Afghan, Nato operation kills 23 militants: Afghan general

KABUL: Afghan soldiers backed by troops from the Nato-led international force stormed a militant stronghold in southern Afghanistan, killing 23 insurgents, an Afghan army general said Wednesday.

The dead in the attack in the southern province of Uruzgan on Tuesday included a local Taliban commander, General Sher Mohammad Zazai told AFP.

‘We had an operation in Chinarto area last night during which we located a Taliban hideout. We killed 23 enemy fighters,’ Zazai said.

He said that fighter jets from the Nato force took part in the battle in Chinarto, which is close to the provincial capital of Tirin Kot.

‘A Taliban commander named Mullah Isamaeel was also killed,’ he added.

The operation was part of an anti-insurgent drive recently launched to dislodge Taliban militants from their strongholds ahead of the August 20 presidential elections, the general said.

The Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001 and are waging a fierce insurgency to topple the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and oust foreign troops from the war-torn nation.

The insurgency has gained pace in recent weeks, raising fears for the security of Afghanistan’s second ever presidential poll.

Afghan security forces, with support from Nato and US-led coalition troops, have launched a series of operations to secure volatile areas, mainly in southern parts of the country worst-hit by militant attacks.

There are about 90,000 foreign troops — mostly from the United States — stationed in Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and help train Afghan forces. — AFP

Pak, Afghan, US talks on anti-terror strategy

WASHINGTON: The US-Pakistan-Afghanistan talks entered a crucial phase on Thursday when intelligence chiefs and military leaders from the three countries started shaping up a strategy for defeating terrorists in the Pak-Afghan region.

The talks followed a series of meetings on Wednesday among the leaders of the three countries – Presidents Barack Obama, Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai.

The two days of meetings were designed to better coordinate the Obama administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Although the media focused on the summit meetings, US officials stressed that they were more interested in the outcome of the talks among Afghan and Pakistani officials responsible for intelligence, defence, agriculture, law enforcement and diplomacy.

On Wednesday, President Obama held two sets of meetings with the Afghan and Pakistani leaders: the bilateral and then a trilateral summit aimed at improving coordination between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Later in the evening, Vice President Joe Biden hosted a dinner for the two leaders, attended by a large number of US civil and military officials, lawmakers and ambassadors of other nations based in Washington.

But what diplomatic observers in Washington are describing as the ‘real talks’ began on Thursday when CIA chief Leon Panetta met DG ISI Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha and his Afghan counterpart. Senior military commanders accompanying the Afghan and Pakistani delegates also met each other and their American counterparts.

Besides Mr Panetta, the Americans also included FBI Director Robert S. Mueller and, Central Command chief Gen. David H. Petraeus in the meetings, indicating that these ‘technical talks,’ although low-profiled, were as substantial as the summit.

US Agriculture and Treasury officials also held a series of meetings with their counterparts from Afghanistan and Pakistan to determine what specific assistance they could offer to the two countries.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton later told the media that the head of these civil, intelligence and military agencies were finalising work plans with ‘specific’ goals in their areas of concern.

The military commanders and intelligence chiefs obviously focused on the military strategy to defeat the militants. Others focused on judicial reform, agricultural development, security and economic development, Secretary Clinton said.

Wednesday’s summit coincided with the release of a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concluding that recent US airstrikes have killed dozens of Afghan civilians.

The report overshadowed the summit, forcing President Obama to offer condolences over the deaths to the Afghan president. Mr Obama also promised to investigate the airstrikes.

Although such strikes are carried out at targets inside Pakistan as well, President Obama and Secretary Clinton focused on the deaths in Afghanistan, making only passing references to the Pakistanis killed in the airstrikes.

Such strikes over the years have severely undermined Afghan and Pakistani governments and also have damaged the US effort to win over hearts and minds in the fight against extremism.

US National Security Adviser James L. Jones later told a briefing that in his meeting with President Zardari, Mr Obama outlined how he intended to help Pakistan’s development efforts.

The Obama administration is pushing a five-year, $7.5 billion economic assistance package for Pakistan, and last month the administration arranged an international donors’ conference in Tokyo that generated $5.5 billion in pledges.

Gen. Jones said President Obama asked Afghan and Pakistani leader to confront corruption and work on projects that directly improve the lives of people, such as schools and health clinics.

