AFGHANISTAN

Joint Chiefs Head: ‘Enablers’ Needed in Troop-scarce Afghanistan - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor

The Pentagon’s top officer is pushing to get more helicopters, remote control aircraft, and other “enablers” to Afghanistan to make up for what remains a shortage of American troops there.

It is the Pentagon’s latest focus as the Bush administration, in its remaining months in office, conducts a top-to-bottom review of its approach to the insurgencies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Despite all the attention, the US will not be able to send substantial numbers of troops or make large changes to its strategy there until a new president is seated.

In the meantime, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is pushing to move as many additional resources to Afghanistan as possible, including remote-controlled airplanes to gather intelligence, helicopters to move troops faster, and intelligence specialists – all things the military calls “enablers” – to stretch limited resources.

More at the Christian Science Monitor and New York Times.

Mullen Urges New Strategy on Taliban - Sara Carter, Washington Times

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that US-led forces are "not going to be able to kill our way to victory in Pakistan and Afghanistan" and a new strategy is needed to suppress a resurgent Taliban movement before it's too late.

Violence has increased markedly since 2006 and "the trends are going in the wrong direction unless we take significant steps," Adm. Mullen told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Adm. Mullen spoke as the Bush administration finalized a new National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan, expected to be released after the US elections.

An intelligence officer, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the estimate would confirm the pessimism of some U.S. officials over the situation in Afghanistan.

"It´s been very tough fighting this year" and "it will be tougher next year," Adm. Mullen said.

The challenges, he said, require a new counterinsurgency approach that focuses on increased security, economic growth, political stability and the ability to "convince" the Afghan people that the US.-led NATO effort is "not an occupation," the admiral said.

He said the US and its allies must also develop strategies for targeting and eradicating poppy fields.

More at The Washington Times. Gates Urges NATO to Take On Afghan Drug Traffickers - Peter Finn, Washington Post

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on NATO allies Thursday to target Afghanistan's drug traffickers as part of a wider effort to confront a resurgent Taliban, which he said is using heroin money to fund the insurgency.

But the proposed new front in the war is meeting resistance from some European allies who argue that a counternarcotics campaign goes beyond the mandate of international forces in Afghanistan and is the responsibility of the Afghan government. Countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain also fear that drug interdiction could endanger their troops if it alienates segments of a population dependent on the cultivation of opium poppies.

"My approach was that we are not talking about a counternarcotics strategy; that route really is the Afghans' responsibility," Gates told a small group of U.S. and European journalists Thursday evening during a two-day summit here of NATO defense ministers. "What we are talking about is greater freedom to track down the networks of those who are funding the Taliban, which happens to be drug money."

More at The Washington Post.

US Plans to Train Afghanistan Tribal Militias - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times

Confronting the prospect of failure after seven years in Afghanistan, the US military is crafting a new strategy that is likely to expand the power and reach of that country's tribal militias while relying less on the increasingly troubled central government.

Under that approach, US forces would scale back combat operations to focus more on training Afghan government forces and tribal militias. The plan is controversial because it could extend the influence of warlords while undermining the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, the capital.

The strategy also could set up a hair-trigger rivalry between national security units and the improved tribal forces, proponents acknowledge.

The US military's willingness to consider such risks reflects the growing worry about worsening conditions in Afghanistan. Until recently, the military would not have considered a move to bolster tribal militias, but, with relatively few troops available, military leaders believe only a new approach to the war can stanch the spreading violence.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Taleban Violence on the Rise Say US Agencies - The Times
US Intelligence: Afghanistan in 'Downward Spiral' - Daily Telegraph
Brother of Afghan President to Give Up Seat in Parliament - New York Times
Security Force Nations Look Ahead on Afghanistan - AFPS
Defense Ministers Seek Ways to Halt Taliban’s Drug Money - AFPS
New Strategy to Broaden Scope, Coordination in Afghanistan, Mullen Says - AFPS
Afghan Forces Receive NATO Weapons - AFPS
Can the US be Pals with the Taliban? - Christian Science Monitor editorial
Killing Malalai Kakar - Los Angeles Times editorial

