bomber killed Kandahar provincial police chief Mohammad Mojayed in April. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s half brother, was fatally shot in his Kandahar home this month. Days later, a former governor of nearby Uruzgan province who had become a top presidential adviser, Jan Mohammad Khan, was killed in his Kabul home.
Although not all the killings have been proven to be the work of the Taliban, the group has profited by asserting responsibility and creating the impression that no one working with the government is safe.
The Taliban took credit Wednesday for Hamidi’s killing. The bomber “was one of our mujaheddin and took advantage of today’s meeting to kill the mayor,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said in a telephone interview. “The mayor was under our surveillance, and today was a good opportunity.”
Decisions faced criticism
At the time of the blast, Hamidi was leaving his office to meet with tribal elders from a Kandahar neighborhood where two children had been killed accidentally the day before by municipality bulldozers razing houses built on government land.
The local outrage over the bulldozing reflected a controversial aspect of Hamidi’s tenure as Kandahar mayor. Amid a lethal struggle for power and access to the spoils of a wartime economy, Hamidi’s decisions earned him many enemies. As part of his campaign to boost city tax revenue and reclaim government lands from illegal businesses, he angered those he evicted or whose shops were destroyed.
Hamidi undertook what one U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity called a “campaign, divorced from reality, to turn Kandahar into Fairfax” by banning illegal sidewalk vendors, bulldozing unregistered shops and evicting squatters.
His critics accused him of being a lackey for the Karzai family, helping to steer land and wealth their way at the expense of rival tribes and political opponents. In one case, Hamidi intervened to buy land owned by the Ministry of Defense and sell it to the president’s relatives so they could develop it into a sprawling gated community of modern homes and fountains. Hamidi insisted that the deal was a legitimate business transaction in the interests of the city.
Hamidi was considered a valued U.S. military partner in Kandahar — a good-natured, fluent English speaker who helped build schools, pave roads and plant trees. A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, Rear Adm. Vic Beck, said in a statement that Hamidi was a “strong leader and voice for a terror-free and progressive Afghanistan.”
Leaving Northern Virginia
Hamidi fled Afghanistan three decades ago after the Soviet invasion and settled in Northern Virginia. He worked for many years as an accountant in a travel agency in Alexandria and raised seven children with his wife. He also lived in Arlington, Burke and Sterling; the family still owns the Sterling house.
His daughter Rangina, who graduated from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, returned to Afghanistan five years ago to work on women’s projects and urged her father to join her. “None of my relatives wanted me to move back here, but Rangina said, ‘Dad, please come. If you die from a car accident in the States or a bomb in Afghanistan, what’s the difference? You are needed here.’ So I came,” Hamidi told The Washington Post in an interview this year.
By then, many of his top deputies had been killed in insurgent attacks, and it was clear that the Taliban was zeroing in on anyone associated with the Karzai government. But Hamidi said he owed his city and liked his work. “I may have made 50 or 100 enemies, but I am making 800,000 people happy,” he said.
At the funeral for Ahmed Wali Karzai this month, a brother of Hamidi’s worried that the Kandahar mayor would be next.
“If there is no Ahmed Wali Karzai, no one will be there” for Hamidi, said Anwar Hamidi, an official in the Kabul government. “If there is no peace, there is nothing we can accomplish. Nothing.”
Salahuddin is a special correspondent. Staff writer Pamela Constable contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Top
109 Afghan army personnel killed in one month: official
KABUL, July 27 (Xinhua) -- A total of 109 personnel of the Afghan National Army (ANA) had been killed in one month period in the insurgency-hit country, a Defense Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.
"Over one month period from June 22 to July 22, a total of 109 ANA personnel including officers and soldiers had been killed, with majority of them in roadside bomb and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks throughout the country," General Zahir Azimi told reporters in a weekly press conference here.
The latest number announced by Azimi shows a sharp increase in Afghan army's casualties as one month back from May 22 to June 21, only 68 personnel of ANA had been killed during military operations and insurgent attacks in the war-torn country.