‘We must do more than stand against those who would destroy Pakistan,’ President Obama later told reporters. ‘We must stand with those who want to build Pakistan.’

The US media claimed that in the talks the Obama administration expressed serious concerns about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Some reports also claimed that Pakistan had shared with US authorities information about its nukes.

Both US and Pakistani officials, however, rejected the claims as incorrect, saying that no such information was shared.

Gen. Jones said that President Obama availed the opportunity to affirm his support for ‘the democratically elected governments’ of the two countries, although he avoided personally endorsing either man.

‘Mr Karzai faces re-election in August, and Mr Zardari is seen as deeply unpopular at home,’ said the Washington Post while explaining why Mr Obama avoided endorsing them.

President Obama, however, emphasised that ‘the security of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States were linked,’ saying his strategy to combat rising extremism through increased development aid and military support reflected that ‘fundamental truth.’

‘Now there’s much to be done,’ Mr Obama said at the White House, flanked by Mr Karzai, Mr Zardari of Pakistan and Vice President Biden.

‘Along the border where insurgents often move freely, we must work together with a renewed sense of partnership to share intelligence, and to coordinate our efforts to isolate, target and take out our common enemy. But we must also meet the threat of extremism with a positive program of growth and opportunity.’

Source: Dawn News

Senator Kerry hails Obama strategy for Pak, Afghan

WASHINGTON: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry Friday hailed President Barack Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan as realistic and bold and vowed to enact a legislative measure on authorizing massive economic aid for Pakistan.

“President Obama’s new strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan is realistic and bold in a critical region where our policy needs rescuing” he said in a statement.

“I am particularly encouraged that the President has centered his Pakistan strategy around the legislation which Sen. Lugar and I will introduce in the coming days”.

“It will be the keystone of a new ‘smart power’ approach to this vital nation. On the non-military side, it will authorize a tripling of U.S. aid to $1.5 billion annually for five years including funds that will build schools, roads, and clinics.”

On the military side, Kerry said the measure would institute “strict new accountability for security aid.”

“This combined strategy will enable the U.S. and Pakistan to work together to root out Al Qaeda, quell the threat of violent radicalism, and give us a shot at building a secure future for the entire region.”

U.S. air strike kills Afghan boy among a dozen dead

HEART: U.S. forces killed at least one child, video footage obtained on Wednesday showed, in an air strike in western Afghanistan that Afghan police say killed 12 civilians and U.S. forces said killed 16 militants.

Videos taken in the Gozara district of Herat province in the aftermath of the attack on Monday showed mangled, unrecognizable clumps of flesh – all that remained of several people and dozens of animals killed in a tented nomad encampment. One body that was recognizable was that of a young boy. “The information we have is 12 civilians, including six women, four men and two children have been killed in the bombardment,” General Ikramuddin Yawar, chief of police in western Afghanistan told.

source : jang.com.pk

Afghan civilian deaths rose 40 percent in 2008: UN

KABUL: The U.N. says civilian deaths in Afghanistan rose 40percent in 2008 to a record 2,118.

An annual U.N. report says militants were responsible for 55percent of civilian deaths last year, or 1,160. But the world body says U.S., NATO or Afghan troops killed 829 _ 39 percent of the total.

The remaining 130 deaths couldn’t be accounted for because of issues like crossfire.

The U.N. report released Tuesday says the number of civilians killed by U.S., NATO or Afghan forces rose 31 percent from 2007 to2008. In 2007 those forces killed 629 civilians.

source : jang.com.pk

Bombs kill 3 Afghan troops, 2 civilians

KABUL: Two bomb attacks in Afghanistan killed three Afghan security forces and two civilians, officials said Monday.

A roadside bomb ripped through a police vehicle in Khogyani district, near the border with Pakistan, killing two police and wounding three civilians, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the provincial governor.

In southwestern Nimroz province, meanwhile, a suicide bomber attacked a group of Afghan soldiers on Sunday, killing one soldier and two civilians, Gov. Ghulam Dastagir Azad said.

source : jang.com.pk

Afghan blast kills US nationals: police

KANDAHAR: A remote-controlled bomb exploded in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand Sunday, killing four people, including two US nationals, a police commander said.

