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3 NATO service members killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Three NATO service members died in separate attacks, and a patrol of Afghan and international forces killed more than 10 insurgents during a raid on a major narcotics laboratory in southern Afghanistan, NATO said Sunday.
U.S. ambassador says evidence links Pakistan to militant group
By the CNN Wire Staff September 18, 2011
The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan accused the government there of having links to the Haqqani network, a pro-Taliban militant group that U.S. officials blame for this week's attack on the U.S. Embassy and NATO command center in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Pakistani soldiers battle militants for debris from crashed US drone nabbed by Taliban
By Associated Press, Sunday, September 18, 4:15 PM
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Pakistani soldiers battled Taliban fighters in an attempt to seize precious debris from a suspected U.S. drone that crashed in a rugged tribal area near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials and militants said Sunday.
One student killed, 9 injured as rocket hits school in Afghanistan
PUL-E-ALAM, Afghanistan, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- One student was killed and nine others injured when a rocked hit a school in Afghanistan's Logar province, some 60 km south of capital city of Kabul, an official said on Sunday.
IED kills 9 in north Afghanistan, ISAF statement
KABUL, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Nine people were killed in an IED ( improvised Explosive Device) attack in Farayb Province in north Afghanistan, a statement from NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) issued late Saturday night said.
India, Afghanistan 'deliberately' trying to destabilise Balochistan, Musharraf told US
New Kerala
Islamabad, Sept 18: Former President Pervez Musharraf had asked the United States to intervene on alleged attempts of India and Afghanistan to destabilise Balochistan, according to a 2007 diplomatic cable released by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.
German defence minister visits Afghanistan
AFP
German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere arrived in the Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif early Sunday for a visit aimed at preparing his country's gradual troop pullout.
Tricky questions and troop transfers in Afghanistan
Foreign Policy By Ronald Neumann 17/09/2011
Military commanders deciding how to reposition and withdraw U.S. forces in Afghanistan are now confronting decisions where mistakes could doom the war effort. NATO has achieved considerable success after brutal combat in the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. Violent incident rates are running in excess of 20 percent
America's costly war machine
Fighting the war on terror compromises the economy now and threatens it in the future.
Los Angles Times By Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz September 18, 2011
Ten years into the war on terror, the U.S. has largely succeeded in its attempts to destabilize Al Qaeda and eliminate its leaders. But the cost has been enormous, and our decisions about how to finance it have profoundly damaged the U.S. economy.
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3 NATO service members killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Three NATO service members died in separate attacks, and a patrol of Afghan and international forces killed more than 10 insurgents during a raid on a major narcotics laboratory in southern Afghanistan, NATO said Sunday.
The alliance said one service member died in an insurgent attack on Saturday, while the other two were killed by bombs on Sunday. All three died in the south of the country.
NATO statements did not provide further details on the attacks or the nationalities of the killed service members.
The deaths raise the number of international troops killed in September to 24. A total of 429 members of the international military coalition have died so far this year.
The narcotics raid took place Saturday in Baghran district of Helmand province, according to NATO forces. The alliance described the laboratory as one of the biggest heroin-producing facilities to be destroyed in Afghanistan in the past five years, and said its profits were used to finance attacks on security forces.
It said the patrol of Afghan and coalition forces was fired on by snipers and returned fire before destroying the facility.
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U.S. ambassador says evidence links Pakistan to militant group
By the CNN Wire Staff September 18, 2011
The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan accused the government there of having links to the Haqqani network, a pro-Taliban militant group that U.S. officials blame for this week's attack on the U.S. Embassy and NATO command center in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Speaking to Radio Pakistan, Ambassador Cameron Munter said relations between the United States and Pakistan "need a lot of work" and urged closer cooperation. The interview was available Saturday on the Radio Pakistan website.
A Taliban assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO command center in central Kabul was brought to a bloody end Wednesday with the deaths of half a dozen militants. Four policemen and two civilians were killed and 27 injured in that attack and a handful of other incidents across Kabul, according to Afghan government figures.
"The attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago -- that was the work of the Haqqani network," Munter told Radio Pakistan. "There is evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistani government. This is something that must stop. We have to make sure that we work together to fight terrorism."
U.S. officials have previously blamed this week's attack on the Haqqani network, a pro-Taliban militant group based in Pakistan's North Waziristan region. They have also previously accused the Pakistani government of maintaining a relationship with that network.