Pakistan

Bombers Strike in Pakistan Capital, Northwest - Voice of America
Pakistanis Repudiate Terror Attacks - Washington Post
Taliban Would Rule a Bankrupt Pakistan - Daily Telegraph opinion

AFGHANISTAN
'Muddling Through'
Asked in November 2003 whether the United States would "finish the job" in Afghanistan, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) responded "I'm not as concerned as I am about Iraq...but I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making then in the long term we may muddle through in Afghanistan." Unfortunately, "muddling through" is just what we seem to be doing in Afghanistan. According to the New York Times, a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to be released in November "concludes that Afghanistan is in a 'downward spiral' and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there." The report will be "the most comprehensive American assessment in years on the situation in Afghanistan." In addition to the problem of cross-border attacks launched by militants in neighboring Pakistan, and inefficiency and corruption in the Afghan government, the report also describes "the destabilizing impact of the booming heroin trade, which by some estimates accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan’s economy," according to intelligence officials. Afghanistan produces the most opium in the world.

THE CENTRAL FRONT: A Center for American Progress report, The Forgotten Front, anticipated the NIE's conclusions back in November 2007, noting that while "the United States and the international community initially made great strides to oust the Taliban and al Qaeda and stand up the Afghan government following the invasion in October 2001...the situation has dramatically deteriorated since 2005." The Taliban and Al Qaeda have regrouped in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and now support a growing Afghan insurgency. "Although the current administration has portrayed Iraq as the central front of the 'global war on terror,'" the report states, "Afghanistan and the borderlands of Pakistan remain the central battlefield." The website Long War Journal reported in August that "Afghanistan experienced 18.4 attacks per day in 2008, compared to 12.4 in 2007," with "the eastern provinces bordering Pakistan's tribal areas account[ing] for seven of the remaining top nine most violent provinces." Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of some 60,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, reported that roadside bomb attacks -- "the largest casualty-producing event in Afghanistan" -- are up 30 to 40 percent over last year. CAP's Caroline Wadhams, Colin Cookman, and Jenny Shin wrote yesterday that the new NIE and other reports "confirm that the current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is desperately off-course and suffering from a lack of resources, policymaker attention, and clear, presidential-level direction."

AIR STRIKES UNSUITED TO COUNTERINSURGENCY: Unfortunately, "as the Taliban and other militants have gained strength, America has dropped more bombs, killing more civilians." A report from U.S. Central Command released on Wednesday concluded that a strike in August had "left 33 civilians dead, including at least 12 children," but that "U.S. forces acted in legitimate self-defense in launching an air assault against Taliban militants." The Afghan government has continually protested the high civilian death toll from air strikes. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that the death of innocent civilians in these attacks could seriously undermine efforts to fight terrorism. Karzai told the U.N.General Assembly in August that the deaths hurt "the credibility of the Afghan people's partnership with the international community." Minimizing civilian casualties is key to a successful counterinsurgency effort, which is one reason air strikes are poorly suited to counterinsurgency. Currently, the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan have had to over-rely on air power because of the overcommitment of troops and resources to Iraq. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen said in July "I don't have troops... to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq." Anger over Iraq has also made NATO allies reluctant to step up their assistance.

NOT A 'SURGE' -- A SUSTAINED COMMITMENT: It's clear that many U.S. military leaders understand that Afghanistan is in crisis. In August, former Iraq commander and current CentCom head Gen. David Petraeus admitted to the New York Times that "the trends in Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction, and I think everyone is rightly concerned about them." McKiernan has "called for four more combat brigades" to deploy to Afghanistan. In August the Pentagon announced the addition of "12,000 to 15,000 additional U.S. troops... possibly as soon as the end of this year, with planning underway for a further force buildup in 2009." McKiernan told the Washington Post that Afghanistan requires a "sustained commitment" to a counterinsurgency effort that could last years. Contrary to McCain's claim that "the same strategy" used in Iraq is "going to have to be employed in Afghanistan," McKiernian said "the word I don't use for Afghanistan is 'surge.'" Describing his approach in a speech Wednesday to the conservative Heritage Foundation, Gen. Petraeus said that "reaching out to insurgent groups...was necessary to the ultimate goal of turning them against irreconcilable enemies" like Al Qaeda. Petraeus believes that success in both Afghanistan and Iraq will require political, not military, solutions, and has stressed "the concept of reconciliation." "You cannot kill or capture your way out of an insurgency that is as significant in size as was the one in Iraq, nor, I believe, as large as the one that has developed in Afghanistan," he said.