Biden rules out Afghan success sans Pakistan

MUNICH: The United States is seeking to set “clear and achievable” goals for Afghanistan in a comprehensive strategy for which both Washington and its allies must take responsibility, Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday.

This strategy should bring together U.S. civilian and military resources in order to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for Islamist militants and help Afghans develop the capacity to secure their own future.

Speaking to a security conference, he also said that, “no strategy for Afghanistan can succeed without Pakistan.

“We must all strengthen our cooperation with the people and government of Pakistan, help them stabilise the Tribal Areas and promote economic development and opportunity throughout the country.”

source : jang.com.pk

5 Taliban killed in gun battle

KANDAHAR: Afghan and international forces killed five Taliban fighters in an overnight gun battle in southern Afghanistan, an official said Tuesday.

Three civilians were killed in violence elsewhere. Taliban militants were also wounded in the clash in Nawa district of Helmand province, but it was unclear how many, said Provincial Police Chief Assadullah Sherzad. He said neither Afghan nor international forces reported any casualties. He did not say what sparked the fighting, which ended in the Taliban’s retreat.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said three civilians were killed late Monday in eastern Nangarhar province when their minivan was hit by a remote-controlled bomb blast. No explanation was given for the attack, which occurred while the vehicle was headed toward the city of Jalalabad, the ministry said.

In southern Kandahar province on Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol and wounded two officers. The bomb went off in the center of Kandahar city, the provincial capital, said provincial Police Chief Matiullah Khan Qateh.

The officers were riding in a police vehicle when the attack occurred, Qateh said. The vehicle was lightly damaged, and two other policemen in it were not hurt, Qateh said. No civilians were hurt.

Karzai urges west to review Afghan war strategy

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday the killing of civilians by foreign troops was a main source of instability in Afghanistan, and urged the West to review its strategy in fighting the Taliban and delivering aid.

Western politicians have recently stepped up their criticism about endemic corruption and poor governance by Karzai’s administration, which has ruled Afghanistan since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Karzai, facing elections due in September, has hit back denouncing the repeated accidental killing of Afghan civilians in air strikes by U.S. and NATO forces.

“This persecutes us,” Karzai said of the killings. “Our international friends should know that it is a physical and mental obsession,” he told the annual opening of parliament.

source : jang.com.pk

Controlled explosions in Afghan capital

KABUL: A series of controlled military explosions spread alarm in the Afghan capital as President Hamid Karzai addressed parliament on Tuesday.

The blasts were heard in east Kabul, and a U.S. forces spokeswoman told Reuters there were two controlled explosions, carried-out at an Afghan National Army training centre.

The training facility is overseen by Combined Transition Security Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), a U.S. military unit that trains the Afghan army.

“They did it in two explosions, rather than one large one, so not to cause too much alarm,” the spokeswoman said.

The blasts happened shortly before and while President Karzai began a speech to open the fourth session of the Afghan parliament in Kabul, but the U.S. forces spokeswoman did not have more information about the timing of the explosions.

source : jang.com.pk

NATO leader blasts Afghan government

WASHINGTON: The head of the NATO alliance publicly took on the Afghan government Sunday, insisting that the current Afghan authorities were almost as much to blame for the country’s dire straits as the resurgent Taliban.

While avoiding mentioning Afghan President Hamid Karzai by name, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer insisted that the Afghan government was plagued by corruption and lacked efficiency in solving problems. “The basic problem in Afghanistan is not too much Taliban; it’s too little good governance,” de Hoop Scheffer wrote in an op-ed article in The Washington Post. “Afghans need a government that deserves their loyalty and trust; when they have it, the oxygen will be sucked away from the insurgency,” he added. The NATO head said the international community must step up its support of the elected Afghan government and the Afghan people.

source : jang.com.pk

Afghan suicide bomb kills more than 10

HEART: A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded fruit market on Afghanistan’s border with Iran Friday, killing more than 10 people including a police officer, a provincial governor said.

The suicide attack ripped through the market in the small town of Zaranj, Nimroz province governor Ghulam Dastagir Azad told foreign news agency.

“The death toll is more than 10 because the suicide attack took place in a crowded area,” he said.

source : jang.com.pk

For FUNNY JOKES & SMS
www.karachicorner.com

US readying south Afghan surge against Taliban

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The U.S. is preparing to pour at least 20,000 extra troops into southern Afghanistan to cope with a Taliban insurgency that is fiercer than NATO leaders expected.