However, Azimi did not provide information about Taliban insurgent casualties, only saying "Army soldiers have also captured a total of 619 Taliban over the same time table besides finding and defusing dozens of roadside bomb and IEDs and destroying 144 kg of explosive materials all over the country."
Taliban insurgents, whose regime was toppled in a U.S.-led military campaign in late 2001, have intensified their activities since the militant group announced to launch spring offensive from May 1 against Afghan and NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan.
Only on Tuesday, eight insurgents, including a key Taliban commander in northern Faryab province named Mullah Abdul, were killed by army elsewhere in the country, according to a statement obtained by Xinhua in the press conference.
"Army personnel besides eliminating eight terrorists on Tuesday July 26 in southern Helmand and Kandahar, eastern Nangarhar and Wardak and northern Faryab provinces, also found and defused 25 IEDs and destroyed over 700 kg of explosives," the statement added.
Also on Tuesday, a roadside bomb and Taliban attack left one army soldier dead and injured four other ANA personnel elsewhere in the country, the statement said.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghan security forces say foiled Kabul airport plot
Reuters By Mirwais Harooni Tue Jul 26, 2011
KABUL - Afghan security forces foiled a plot by insurgents to attack Kabul International Airport after finding a cache of weapons and five Afghan army uniforms just days after a deadly attack on the city's Intercontinental hotel, officials said on Tuesday.
Two separate stashes of machine guns and five army uniforms were found near the airport, which is also home to a military terminal used by foreign troops, said Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS).
"They planned to have a big attack on the airport, maybe they wanted to take passengers hostage," he told reporters.
"Near Kabul airport many kinds of weapons were hidden to plan some big attacks, maybe suicide attacks or group attacks on civilian planes," he said.
Mashal said security officials were told about the weapon caches by insurgents who were detained recently.
At least nine people were killed on June 28 when nine heavily-armed attackers stormed the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul, which is frequented by Westerners and VIPs.
Mashal said an Afghan investigation had found the insurgents who carried out the Intercontinental hotel attack received instructions from the Miranshah area in Pakistan's North Wazirstan on the border with Afghanistan.
"All the ... insurgents who entered the Intercontinental were controlled from Miranshah during the attack," Mashal said.
"We will share all the documents, the voice (recordings), the numbers and every piece of evidence with you after it all becomes clear," he added.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement on Friday that the Haqqani network, considered one of the most dangerous militant groups fighting in Afghanistan, was responsible for several recent high-profile attacks, including the raid on the Intercontinental hotel.
Gunmen also killed a top adviser to Karzai and a member of the Afghan parliament in Kabul this month in an attack claimed by the Taliban.
But some lawmakers accused the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency of being involved. A senior Pakistani security official denied the claim.
(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Sugita Katyal)
Back to Top
Back to Top
How Afghanistan civilian deaths have changed the way the US military fights
Civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan rose by 20 percent between the spring of 2010 and the spring of 2011, according to a UN report. Training and technology are two ways to address that.
By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer The Christian Science Monitor July 27, 2011
Bagram, Afghanistan - In Afghanistan, the accidental killing of civilians by the US military has repeatedly put America’s war strategy at risk.
Top US commanders recognize this, and they’ve created rules of engagement to minimize the chances that children and other innocent bystanders are caught in the path of bombs and strafing fire.
Although they’ve had some success, a recent United Nations report has plenty of troubling news. Civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan rose by 20 percent – to 1,090 killed and more than 1,800 wounded – between the spring of 2010 and the spring of 2011.
But the proportion of civilians killed by the military has declined, according to the report. The actions of the US military and NATO forces accounted for 10 percent of civilian casualties over the same period, versus 16 percent the year before.
The experience of a decade of war has helped drive home the impact of accidental killings, says Col. Clay Hall, commander of the 455th Expeditionary Operations Group, who has served tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan. “When the war kicked off here and in Iraq, we were less concerned about that,” he adds. “When we start off wars, we’re in an offensive mind-set.”
Now, everyone in the service – from the most junior troop on up – knows that the goal is to stabilize the country, Hall adds, “and it’s pretty hard to do that when you’re dropping bombs on innocent people.”