AFGHANISTAN

General Says He’s Hopeful About Taliban War - John Burns, New York Times

Less than 12 hours after NATO troops in Afghanistan defeated an ambitious attempt by the Taliban to storm a provincial capital in the far southwest, killing dozens of the fighters, the top American commander in the country urged doubters Sunday to believe that the war against the Taliban would be won.

The commander, Gen. David D. McKiernan, who leads more than 65,000 troops from about 40 foreign countries, including 33,000 Americans, said at a news conference in Kabul that there had been “too many” reports in the media recently asserting that the foreign forces and their Afghan allies were losing the war.

“I absolutely reject that idea, I don’t believe it,” the general said, adding: “It is true that there are many places in this country that don’t have an adequate level of security. We don’t have progress as even and as fast as any of us would like. But we are not losing in Afghanistan.”

At another point, he was more emphatic. There are major challenges facing the war effort, he said, “But we will win.”

More at The New York Times.

Taleban Stage Audacious 'Tet-style' Attack on British HQ City - Tom Coghlan, The Times

British and Afghan forces repulsed an attempt by hundreds of Taleban fighters to attack the provincial capital of Helmand, Lashkar Gah, on Saturday night in the most audacious Taliban attack in the province since 2006.

Up to 100 Taleban fighters were killed in a series of airstrikes and firefights around the city outskirts in fighting that began in the early evening as Taleban fighters were concentrating to attack the city of three sides and continued into the early hours of Sunday morning.

It was the first time that the Helmand capital has been attacked.

The Taleban plan appeared to be for a “Tet Offensive” style infiltration of the city, the seat of the Afghan provincial government and home to the headquarters of the British commander in Helmand and the civilian reconstruction component of the British mission in Helmand.

Had the infiltration succeeded then British and Afghan forces would have faced confused street fighting in which Western airstrikes would have been impossible without the risk of causing mass civilian deaths in the city.

A British army spokesman said that the Taleban operation displayed "a level of co-ordination that wasn't expected." He estimated the Taleban forces at around 170, though some Afghan estimates were much higher.

However, British officials insisted that there was absolutely no threat of the British base falling.

More at The Times.

PAKISTAN

Pakistan Loyalists Take on Militants - Bruce Loudon, The Australian

The threat of civil war intensified in Pakistan's FATA region yesterday after unprecedented violence between government-supporting tribal lashkars (armies) and militants from al-Qa'ida and the Taliban.

The beheaded bodies of four tribal elders who had raised a local lashkar to fight the militants in the Bajaur region were found yesterday amid reports of tribal fighting across the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Battles erupted after a suicide bomb blast aimed at a tribal peace jirga (council) in the relatively peaceful Orakzai Tribal Agency. More than 80 elders were killed and 165 injured when militants drove an explosives-laden truck into the meeting.

The clashes coincided with reports that the Pakistan army - already involved in a huge military offensive centred on Bajaur - was mobilising tens of thousands of troops to attack militants in the North Waziristan Agency, believed to be the base for many of al-Qa'ida's leaders, including Osama bin Laden.