The new troops will augment the 12,500 NATO soldiers — mainly British, Canadian and Dutch — in what amounts to an Afghan version of the surge in Iraq.

New construction at Kandahar Air Field foreshadows the upcoming infusion of American power. Runways and housing are being built, along with two new U.S. outposts in Taliban-held regions of Kandahar province.

And in the past month the south has been the focus of visiting U.S. and other dignitaries — Sen. John McCain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. congressional delegations and leaders from NATO headquarters in Europe.

For the first time since NATO took over the country in 2006, an experienced U.S. general, Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, is assigned to the south.

He says U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, has made the objectives clear in calling the situation in the south a stalemate and asking for more troops, on top of the 32,000 Americans already in Afghanistan.

“By introducing more U.S. capability in here we have the potential to change the game,” Nicholson said.

The Army Corps of Engineers will spend up to $1.3 billion in new construction for troop placements in southern Afghanistan, said the corps commander in Afghanistan, Col. Thomas O’Donovan.

Violence in Afghanistan has spiked in the last two years, and Taliban militants now control wide swaths of countryside. Military officials say they have enough troops to win battles but not to hold territory, and they hope the influx of troops, plus the continued growth of the Afghan army, will change that.

U.S. officials hope to add at least three new brigades of ground forces in the southern region, along with assets from an aviation brigade, surveillance and intelligence forces, engineers, military police and Special Forces. In addition, a separate brigade of new troops is deploying to two provinces surrounding Kabul.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that Afghanistan could get up to 30,000 new U.S. troops in 2009, depending on the security situation in Iraq. Col. Greg Julian, a U.S. military spokesman, said Monday that one ground brigade should arrive by spring, a second by summer and a third by fall.

Nicholson said he expects the U.S. forces to be deployed in Kandahar city and along vital Highway 1, which links Kandahar to Kabul, and in neighboring Helmand province, the world’s largest producer of opium poppies for heroin.

NATO forces are well positioned in three key areas of northern Helmand, said British Lt. Gen. J.B. Dutton, deputy commander of the NATO’s Afghan mission.

“What we have not yet achieved is to join those areas up, so there is a security presence that allows locals to drive safely between those areas. That’s the sort of thing we are going to want to improve,” he said.

Since 2006, the U.S. has concentrated its forces in eastern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, while the south is policed by 8,500 British troops, 2,500 Canadians and 2,500 Dutch.

Their overall commander is Dutch Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif — who would also have command of any incoming U.S. forces in the south next year. By the fall of 2010 the top officer in the south will be American.

The infusion of U.S. power risks Americanizing a war that until now has been a shared mission of 41 coalition countries. But Dutton, the British general, suggested there was no choice. “It has to do with national capacity and a number of political considerations in those countries,” he said.

In Canada and many European countries, governments face low public support for keeping troops in Afghanistan combat zones.

Dutton said the British contribution is “significant,” as well as that of Canada, which he noted has lost more troops per capita in Afghanistan than any other nation.

Nicholson, the U.S. general, said the Canadians have fought “heroically” but simply don’t have enough forces to secure all of Kandahar. The Canadian Embassy declined to comment.

More U.S. troops — 151 — died in Afghanistan in 2008 than any of the seven years since the invasion to oust the Taliban, and U.S. officials warn violence will probably intensify next year.

“If we get the troops, they’re going to move into areas that haven’t been secured, and when we do that, the enemy is there, and we’re going to fight,” said Nicholson, who spent 16 months commanding a brigade of 10th Mountain Division troops in eastern Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007.

That fighting should eventually clear the way for security and governance to take hold, he said.

“If you want to summarize that as it’s going to get worse before it gets better, that’s exactly what we’re talking about,” he said.

___

Straziuso reported from Kabul, and Faiez from Kandahar.

source : news.yahoo.com

US readying south Afghan surge against Taliban

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s southern rim, the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace and the country’s most violent region, has for the last two years been the domain of British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers. That’s about to change. In what amounts to an Afghan version of the surge in Iraq, the U.S. is preparing to pour at least 20,000 extra troops into the south, augmenting 12,500 NATO soldiers who have proved too few to cope with a Taliban insurgency that is fiercer than NATO leaders expected.