Commanders also emphasize the far-reaching consequences of a single mistake. “[Afghan President Hamid] Karzai’s making a statement, and [Gen. David] Petraeus is apologizing to the president” for an incident involving civilian casualties, says Lt. Col. Daren Sorenson, deputy commander of the 455th. “They can see how quickly a tactical mistake has a strategic-level impact.”
But caution doesn’t always come naturally in the heat of battle. And so during training, joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) – Air Force specialists who embed with US military infantry units to help them call in airstrikes during battle – learn how to navigate what may quickly become ethical gray areas.
During role-playing, an instructor might act as a ground-force commander, yelling at the JTAC to call for fire on a building where enemy forces have taken cover. When the JTAC asks if civilians are in the building, the ground commander ignores him, insisting that they must strike immediately or risk an enemy escape.
“We’re yelling, ‘Hey Air Force, where’s my air?’ and ‘I got intel – I want to take it out now!’ I’m throwing him off thinking about the civilians, when he should be,” says Senior Master Sgt. Javier Soto, a JTAC who has worked with Special Operations Forces and is also an instructor.
“Long story short, the building gets hit, but it hits good guys and bad guys.” Next, Soto says, the JTAC learns of his mistake. “So we’ll scream at him and all sorts of good stuff,” he adds. “It works.”
Technology can help, too, in real-life incidents. For example, in the headquarters building of the 455th Expeditionary Operations Group here, airmen play a grainy video of a compound that houses insurgents who have been planting roadside bombs. They watch the compound, make sure it is clear of innocents, and then fire a 500-pound, laser-guided bomb to kill the insurgents.
But after the bomb, known as a joint direct attack munition (JDAM), is launched, a civilian bicycles into the blast zone. With just seconds to spare, the operators are able to direct the GPS laser-guided bomb away from the civilian, into an open field, where it detonates without harming anyone. “There are things like this that happen every day,” Hall says.
At one time, rules of engagement “weren’t as strict,” Soto acknowledges. “A commander could go down there and just lay waste to all the bad guys. If it didn’t go well” – in other words, if civilians were injured or killed – “you’d have your PA [public affairs] folks smooth things out,” he says. “It didn’t get national attention.”
Stringent rules of engagement also have benefits for the troops in the field, Soto adds. When civilians are hurt as a result of US strikes, “It gets really hard,” he says. “It weighs heavy on us.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Rory Stewart: How the West stumbled into Afghanistan, and why it needs to end the war
Washington Post By Jason Ukman 26/07/2011
Rory Stewart — he who walked across Afghanistan — still isn’t buying the argument that the United States and its allies needed a large military footprint to beat back the Taliban and al-Qaeda, or to help Afghanistan.
Stewart, a Conservative MP in Britain and a former diplomat, has long been opposed to the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, or at least to the direction that it has taken. But in his latest presentation, at an event sponsored by the nonprofit TED in Edinburgh, Stewart the critic is also the storyteller, outlining what he sees as the folly of Western intervention in Afghanistan over the course of a decade.
“The question today is not why did we invade Afghanistan?” he says. ”The question is why are we still in Afghanistan one decade later?”
For Stewart, the United States and its allies have gone about their mission in all the wrong ways, deluging the country with money it could not absorb, replacing the priorities of the Afghan government with those of foreigners, and relying on commanders and diplomats with virtually no understanding of local needs.
What’s more, he says, Afghanistan does not represent — and has not represented for some time — an existential threat. The Taliban is unlikely to win back Kabul, and even if it did, the group would not likely invite back al-Qaeda. Furthermore, even if the Taliban did provide shelter to al-Qaeda again, the terrorist network could not enhance its abilities from Afghanistan in the same way it did in the same way in the 1990s.
“One of the saddest things about our involvement in Afghanistan is that we’ve got our priorities out of sync,” Stewart says. “We’re not matching our resources to our priorities. Because if what we’re interested in is terrorism, Pakistan is far more important than Afghanistan. If what we’re interested in is regional stability, Egypt is far more important. If what we’re worried about is poverty and development, sub-Saharan Africa is far more important.”