More at The Australian.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Afghanistan: A Country Locked in a Spiral of Doom - The Times
Top General: NATO Not Losing Afghan War - Associated Press
Large Taliban Attack Repulsed with Air Strikes - Voice of America
Taleban Killed in Afghan Battles - BBC News
62 Insurgents Killed in Afghan Battle - Los Angeles Times
Pakistan Hit 'Kills 27 Taleban' - BBC News
Militias Battling Taliban, al Qaeda - Associated Press
New Media Plan to Combat Taleban - BBC News
Steady Now or Lose All - The Australian opinion
Despite Defeatism, Campaign is Going Well - Daily Telegraph opinion
Saudi Rescue in Afghan War? - Washington Times opinion
Danger on Pakistan Border - Miami Herald opinion

Pakistan

Pakistan President to Visit China, a Valued Ally - New York Times

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN

Taliban 'Infiltrating Pakistan Cities' - Bruce Loudon, The Australian

Fears over the "Talibanisation" of Pakistan's major urban centres rose sharply yesterday after a warning from one of the country's most powerful leaders that 400,000 militants had infiltrated Karachi, the teeming port city vital to bringing in supplies for coalition forces in Afghanistan.

At the same time, nervous traders in the Punjab city of Lahore, the former capital of the Mughal empire that has long been regarded as a beacon of cultural freedom in the region, were reported to be setting fire to "immoral" videos and CDs after receiving warnings from the Taliban against such stock.

The action follows the bombing of several fresh fruit juice bars in the city after the owners ignored warnings to stop allowing boys and girls to "indulge in immoral acts" on the premises.

Such "immoral acts" generally amount to no more than enjoying a juice together, but have apparently caused offence to the Taliban.

More at The Australian.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Kabul Under Taliban's Thumb - Globe and Mail
Afghan Violence Kills 13 - Agence France-Presse
Pakistan Kills 40 Taliban Militants - Agence France-Presse
US Coalition: 5 Militants Killed in Afghanistan - Associated Press
Afghanistan a Growing Danger - San Diego Union-Tribune editorial
Warlordism Is Afghanistan's Only Hope - The Guardian opinion
Into the Afghan Maze? - Washington Times opinion

A mad scramble over Afghanistan

The Saudi Arabia-brokered Afghan peace talks that include the Taliban have opened a new turf war. Washington is determined to exclude Russia from the country, even as Moscow insists on its legitimate role. The prospect of peace and a United States-sponsored oil and gas pipeline via Afghanistan suits India, but Delhi has been slow off the mark. Iran has begun counter moves to assert its authority. Hapless Afghans can only look on as others decide their fate. - M K Bhadrakumar (Oct 14, '08)

DE BORCHGRAVE: Saudi rescue in Afghan war?



http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/oct/13/...-in-afghan-war/



Arnaud de Borchgrave

COMMENTARY:

Those who know Afghanistan best say we've reached rock bottom and they don't understand why we keep on digging. Those who now believe that more U.S. and NATO troops is the best way to beat the Taliban theocracy and bring democracy to a desolate country the size of France (where less than 10 percent of women and 30 percent of men can read and write) are doing the digging.

President Bush, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Defense Secretary Bob Gates, all favor transferring a few U.S. brigades from relatively quiescent Iraq, on Iran's left flank, to Afghanistan, on Iran's right flank. Yet the British ambassador in Kabul and the former British commander in Afghanistan and the U.S. intelligence community see this as sowing the seeds of a bigger defeat. The country is Taliban by night and ostensibly friendly by day - though many areas, now growing, are Taliban round the clock.

Until the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan Oct. 7, 2001, Afghanistan was tyrannized by an Islamic Tomas de Torquemada, 15th-century Spain's first grand inquisitor and confessor to Queen Isabella. His body count ranged from 20,000 to 200,000. His Afghan successor, one-eyed Mullah Mohammad Omar, whose headquarters were in the regime's religious capital in Kandahar, vanished underground and has been in hiding ever since - with a $25 million price on his head.

The Taliban movement has changed dramatically since its 2001 downfall. Headquartered in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), under nominal Pakistani control, it now has two main wings and many factions.