New construction at Kandahar Air Field foreshadows the upcoming infusion of American power. Runways and housing are being built, along with two new U.S. outposts in Taliban-held regions of Kandahar province.

And in the past month the south has been the focus of visiting U.S. and other dignitaries — Sen. John McCain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. congressional delegations and leaders from NATO headquarters in Europe.

For the first time since NATO took over the country in 2006, an experienced U.S. general, Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, is assigned to the south.

He says U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, has made the objectives clear in calling the situation in the south a stalemate and asking for more troops, on top of the 32,000 Americans already in Afghanistan.

“By introducing more U.S. capability in here we have the potential to change the game,” Nicholson said.

The Army Corps of Engineers will spend up to $1.3 billion in new construction for troop placements in southern Afghanistan, said the corps commander in Afghanistan, Col. Thomas O’Donovan.

Violence in Afghanistan has spiked in the last two years, and Taliban militants now control wide swaths of countryside. Military officials say they have enough troops to win battles but not to hold territory, and they hope the influx of troops, plus the continued growth of the Afghan army, will change that.

U.S. officials hope to add at least three new brigades of ground forces in the southern region, along with assets from an aviation brigade, surveillance and intelligence forces, engineers, military police and Special Forces. In addition, a separate brigade of new troops is deploying to two provinces surrounding Kabul.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that Afghanistan could get up to 30,000 new U.S. troops in 2009, depending on the security situation in Iraq. Col. Greg Julian, a U.S. military spokesman, said Monday that one ground brigade should arrive by spring, a second by summer and a third by fall.

Nicholson said he expects the U.S. forces to be deployed in Kandahar city and along vital Highway 1, which links Kandahar to Kabul, and in neighboring Helmand province, the world’s largest producer of opium poppies for heroin.

NATO forces are well positioned in three key areas of northern Helmand, said British Lt. Gen. J.B. Dutton, deputy commander of the NATO’s Afghan mission.

“What we have not yet achieved is to join those areas up, so there is a security presence that allows locals to drive safely between those areas. That’s the sort of thing we are going to want to improve,” he said.

Since 2006, the U.S. has concentrated its forces in eastern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, while the south is policed by 8,500 British troops, 2,500 Canadians and 2,500 Dutch.

Their overall commander is Dutch Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif — who would also have command of any incoming U.S. forces in the south next year. By the fall of 2010 the top officer in the south will be American.

The infusion of U.S. power risks Americanizing a war that until now has been a shared mission of 41 coalition countries. But Dutton, the British general, suggested there was no choice. “It has to do with national capacity and a number of political considerations in those countries,” he said.

In Canada and many European countries, governments face low public support for keeping troops in Afghanistan combat zones.

Dutton said the British contribution is “significant,” as well as that of Canada, which he noted has lost more troops per capita in Afghanistan than any other nation.

Nicholson, the U.S. general, said the Canadians have fought “heroically” but simply don’t have enough forces to secure all of Kandahar. The Canadian Embassy declined to comment.

More U.S. troops — 151 — died in Afghanistan in 2008 than any of the seven years since the invasion to oust the Taliban, and U.S. officials warn violence will probably intensify next year.

“If we get the troops, they’re going to move into areas that haven’t been secured, and when we do that, the enemy is there, and we’re going to fight,” said Nicholson, who spent 16 months commanding a brigade of 10th Mountain Division troops in eastern Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007.

That fighting should eventually clear the way for security and governance to take hold, he said.

“If you want to summarize that as it’s going to get worse before it gets better, that’s exactly what we’re talking about,” he said.

___

Straziuso reported from Kabul, and Faiez from Kandahar.

source : news.yahoo.com

Video captures deaths of 14 Afghan students

KABUL, Afghanistan – A single-file line of school children walked past a military checkpoint Sunday as a bomb-loaded truck veered toward them and exploded, ending the lives of 14 young Afghans in a heartbreaking flash captured by a U.S. military security camera.

The video shows an SUV slowly weaving through sand bag barriers at a military checkpoint just as a line of school children, most wearing white caps, comes into view. They walk along a pathway between the street and a wall, several of them pausing for a few seconds in a group before moving forward again. The vehicle moves toward the security camera while the children walk in the opposite direction, nearly passing the SUV when the footage ends in a fiery blast.