Such arguments may very well underplay Afghanistan’s strategic importance in the region, and they may overlook the military gains made over the past year, particularly in southern Afghanistan.
But Stewart — academic, author, diplomat, MP, scholar, wanderer and now storyteller — is interesting to watch.
“The worst thing we have done in Afghanistan is this idea that failure is not an option,” he says. “It makes failure invisible, inconceivable and inevitable.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan disputes US audit report on aid money
Afghan government disputes US report it's hampering banks program, not protecting aid money
Patrick Quinn, Associated Press, On Tuesday July 26, 2011, 10:13 am EDT
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Afghan government on Tuesday disputed findings from a scathing U.S. report that said Kabul officials are thwarting U.S. efforts to protect American aid money from being stolen.
The Finance Ministry said it welcomes American scrutiny of where billions of U.S. reconstruction dollars are being spent but denied a statement by the acting Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Herbert Richardson, that Afghanistan's central bank was hostile to international advisers.
The exchange is the latest in an increasingly deteriorating relationship between President Hamid Karzai's government and the United States, which has poured more than $70 billion in aid to Afghanistan since it invaded the country to oust the Taliban in late 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Afghan ministry said one recommendation from the U.S. report on how to improve the situation in one of Afghanistan's largest private banks, Kabul Bank, would violate Afghan law.
It also acknowledged that the Afghan government's relationship with the U.S. Treasury representative in Afghanistan has been strained during the past year, adding the situation would improve if the American were replaced.
With U.S.-Afghan relations at a new low, Karzai's government has also become increasingly vocal in its criticism of how the war against the Taliban is being carried out by the U.S.-led coalition.
Last week, Richardson's office, known as SIGAR, charged that Karzai had banned U.S. Treasury officials from his country's central bank, hampering work to fight the flow of money to insurgents. SIGAR said two Treasury advisers will not return because working conditions at the bank have become too hostile.
The Finance Ministry said the central bank "refutes that its environment is hostile to international advisers and is actively seeking renewed support to assist it in implementing a series of measures agreed with the International Monetary Fund to strengthen the financial sector."
It added that although the government "counts on the partnership and cooperation of the U.S. Treasury," it acknowledged that over the past year the "relationship with the current U.S. Treasury attache has been strained, and it looks forward to the opportunity to renew its past helpful and professional partnership when an effective partner is identified."
SIGAR said Kabul's move to ban Treasury officials was one of a number of ways in which Karzai's government had failed to cooperate with international efforts to improve the country's financial sector.
Others included a delay in the installation of cash counting machines at Kabul airport to record the serial numbers of huge bundles of cash that have been flowing out of the country, and a delay in the audit of Kabul Bank.
The former head of the central bank, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, fled late last month to the U.S. amid allegations of failing to act on warnings about widespread corruption at Kabul Bank, which nearly collapsed last year because of mismanagement and questionable lending practices.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund stopped an expected $70 million reconstruction payment to Afghanistan to show displeasure of international donors, a move that threatens to choke off billions of aid to Afghanistan.
The Finance Ministry said the cash counting machines had in the meantime been installed at Kabul airport and that the government was supportive of a plan to also install them in commercial banks.
"Afghan law does not place limits on the amount of cash that can be taken out of the country. However, the government recognizes that this flexibility is abused by criminals and is committed to preventing the flow of funds related to illegal activities," the statement said.
It added that a forensic audit currently under way at Kabul Bank was delayed because the U.S. Treasury had insisted it would only assist "if the audit contract was issued by them and the firm reported to them according to terms of reference set in Washington." That, the ministry said, was something it could not allow.
"While the government had a strong desire to obtain information from the audit to strengthen the sector and assist with recoveries, it was not permissible under Afghan law to allow the audit of an Afghan Bank to be led by a foreign government," the ministry said.
The Afghan ministry also said that since 2001, the Afghan government has had the authority to spend only $46 million in discretionary funds -- or just 0.07 percent of the $70 billion appropriated by the U.S. Congress. Most American aid is funneled through U.S. or international agencies and organizations.
"Funds that are being misused, or channeled to support the activities of insurgent groups, are not the responsibility of the government," the ministry said.