One wing under Baitullah Mehsud is focused on undermining the powers-that-be in Pakistan proper (e.g., Red Mosque takeover in Islamabad; Benazir Bhutto's assassination; Marriott Hotel bombing in the capital where 53 were killed and 260 wounded; guerrilla attacks in the Swat Valley in Pakistan proper). The other branch is made up of young guerrilla fighters under Mullah Omar's command, imbued with the notion that their fathers kicked out the evil Soviet empire from Afghanistan in 1989 and that they are now on their way to defeating the other evil empire by chasing NATO and U.S. forces out of Afghanistan.

Afghan-based U.S. Predators occasionally zero in on a local Taliban commander's mud house in FATA, and kill a number of Taliban fighters - and a number of women and children and old men. This, in turn, fires up anti-U.S. feelings in Pakistan and drives more jobless youngsters into Taliban guerrilla ranks.

Hamidullah Khan, a veteran in his mid-40s, told Mehran Bozorgnia, a cameraman for Britain's ITN Channel 4 News, the bodycounts of the Afghan government are meaningless. Standing together in the late Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah's mudbrick home, Hamidullah Khan said: "He gave his life for Allah's will. When he was killed 20,000 more came forward in the name of Dadullah. They're now behind him. This is the Taliban's way. When one is killed another comes in. Then another. We don't leave the ground empty."

These young Talibs see a country mired in corruption, much the way it really is under the Karzai government where almost all ministers are on the take, taking a cut of the multibillion-dollar opium poppy trade. Haji Hyatullah, in his early 20s, face half-covered with the multilayered black turban worn by all Taliban guerrillas, told the British reporter he was getting more money fighting the "crooks" in Kabul than any other job around. There is no work for anyone, he explained. And they fight because they want their daily bread.

The Taliban fighters said there was no shortage of money, now coming in from Islamic countries all over the world - they mentioned Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. British media came away feeling there was much more to this new breed of Taliban fighters than brainwashed kids coming in from Pakistani madrassa schools, strapped up with explosives. "They happily showed off their Afghan police and army uniforms which they said they used to infiltrate local security forces," said Alex Thompson, ITN Channel 4's chief correspondent.

There is an endless supply of Taliban fighters but not an endless supply of NATO troops. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed her coalition government to agree to add 1,000 German troops to the 3,500 already there. But the German Bundestag or parliament is overwhelmingly against the move while two-thirds of Germans in one poll voted for an immediate recall of Germany's Afghan contingent.

In any event, German troops, like those for most NATO countries with soldiers in Afghanistan, are restricted to nonfighting duties, by caveats voted by their parliaments. Such restrictions have provoked growing resentment from Britain, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States, whose troops bear the brunt of the fighting.

Saudi Arabia, whose intelligence service worked closely with Pakistan's ISI and the CIA during the 1980s guerrilla campaign to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan, has concluded that NATO's counter-guerrilla campaign is going nowhere fast. They have long argued that the money and blood expended on Iraq, an unnecessary war that has already cost more than half a trillion dollars, could have transformed Afghanistan into a spectacular victory and a defeat for the forces of darkness that perpetrated the terrorist attacks on America of Sept. 11, 2001.

Now it's too late. There is donor fatigue everywhere. And the world's economic support system appears to be crumbling.

President Hamid Karzai, outward appearances notwithstanding, quietly greenlighted a Saudi initiative designed to explore a face-saving way out for the United States and its allies. So Sept. 24 through Sept. 27, the Saudis quietly hosted a three-way meeting in Mecca, including an Iftar dinner with King Abdullah.

Guests included Taliban's former Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil (who did a stint in the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Force basis near Kabul) and Mullah Mohammad Tayeb Agha, Mullah's Omar's former spokesman; one of Mr. Karzai's brothers; and unnamed ranking Saudis. They then all moved to an undisclosed location in Pakistan for three more days of talks.

A torrent of denials about these secret huddles notwithstanding, the Taliban reps said their break with al Qaeda was irreversible. The catalyst was none other than Nawaz Sharif, the former Pakistani president ousted by then Army chief Pervez Musharraf in 1999. Mr. Sharif then spent seven years in exile in the Saudi kingdom. He is also President Ali Zardari's principal opponent at the top of the Pakistani political establishment.