Photos of the bombing’s aftermath showed bloodied text books lying on the ground beside small pairs of shoes. Afghan officials said the kids were attending a final day of class for the year to find out whether they would move up to the next grade.

Dr. Abdul Rahman, a doctor at a hospital near the blast, said the children were aged 8 to 10.

The U.S. military said the attack in the eastern province of Khost killed 16 people, including 14 children, an Afghan soldier and another person — likely a private security guard that Afghan officials reported killed. The U.S. said 58 people were wounded.

In an angry condemnation of the attack, President Hamid Karzai said those that carried it out “cannot escape the revenge of Afghans and God’s punishment.”

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan and the NATO-led force also strongly condemned the attack.

The blast went off near the entrance to a police and army post, said Yacoub Khan, the deputy police chief of Khost. U.S. troops are also stationed inside the outpost, but no troops were wounded or killed in the attack.

U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, said he believes the militant network run by warlord Siraj Haqqani was responsible for the attack.

“The brutality and disregard for human life by terrorists is sickening, as I continue to witness innocent men, women and children being killed and maimed in the pursuit of this pointless insurgency,” McKiernan said in a statement.

Afghan officials offered a slightly lower death toll. Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Kabul, said eight people in total died and 51 were wounded. Khan said he believed that only five school children had died.

It wasn’t possible to reconcile the differing death tolls, though the U.S. military video seemed to support the likelihood of the higher toll.

Khan said the attack came at a time when Pashtun tribal elders from Mandozai district were meeting inside the compound to discuss security issues. It was not immediately clear how many — if any — of those tribal leaders were wounded or killed. Khan said it was possible they were the target but that there was no way for him to know for sure.

The attack came on the last day of school for the year. Students had gathered in the classrooms to receive end-of-year certificates and learn if they had passed on to the next grade, Asif Nang, spokesman for the Ministry of Education, said.

A U.N. spokesman said the U.N. mission in Afghanistan was “appalled” at the suicide attack.

“The deaths of young children who were receiving their end-of-year education certificates are particularly galling,” said Dan McNorton.

The blast in Khost province came only hours after a late-night rocket attack in Kabul on Saturday killed three teenage sisters. McNorton said that attack “also reminds us of the true impact this conflict has on those who play no part in it.”

Violence has spiked across Afghanistan the last two years, and the U.S. plans to send between 20,000 and 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next six months to reinforce the 32,000 U.S. forces already in the country.

More than 6,100 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count of figures from Western and Afghan officials.

The year has also been the deadliest for NATO soldiers since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.

In the south, a roadside bomb killed two Canadian soldiers and two Afghans working alongside them in a dangerous region of southern Afghanistan, Canada’s military said Sunday.

In addition to those killed in Saturday’s roadside bomb attack, four Canadian soldiers and one Afghan interpreter were wounded, the military said.

The two Afghans killed in the blast in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province included an interpreter and a police officer.

NATO officials have said that Canadian troops have suffered more deaths per capita than any other foreign military in the country. More than 100 Canadians have been killed.

Elsewhere, coalition forces killed five militants and detained six during operations in Kabul and Paktika provinces on Saturday, the U.S.-led coalition said Sunday.

source : news.yahoo.com

US urging calm over possible Pakistan troop moves

WASHINGTON – U.S. officials watched with growing concern Friday as reports suggested Pakistan was massing troops to the India border. Such a move raises double-barreled worries: A possible confrontation between two nuclear powers and a shift by the Pakistani military away from battling the Taliban along its western Afghan edge.

“We hope that both sides will avoid taking steps that will unnecessarily raise tensions during these already tense times,” said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

U.S. military leaders have been urging both India and Pakistan to exercise restraint in the wake of the deadly Mumbai attacks that many believe originated with Pakistan-based militants.

On Friday, U.S. intelligence and military officials were still trying to determine if the reported troop movements were true, and, if so, what Pakistan’s intent may be. And they cautioned that the reports may be exaggerated, aimed more at delivering a message than dispatching forces.

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

U.S. defense leaders have been worried about a new flare-up between Pakistan and India ever since the coordinated terror attacks in India’s financial capital of Mumbai last month that killed 164 people.