Still, Munter's comments are noteworthy for their timing, amid heightened tensions between Pakistan and the United States, and because of their blunt nature.
They came one day after U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen told his Pakistani counterpart he was deeply concerned about the brazenness of attacks being staged by operatives loyal to the Haqqani network.
During a lengthy one-on-one meeting in Seville, Spain, Mullen "conveyed his deep concerns about the increasing -- and increasingly brazen -- activities of the Haqqani network and restated his strong desire to see the Pakistani military take action against them and their safe havens in North Waziristan," Capt. John Kirby, Mullen's spokesman, told CNN.
Mullen believes that "elements" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI, "directly support" the Haqqani network, Kirby said.
The Haqqani network is aligned with the Taliban and al Qaeda and is considered one the most significant threats to stability in Afghanistan. U.S. officials believe Haqqani operatives are moving unfettered across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and are responsible for several recent high-profile attacks in Kabul, including this week's assault.
In late April, Mullen said on Pakistan's Geo TV that the ISI has a "long-standing relationship" with the Haqqani network.
Pakistani officials have denied the existence of such a relationship.
Mullen, who is retiring at the end of this month, met with Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, for more than two hours in what was their final official meeting. Both men were in Spain to attend a high-level NATO military meeting.
"They agreed that the relationship between our two countries remained vital to the region and that both sides had taken positive steps to improve that relationship over the past few months. They also discussed the state of military-to-military cooperation and pledged to continue to find ways to make it better," Kirby said.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's Interior Minister Bismillah Muhammadi avoided blaming Pakistan directly for this week's attack in Kabul. However, he used the phase "across the borders of Afghanistan," a typical way of referring to Pakistan in connection to the recovered phones of the attackers.
"The six cell phones we found on them, and the evidence we got on them all shows that this plot was made across the borders of Afghanistan," he said. "Without doubt they are across the borders of Afghanistan. They get equipped, they get trained there, and then they get sent here for killing of our people."
CNN's Barbara Starr in Washington contributed to this report.
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Pakistani soldiers battle militants for debris from crashed US drone nabbed by Taliban
By Associated Press, Sunday, September 18, 4:15 PM
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Pakistani soldiers battled Taliban fighters in an attempt to seize precious debris from a suspected U.S. drone that crashed in a rugged tribal area near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials and militants said Sunday.
The Taliban said they shot down the unmanned aircraft, which crashed Saturday night near Jangara village in the South Waziristan tribal area.
Pakistani intelligence officials said they were not certain whether Taliban fire or technical problems brought down the drone. Drone crashes have happened before in Pakistan, but they are rare.
Pakistan first learned of the crash by intercepting Taliban radio communications, said the intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The debris was first seized by the Taliban. Several hours later, the Pakistani army sent soldiers in to wrest it out of militant hands, sparking a fight with the Taliban in which three militants were killed, said the officials. Three militants and two soldiers were also wounded in the clash, they said.
The intelligence officials said the troops were successful in seizing the debris, but Pakistani Taliban commander Azmatullah Diwana claimed his fighters repelled the soldiers. The army then sent helicopter gunships into the area where the militants were holding the debris, Diwana told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Nawab Khan, a government official in South Waziristan, confirmed the drone crash and the subsequent clash between militants and army troops. But he did not know whether the soldiers were successful in seizing the debris.
Neither the Pakistani army nor the U.S. Embassy responded to request for comment.
The U.S. normally does not acknowledge the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan, but U.S. officials have said privately that the attacks have killed many high-level militants — most recently, al-Qaida’s second in command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, and its chief of operations in Pakistan, Abu Hafs al-Shahri.
President Barack Obama has dramatically increased the number of drone attacks against militants in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal region since taking office in 2009 — partly in response to Pakistan’s failure to target militants who stage attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials regularly denounce the drone attacks as violations of the country’s sovereignty, but the government is widely believed to have supported the strikes in the past and even allowed the aircraft to take off from bases within Pakistan.
That support has come under strain in recent months, especially in the wake of the U.S. commando raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town on May 2. The Pakistanis were outraged that the U.S. didn’t tell them about the operation beforehand.
Elsewhere in Pakistan’s tribal region, militants attacked a security checkpoint killing a policeman and two members of an anti-Taliban militia, said Farooq Khan, a local government administrator.