Back to Top
Back to Top
In Afghanistan, US military officials say it's now or never
In the weeks ahead in eastern Afghanistan, US commanders expect violent clashes between Taliban and US soldiers. It could be a key time for American forces, before US troops start exiting.
Christian Science Monitor By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer July 26, 2011
Bagram, Afghanistan - US military officials in Afghanistan warn that it’s now or never to make key advancements against insurgent fighters, with the surge of US forces at its zenith and the summer fighting season in full swing.
Yet Taliban forces in the east appear to be launching offensives of their own, with no intention of giving up easily, US military officials say.
Rates of violence bear testament to that resolve. Attacks by insurgents in the east nearly doubled between March 2010 and March 2011. That’s not unexpected, US military officials say, given the surge. They add that attacks in the month of July appear to be on a downward trajectory.
In the weeks ahead, however, US commanders expect violent clashes between Taliban and US soldiers to continue apace in the east, where insurgents often make use of sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan.
With 10,000 of the 30,000 US surge forces scheduled to return to the United States by year's end – the vast majority of which have been based in southern Afghanistan – there is a sense, too, that the clock is ticking for US commanders here.
“We have more forces [in Afghanistan] right now than we will ever have,” says Col. Clay Hall, commander of the US Air Force’s 455th Expeditionary Operations Group (EOG). “There’s a feeling of, ‘Let’s use them to maximum effect.’ As we pull out,” with fewer and fewer US troops on the ground, “those engagements are going to become less and less effective.”
The US military’s role in Afghanistan was a central point of discussion in at least two congressional hearings Tuesday. Gen. Martin Dempsey fielded questions on the way forward in Afghanistan during his Senate confirmation hearing for serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The House Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, was to hear testimony from former military and defense officials about US activity in Afghanistan.
On the ground here, US commanders say they see few signs of violence abating. Military officials point to a hair-raising battle between insurgents and US troops on May 25 in the violent eastern province of Nuristan.
American forces fought for hours after coming to the aid of Afghan security forces to retake a district center in Doab that had been overrun by Taliban fighters. Shortly after some 40 US soldiers arrived, they were surrounded by “about 300 insurgents,” says Lt. Col. Daren Sorenson, deputy 455th EOG commander and an F-15 pilot who was flying overwatch that day.
US troops started taking fire “from all directions.” As pilots spoke with US forces on the ground, “It’s one of those times where you hear in the tone of voice that they don’t know whether they’re going to make it out of there,” Sorenson adds.
The Air Force joint terminal attack controller (JTAC) on the ground was calm at first. “But his voice changed as soon as they began taking fire,” he says. As the F-15 fighter jets scrambled above, “You could see they were in a very, very bad place.”
The US forces were facing nearly 10-to-1 odds, pinned in by fighters on the steep ridges high above them.
Sorenson and his wingman made a low pass through the narrow valley in their F-15s. This is normally enough to encourage enemy fighters to run, he says, but the insurgents seemed unfazed by the show of force. “They just didn’t stop,” he says. “They knew they had our guys pinned down, and they were determined to keep the fight going.”
The US troops were “taking such effective fire” from the Taliban that bullets were whizzing between them and landing at their feet. Rocket-propelled grenades were flying through the air.
Sorenson dropped every bomb he had during the operation – 14 in total. “It’s extremely rare that we find ourselves in a fight where we deploy all of our bombs,” he says. “But that day we dropped everything we had.”
Still, the fighting did not end. “As fast as we could drop one bomb, our JTAC would say, ‘Good hit, next coordinates.’ ”
The fighters had effectively surrounded troops on the ground. “Literally we are dropping a bomb, pushing the afterburner, lining up, and dropping again.”
After dropping his bombs and being replaced by another team of Air Force fighter pilots, Sorenson returned to base and began listening to the battle on the radio.
The fight lasted several hours as Taliban insurgents stopped, regrouped, and returned, he says. But eventually, the fight ended, with no US fatalities and some 200 Taliban killed, according to US military estimates.