India has demanded that Pakistan arrest the perpetrators behind the Mumbai attacks. It says they are members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group widely believed created by Pakistani intelligence in the 1980s and used to fight Indian-rule in the disputed Kashmir region.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Pakistan twice this month, and as many as seven times in the past year. In recent meetings with senior Pakistani leaders he has urged restraint and encouraged both sides to find ways to work together.

One senior military official said Friday that the U.S. is monitoring the issue, but still could not confirm assertions from Pakistani intelligence officials that some 20,000 troops were on the move, heading to the Indian border.

A key concern for U.S. officials is that some of those troops may have been stationed along the volatile Afghan border, and were being diverted to the Indian side.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Mullen, who have both been in the region in recent weeks, have expressed the hope that Pakistan would stay focused on fighting militants in its mountainous northwestern Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.

Insurgents there have proved increasingly troublesome, launching attacks into Afghanistan, disrupting supply routes for the Afghan, U.S. and coalition militaries, and providing training and hiding places for the Taliban, al-Qaida and others. It also has long been suspected that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has been hiding there.

Senior defense officials said the U.S. is watching the situation very closely since officials would prefer that the Pakistanis remain focused on battling insurgents within their own country, including along the border.

U.S. Military leaders in Afghanistan earlier this month said they had seen no indications that Pakistan was shifting its focus away from the Afghan border.

There was also no indication Friday that either Gates or Mullen had reached out to their counterparts in Pakistan since these latest reports had surfaced.

Johndroe added that, “We continue to be in close contact with both countries to urge closer cooperation in investigating the Mumbai attacks and in fighting terrorism generally.”

___

Associated Press Writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

source : news.yahoo.com

ANALYSIS-U.S. Afghan strategy stretches all the way to India

KABUL, Dec 23 (Reuters) – America’s top military officer announced a near-doubling of U.S. troops in Afghanistan at the weekend, and then flew east to cool tensions between Pakistan and India. The reason? It’s all part of the same security equation.

If a “surge” of up to 30,000 extra soldiers to Afghanistan by next summer is the tactic chosen to beat the Taliban insurgency there, holding India and Pakistan back from each others’ throats is the strategy to ensure peace across the region as a whole.

“The surge is not an answer by itself,” said Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. “It’s not the number of troops, it’s the strategy.”

Last month’s attacks by suspected Pakistan-based militants in the Indian city of Mumbai, in which 179 people died, has halted the faltering peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad. While neither side has moved to a war footing, the prospect of a conflict must be concentrating minds in the Pentagon and NATO.

For one thing, there is a risk Pakistan would move some of the nearly 100,000 troops it has on its western border, with Afghanistan, to reinforce security along its frontier with India, with which it has already fought three wars since 1947.

That would take pressure off Taliban fighters who hide in the borderlands planning attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.

“High tension between Pakistan and India doesn’t serve American interests. It undermines America’s agenda to control terrorism and that will only succeed if India-Pakistan relations are normalised,” said Professor Hasaan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani academic and political analyst.

“Pakistan’s attention has now been diverted from the tribal areas to the eastern border which means the Taliban and other militant groups now have greater freedom and that means they can engage in more activities.”

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brookings Institution security expert, said Pakistan had stepped up the fight against militants, but not enough, and may lose the will to press on because of Mumbai.

“Our hand is going to be weaker now due to Pakistan’s tensions with India,” she said. “It’s quite possible that even the willingness they have generated up to now they will lose for the next two months.”

FEAR OF ENCIRCLEMENT

Afghan officials often accuse elements within Pakistan’s ISI spy agency of secretly supporting Taliban insurgents.

Pakistan denies the charge, but analysts say many of its military brass are suspicious of the ties between Afghanistan and India and fear encirclement with a hostile India on its eastern flank and hostile Afghan forces, backed by New Delhi, on the west.

Increased tension with India would only reinforce those who argue that the Taliban are a useful foreign policy tool.

“Some (but not all) in the establishment see armed militants within Pakistan as a threat — but they largely consider it one that is ultimately controllable, and in any case secondary to the threat posed by their nuclear-armed enemies,” wrote Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid in the Foreign Affairs journal.