The attack took place late Saturday night in the Aka Khel area of the Khyber tribal region, said Khan. The checkpoint is located on a key route that NATO uses to transport supplies to forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Security forces and local tribesmen fought back against the militants, killing 10 of them, said Khan.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. But the Pakistani Taliban have staged frequent attacks against security forces and tribesmen who have opposed them.
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One student killed, 9 injured as rocket hits school in Afghanistan
PUL-E-ALAM, Afghanistan, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- One student was killed and nine others injured when a rocked hit a school in Afghanistan's Logar province, some 60 km south of capital city of Kabul, an official said on Sunday.
"A group of armed men attacked a logistic convoy of NATO-led forces in vicinity of provincial capital Pul-e-Alam at about 10:00 a.m. local time Sunday triggering a gun fight but a rocket shot by insurgents hit a primary school named Butkhak near the site as a result a student was killed and nine students injured," Head of provincial education department, Abdul Latif Jafar told Xinhua.
The number of death could rise as seven of the wounded, who were shifted to a provincial capital hospital, were in critical conditions, Jafar said, adding a teacher was also injured in the incident.
Militancy has been rampant since May this year when Taliban militants announced to launch spring offensive in the war-battered Afghanistan.
The Taliban outfit has also warned the civilians to stay away from official gatherings, military convoys and centers regarded as the legitimate targets by militants.
A total of 1,462 Afghan civilians were killed in the first half of 2011, a 15 percent rise over the same period of 2010, according to the United Nations mid-year report released in Kabul on July 14.
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IED kills 9 in north Afghanistan, ISAF statement
KABUL, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Nine people were killed in an IED ( improvised Explosive Device) attack in Farayb Province in north Afghanistan, a statement from NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) issued late Saturday night said.
According to the statement, the IED attack in Qhormach District of the Frayab province, some 425 km northwest of Afghan capital Kabul, killed nine people and wounded another on Saturday. Five children were among the dead.
"Initial reports indicate a single IED was detonated," said the statement.
Afghan President Karzai has condemned the attack. Gen. John R. Allen, commander of ISAF joined said, "The insurgents' violent attack on civilians demonstrates their complete disregard for the Afghan people and the value of human life. We mourn with our Afghan partners, and we are outraged over this tragic crime."
So far, Afghan Taliban, which has launched massive IED attack against ISAF and Afghan national security force, have not made any comment on the event.
North Afghanistan, including Farayb Province, was comparatively peaceful, but the situation there has deteriorated in recent years.
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India, Afghanistan 'deliberately' trying to destabilise Balochistan, Musharraf told US
New Kerala
Islamabad, Sept 18: Former President Pervez Musharraf had asked the United States to intervene on alleged attempts of India and Afghanistan to destabilise Balochistan, according to a 2007 diplomatic cable released by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.
In a September 21, 2007 cable, the then US Ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, wrote about the details of a meeting between Musharraf, Deputy Secretary John Negroponte and US Assistant Secretary for South Asia Richard Boucher.
According to the cable, Musharraf asked the US to intervene on one issue of real concern- the "deliberate" attempt of Kabul and New Delhi to destabilise Balochistan.
He insisted that Pakistan had ample proof that India and Afghanistan were involved in efforts to provide weapons, training and funding for Baloch extremists through Brahamdagh Bugti and Baloch Marri, two Baloch nationalists, who were living in Kabul.
"We have letters instructing who to give what weapons to whom," he claimed.
Musharraf said he had raised this issue with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who replied: "Give me time and I will address it." Musharraf said he was still waiting.
Accusing New Delhi of trying to destabilise Balochistan, he added: "If India wants to continue, let's see what our options will be."
The cable said that Negroponte also asked Musharraf "if, after the elections, there was a possibility to move forward on negotiations with India. "
"Musharraf said yes, especially on Kashmir, where the population was getting restless," the cable added.
--ANI
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German defence minister visits Afghanistan
AFP
German Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere arrived in the Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif early Sunday for a visit aimed at preparing his country's gradual troop pullout.
"The most important thing of course is to talk with our soldiers to get an idea of how they see the situation on the ground," he told reporters on the plane taking him to Afghanistan.
The minister is expected to discuss the phased pullout of Germany's troops from Afghanistan, which is expected to be completed by 2014.
He is also expected to hold talks with US officials and other members of the International Security Assistance Force deployed in Afghanistan.