“Frankly, if that’s the method they want to use, that’s fine. We very much have the enemy on his heels,” says Maj. Gen. Daniel Allyn, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division and of Regional Command East. “At the end of the day, the insurgents held the district center for 24 hours and lost somewhere in the vicinity of a couple hundred to do it,” he adds. “It’s a Pyrrhic victory is the bottom line.”
Still, it illustrates the intensity of fighting that US troops must wage, says Sorenson: “Our guys got really close to being overrun.”
Back to Top
Back to Top
Taliban Must Renounce Violence after Transition: Karzai
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday said that if the Taliban still continue causing violence after security is handed over to Afghan forces, it would mean they are looking for presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.
President Karzai at a ceremony celebrating the first phase of security transition to Afghan forces hailed successful completion of the first phase and described it as a big achievement.
Once again President Karzai called on security organisations to break political affiliations and avoid serving political parties.
Afghan security forces have grown strong enough to undertake security responsibilities, he said.
"In the fight against terrorism and other enemies of Afghanistan, we can do better without causing civilian casualties," he said. "We could do it with the support of our people and we have the ability."
He urged the Taliban to put an end to violence after the security transition process is completed.
Mr Karzai said the transition process is underway and Afghans continue to take the lead and there is no reason for the Taliban to continue attacking their own land and their people under the pretext of fighting against Nato and US troops."
"If the Taliban still continue their attacks, it would mean they want Nato and the US to extend their presence here."
He said anti-government armed groups know that Afghanistan preserves its independence despite challenges.
"Despite all problems and threats facing our nation, we have protected our independence with dignity under our waving flag," he said.
Mr Karzai also pledged that Afghanistan would be able to pay its own armed forces and police.
Security transition to Afghan forces is set to end by the end of 2014 when the last foreign combat soldier is expected to leave the country.
Back to Top
Back to Top
Afghanistan: three British soldiers murdered over a bottle of water
Three British soldiers were murdered by an Afghan colleague weeks after a row over a water bottle led to the vandalism of a Gurkha religious shrine, an inquest has heard.
Telegraph.co.uk By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 26 Jul 2011
The deaths of Major James “Josh” Bowman, 34, Lt Neal Turkington, 26, and Cpl Arjun Purja Pun, 33, of 1st Bn The Royal Gurkha Rifles, also came a few weeks after a Gurkha accidentally shot dead an Afghan soldier.
Sgt Talib Hussein used a Minimi light machine gun, rocket-propelled grenade and M16 rifle to shoot the British soldiers at 2am as they slept or worked in the operations room. Four soldiers were also wounded.
The inquest heard that an Afghan soldier had been disciplined after he had been caught by a Gurkha officer taking a bottle of cold water from a fridge.
Later that night, a makeshift Hindu temple built by Gurkhas was vandalised, the inquest heard.
In a second incident during an operation to capture a Taliban commander, a force of Afghan soldiers suddenly appeared and a Gurkha accidentally shot one.
While there was “friction” between the British and Afghan troops sharing Patrol Base Three, a fortress in Helmand province, following the incidents, it did not appear to be sufficient motive for Hussein to carry out the murders in July last year.
The matter is still under investigation. But Lt Col Gerald Strickland, the Gurkha commanding officer, said the accident was “what happens in war” and “there were no recriminations at all”.
When the officer arrived at the base after the murders, the Afghan commander immediately told him that he had passed Hussein in the darkness who told him “look out, the Taliban are attacking the ISAF section of the camp”. He then fled the base in the dark.
Lt Col Strickland told the inquest in Trowbridge, Wilts, he did not believe Hussein had been recruited by the insurgents as he was from the Hazara ethnic group who are hostile towards the Taliban.
In a phone call allegedly made by Hussein to the BBC Kabul bureau the soldier claimed he carried out the attack because British soldiers were killing civilians. He denied being in the Taliban but admitted he had been in Iran for two years before joining the Afghan National Army.
Lt Col Strickland, questioned over whether he thought Hussein could have been a Taliban infiltrator, said he was a “rogue soldier” who “ran amok”.
The incident came seven months after the so-called Blue 25 attack in which an Afghan National Police officer killed five British soldiers in their Helmand base.
The inquest continues.
Back to Top
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).