The commander of international forces in Afghanistan had actually sought extra troops before the Mumbai attacks, and long before U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen announced on Saturday that 20,000-30,000 more would be deployed.

So perhaps the “surge” would have happened anyway.

However, it was not by chance that Mullen flew to Islamabad two days later to lecture military chiefs there on the importance of joining hands with India “to combat … extremism together”.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has made it clear he will adopt a dual strategy of maintaining peace between India and Pakistan and beating the Taliban, who remain a formidable force seven years after U.S.-led forces ousted them from power.

“Obama has also been clear that he sees the Pakistan situation very much through the prism of India,” said a NATO diplomat, who asked not to be named.

“So I think you see the whole U.S. administration taking a much wider regional focus, which is very very valuable.”

Japan extends Afghan military mission

TOKYO: Japan’s parliament Friday approved a one-year extension to a naval mission backing US-led operations in Afghanistan, with the lower house overriding the opposition-controlled upper house.

A total of 334 of the 467 lower house lawmakers voted for the bill, more than the two-thirds majority needed to overrule the upper house.

The mission, which was due to expire in January, provides fuel and other logistical support on the Indian Ocean to the US-led coalition.

The upper house earlier Friday rejected the bill, with the opposition saying that officially pacifist Japan should not take part in “American wars.”

Afghan improvised roadside blasts rise sharply: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: Roadside bomb attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan have risen sharply this autumn, reversing the seasonal decline that usually occurs with the onsetof winter, according to Pentagon data released on Thursday.

The latest statistics for improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, show the number of incidents climbing 19 percent to 315in November from 264 in October, with coalition casualties at 83killed or wounded compared to 78 in October.

The data, made public by a Defense Department office set up to address the IED threat in Iraq and Afghanistan, said IED-related coalition deaths in Afghanistan fell to six in November from 13 in October but the number of troops wounded spiked to 75 from 65.

The figures do not provide a scientific measurement of attack trends but rather a snapshot of insurgent activity in Afghanistan, where violence levels are at their highest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Three civilians killed in suicide bombing on Afghan army base

KABUL: Three civilians were killed and four Afghan soldiers were wounded Friday when a suicide car bomb exploded in front of an army base in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

The blast occurred in Shahjoy district of Zabul province, provincial vice governor Gulab Shah Alikhil told a foreign news agency.

“The driver of a vehicle blew himself up in front of the (Afghan army) base, killing three civilians who were employees queueing to enter. Four soldiers were also wounded in the explosion,” he said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but it had the markings of a number of other bombings by the Taliban insurgency in the province.

Attacks regularly target Afghan and international forces, civilians are often the victims.

Afghanistan’s fight against insurgents from the Taliban — a hardline Islamic group that was in government between 1996 and 2001 — has grown more intense in recent years with attacks increasing.

There are nearly 70,000 international soldiers in the country helping Afghan forces fight the rebels.

Taliban spurn Afghan Govt.’s new offer for talks

KABUL: Taliban, while rejecting the Afghan government’s fresh offer for talks, made it clear that there was no possibility of talks until the foreign forces pull out of the country.

Afghan Foreign Minister, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, while addressing a press conference two days ago, had said that the second phase of the talks with the officials of the former Taliban government were possible, but no venue or date has been fixed thus far. He said that the unofficial delegation in Saudi Arabia would be holding talks with the Saudi officials.

However, Taliban in a statement released on its website said that the war in Afghanistan would continue and until the return of Nato forces, holding talks with the Afghan government was not possible. The statement further said that Taliban were near victory and added that the only and most successful means of resolving the Afghan issue was the unconditional withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan.

Crackdown against Afghan refugees launched in Bajaur

PESHAWAR: Tribal lashkar on Monday launched crackdown after the deadline for all Afghan refugees to leave Bajaur agency expired.

According to sources, Mamond tribal lashkar began crackdown to flush out Afghan refugees from Bajaur Agency, while several Afghan refugees were arrested during checking at various check-posts.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Afghan refugees were reportedly returning to their homeland via Ghakhi Pass. Around 70 thousands Afghan refugees have been living in Bajaur Agency.

The local people said that law and order situation would improve in Bajaur Agency if Afghan refugees leave the area.

On the other hand, tribal elders of Salarzai tribe will also hold jirga tomorrow (Tuesday).