With more than 5,000 troops deployed in the comparatively quiet north of the country, Germany is the third contributor of troops in coalition operations, behind the United States and Britain.
Germany plans to pull its first soldiers by the end of the year but Thomas de Maiziere would not provide specific numbers.
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Tricky questions and troop transfers in Afghanistan
Foreign Policy By Ronald Neumann 17/09/2011
Military commanders deciding how to reposition and withdraw U.S. forces in Afghanistan are now confronting decisions where mistakes could doom the war effort. NATO has achieved considerable success after brutal combat in the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. Violent incident rates are running in excess of 20 percent lower than during a comparable time period in 2010. Local Afghan government, for all its weakness, is expanding into districts that were long controlled by the Taliban. Even recruitment of southern Pashtuns into local police and security forces is going up in some districts that last year saw the local population watching passively while Americans fought Taliban insurgents. While such recruitment for the army is still well below what is desired, there are scattered reports, both in print and from local sources, of larger numbers of Pashtuns joining local police forces.
However, violence in eastern Afghanistan is not dropping. The threat from the Haqqani Network forces supported from bases in Pakistan has increased, as have Haqqani Network-originated spectacular attacks aimed at Kabul. The combination of apparent success in the south combined with the threat of eastern violence produce a strong argument for rapidly shifting forces east to mount a major campaign there before hard deadlines for U.S. troop withdrawals next year diminish the offensive power international forces can wield. Yet this military logic conceals critical political risks that deserve close attention.
The southern surge was intended to create conditions that would allow Afghan forces to take over population security and the expansion of governance and development. Claims by some serving and retired American generals that security gains in southern Afghanistan are irreversible seriously overstate the situation. None of my many Afghan contacts fully accept this view. Only half the mission is accomplished. Afghan Army performance has improved, and army units are supported by some police and a few small units of local village defense of varying political and military reliability. But nowhere have Afghan forces yet stood largely on their own. Their ability to do so remains an unproven theory, not an established fact.
The decisive battles for the south have also yet to begin. They will occur as U.S. forces thin out and insurgents try to regain control of the population. The Taliban's inability to confront Afghan security forces backed up by residual U.S. and NATO forces will not be the measure of success. Rather, success will only come when Afghan forces have the ability to maintain security for assistance workers, Afghan civil servants, and tribal leaders who have returned to their districts and cooperated with us and their government. All of them will be targeted by the Taliban, using threats and assassinations to intimidate others who might be on the fence. The struggle for control of the population will be the decisive battle.
The battlefield will also be psychological as much as physical. After 30 years of war, Afghans have a high pain threshold. If they believe they are on a winning side, they can and will put up with sacrifice, and replace assassinated officials. But if they become convinced that overall security is declining then we will again see local officials deserting their posts or living ineffectually in protected compounds. Tribal leaders will again flee to the cities. Confidence that has been slowly built in the south will be quickly destroyed. Worst of all, the word will spread rapidly that those who put their faith in improved Western- and Afghan-created security are taking suicidal risks, especially with the impending NATO force reductions. If this message goes forth it will undercut any possible military gains from repositioning forces.
These dangers do not mean that no forces can be withdrawn or repositioned. Indeed, transfer of control must occur if the whole strategy of Afghan forces taking over responsibility for security by 2014 is to achieve credibility. Further, it is important to expand secure areas in the east and diminish the threats to Kabul. The need for troops in both the east and the south is real. The time to make decisions has been reduced by President Obama's accelerated withdrawal schedule for 2012. Risk, as my military colleagues always remind me, must be taken somewhere. The point is that the risks must be considered in political and psychological terms far more than on a strictly military basis if we are not to waste the major gains of the last two years. Such considerations demand great prudence in two areas that must be worked out by our civilian and military leaders on the ground.
One is that turn over must be undertaken slowly enough that Afghan security forces can be tested when we still have the ability to correct after setbacks. War is a hard school taught by a capable and reactive enemy. There will be bad days. We must ensure that we retain the margin to work with our Afghan allies to rebound from problems, not let them be shattered by them.
Second, risk must be decided jointly with Afghan civilian and military authorities. They bear the ultimate cost of failure, and their confidence in the possibility of success is crucial to strategic credibility and their willingness to take the losses required to succeed. More progress has been made in the last two years than many Americans recognize. It must be solidified before it is excessively risked.