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, there were already 16,500 U.S. fighting boots on the ground in Vietnam. The number quickly escalated to 546,000. Peace talks following the 1968 Tet offensive took four years. And North Vietnam still won. In Afghanistan, the Saudis are looking for an honorable way out for NATO. So should the next administration. Before a Taliban Tet against Kabul.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

Senior US Commanders to Assess Afghanistan Mission - Eric Schmitt, New York Times

The commander of the United States’ Special Operations forces is meeting this week with the senior American commander in Afghanistan, as well as top Special Operations officers there, to assess the mission in Afghanistan, senior military officials said Thursday.

The commander, Adm. Eric T. Olson, was in Pakistan on Thursday to meet the new leader of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps paramilitary force, Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, and to observe a new American-led training program for the Pakistani corps.

Over the next several months, about two dozen American and British military trainers will instruct Pakistani officers at a base in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. The Pakistani officers will in turn train Frontier Corps soldiers next year, in what both countries say is a crucial step in building an effective indigenous force to combat fighters from Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s unruly tribal areas.

But the bulk of Admiral Olson’s time in the region will be spent conferring in Afghanistan with senior American Special Operations officers from across the country, as well as with the senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, on Friday.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Afghan Officials Say Airstrike Killed Civilians - New York TImes
Missile Strike Targeting Taliban Leader Kills 6, Pakistan Says - Washington Post
Suspected US Missile Strikes Pakistan's South Waziristan - Voice of America
German Parliament Votes to Send More Troops - Agence France-Presse
Afghan Policeman Fires on US Patrol, Kills Soldier - Associated Press

US Strike Is Said to Kill Qaeda Figure in Pakistan - Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times

A missile attack from a remotely piloted American aircraft is believed to have killed a senior member of Al Qaeda in South Waziristan on Thursday, a former member of a militant group in the region said in an interview.

The operative, Khalid Habib, an Egyptian who was chief of operations in Pakistan’s tribal region, is described by the Central Intelligence Agency as the fourth-ranking person in the Qaeda hierarchy.

The attack, on the village of Taparghai, killed four people, some of them Arabs, according to initial reports on Thursday.

A Pakistani intelligence official declined Friday to confirm the death of Mr. Habib. An American official involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas said he could not confirm the report that Mr. Habib had died. It often takes American officials some time to determine the success or failure of attacks by remotely piloted aircraft in the rugged and remote terrain of the tribal areas.

More at The New York Times.

Pakistan Wants Taliban Talks - Bruce Loudon, The Australian

Peace talks with the Taliban were back on the agenda last night as a historic secret session of Pakistan's parliament revealed leaders of the country's ruling coalition now favoured dialogue over military action.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party that is a key component of the coalition dominated by the Pakistan People's Party, emerged as "a spokesman for the Taliban" yesterday as the parliament concluded its second week of debate on how to deal with the jihadi militants sweeping the country.

A spokesman for the Pakistan Taliban added to the momentum for negotiations by saying "unconditional talks" could be held if the Government stopped its military operations. Maulvi Omar, speaking from a hideout in the strategic valley of Swat, where intense fighting is going on between the Pakistan army and the militants, said peace talks would start if military action was halted.

"We are willing to negotiate with the Government... we are also willing to lay down our arms once the military ceases operations against us," he said.

Negotiations are strongly opposed by the US, Pakistan's key ally in the conflict, and by elements in the army that remain loyal to ousted former president Pervez Musharraf.

The mood for change in tactics against the jihadis came as analysts warned Pakistan's economic plight was eroding its ability to confront the jihadi militants.

More at The Australian.

UK Army Chief Believes in 'Surge' - The Times
Afghanistan Officials Say 17 Civilians Killed in Fighting - Los Angeles Times
Civilian Deaths in NATO Clash Investigated - Associated Press

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban Kill Dozens in Bus Ambush, Officials Say - Carlotta Gall and Taimoor Shah, New York Times

Taliban insurgents pulled some 50 passengers off a bus in southern Afghanistan and beheaded as many as 30 of them after accusing them of being soldiers traveling in civilian clothes, Afghan officials in the region announced on Sunday.