Ronald E. Neumann was U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 until 2007 and has visited regularly since. He is author of The Other War; Winning and Losing in Afghanistan.
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America's costly war machine
Fighting the war on terror compromises the economy now and threatens it in the future.
Los Angles Times By Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz September 18, 2011
Ten years into the war on terror, the U.S. has largely succeeded in its attempts to destabilize Al Qaeda and eliminate its leaders. But the cost has been enormous, and our decisions about how to finance it have profoundly damaged the U.S. economy.
Many of these costs were unnecessary. We chose to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan with a small, all-volunteer force, and we supplemented the military presence with a heavy reliance on civilian contractors. These decisions not only placed enormous strain on the troops but dramatically pushed up costs. Recent congressional investigations have shown that roughly 1 of every 4 dollars spent on wartime contracting was wasted or misspent.
To date, the United States has spent more than $2.5 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon spending spree that accompanied it and a battery of new homeland security measures instituted after Sept. 11.
How have we paid for this? Entirely through borrowing. Spending on the wars and on added security at home has accounted for more than one-quarter of the total increase in U.S. government debt since 2001. And not only did we fail to pay as we went for the wars, the George W. Bush administration also successfully pushed to cut taxes in 2001 and again in 2003, which added further to the debt. This toxic combination of lower revenues and higher spending has brought the country to its current political stalemate.
There is only one other time in U.S. history that a war was financed entirely through borrowing, without raising taxes: when the Colonies borrowed from France during the Revolutionary War.
Even if we were to leave Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow, our war debt would continue to rise for decades. Future bills will include such things as caring for military veterans, replacing military equipment, rebuilding the armed forces and paying interest on all the money we have borrowed. And these costs won't be insignificant.
History has shown that the cost of caring for military veterans peaks decades after a conflict. Already, half of the returning troops have been treated in Veterans Administration medical centers, and more than 600,000 have qualified to receive disability compensation. At this point, the bill for future medical and disability benefits is estimated at $600 billion to $900 billion, but the number will almost surely grow as hundreds of thousands of troops still deployed abroad return home.
And it isn't just in some theoretical future that the wars will affect the nation's economy: They already have. The conditions that precipitated the financial crisis in 2008 were shaped in part by the war on terror. The invasion of Iraq and the resulting instability in the Persian Gulf were among the factors that pushed oil prices up from about $30 a barrel in 2003 to historic highs five years later, peaking at $140 a barrel in current dollars in 2008. Higher oil prices threatened to depress U.S. economic activity, prompting the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and loosen regulations. These policies were major contributors to the housing bubble and the financial collapse that followed.
Now, the war's huge deficits are shaping the economic debate, and they could keep Congress from enacting another round of needed stimulus spending to help the country climb out of its economic malaise. Many of these war debts are likely to continue to compromise America's investments in its future for decades.
For years, the public failed to adequately question how it was possible that we could spend and borrow so freely, with so few consequences. But now the painful legacy of these decisions has become clear. Throughout the past decade, Congress routinely approved huge "emergency" appropriations to pay for the wars. This process preempted the usual scrutiny and debate that accompanies large spending bills. In part, this is because the U.S. lacks the basic accounting tools necessary for informed debate. Our future debts from the war are not listed anywhere in the federal government's budget. We don't even know for certain where the money has been spent. The Pentagon hasn't produced a clean financial audit in the 20 years since government auditing began, nor has it developed an accounting framework that would allow an assessment of the future costs of current decisions. This has almost certainly increased the overall cost of the war.
Our response to Sept. 11 has weakened both the current economy and our future economic prospects. And that legacy of economic weakness — combined with the erosion of the credibility of our military power and of our "soft power" — has undermined, rather than strengthened, our national security.
Nearly 10 years into the Afghanistan war, the violence in that country shows little sign of abating. August was the deadliest month of the war yet for U.S. troops, and there were also multiple attacks on Afghan security forces, government officials and civilians. The surge in violence comes as NATO is drawing down and handing over security control to national forces. But tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel are scheduled to remain in Afghanistan through the end of 2014.
The costs of fighting the war on terror have already been far higher than they needed to be. The U.S. should not take on even greater war debt without understanding the true costs of continuing down that path.
Linda J. Bilmes is a faculty member at Harvard University. Joseph E. Stiglitz is a professor at Columbia University and the recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics. They are coauthors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict."
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