The police chief of Kandahar Province, where the attack occurred on Thursday, said that of six bodies retrieved so far, all had been beheaded, mutilated and dumped. The police had received information that 24 other people had been killed but had yet to find their bodies, the police chief, Gen. Matiullah Qati, said.

The attack was on the main road running from the southern city of Kandahar to the western town of Herat, General Qati said. It took place in Maiwand District, which is known as an area with a significant Taliban presence, where attacks on military convoys are frequent. The road is also the main route for British and Afghan army troops traveling to Helmand Province, where the insurgency is strongest.

More at the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Voice of America, The Times, and Associated Press.

Afghanistan's Emerging Antiwar Movement - Anand Gopal, Christian Science Monitor

In a musty room near the edge of town, a group of bearded men sit on the floor and heatedly discuss strategy. The men are in the planning stages of an event that they hope will impact Afghan politics – a peace jirga, or assembly, that will agitate for the end of the war between the Taliban and Afghan government by asking the two sides to come to a settlement.

"People are growing tired of the fighting," says Bakhtar Aminzai of the National Peace Jirga of Afghanistan, an association of students, professors, lawyers, clerics, and others. "We need to pressure the Afghan government and the international community to find a solution without using guns."

Mr. Aminzai is not alone in his sentiments. As violence and insecurity grow in this war-ravaged nation, a broad network of peace activists have been quietly pushing for negotiations and reconciliation with the Taliban.

This push coincides with recent preliminary talks in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government hosted a secret high-level meeting in September with former Taliban officials and members of the Afghan government. The event was intended to ultimately open the door to direct talks with the Taliban.

Analysts interviewed say that the majority of Afghans favor some sort of negotiated settlement between the warring sides, but many peace activists are critical of the Saudi talks. "We want reconciliation with the Taliban through a loya jirga," or grand assembly of Afghans, says Fatana Gilani, head of the Afghanistan Women's Council (AWC), a leading nongovernmental organization (NGO) here. "We don't want interference from foreign countries or negotiations behind closed doors," she says.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

An Old Afghanistan Hand Offers Lessons of the Past - John Burns, New York Times

It is one of a flow of disarming asides that Russia’s ambassador to Kabul deploys while warning of the grim prospects that he says will doom the American enterprise in Afghanistan if the United States fails to learn from mistakes made during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s.

“I know quite a lot about the past,” the ambassador, Zamir N. Kabulov, said in polished English with a broad smile during an interview in Kabul one morning last week. “But almost nothing about the future.”

In fact, it is precisely because of a belief that the Soviet past may hold lessons for the American future that a talk with Mr. Kabulov is valued by many Western diplomats here. That is a perception that has drawn at least one NATO general to the Russian Embassy in Mr. Kabulov’s years as ambassador, though the officer involved, not an American, showed no sign of having been influenced by what he heard, Mr. Kabulov said.

“They listen, but they do not hear,” he said with another wry smile.

“Their attitude is, ‘The past is the past,’ and that they know more than I do.” Perhaps, too, he said, “they think what I have to say is just part of a philosophy of revenge,” a diplomatic turning of the tables by a government in Moscow that is embittered by the Soviet failure here and eager for the United States to suffer a similar fate.

More at The New York Times.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Opium Cash: Taliban Better Organised and More Dangerous - Daily Telegraph
Pakistani Jets Kill Insurgents as US Diplomat Visits Islamabad - VOA
Aid Worker Killed in Kabul - New York Times

Pakistan

Pakistan Forced to Scrounge for Cash - The Australian
Pakistan May Take IMF Aid to Avoid Bankruptcy - Daily Telegraph
Pakistan Steps Up Antiterror Fight - Washington Times opinion

William S. Lind
The Afghanistan Advantage

QUOTE OF THE DAY

A generation ago, when the Soviets were in Afghanistan, they lost the battle for hearts and minds quickly by showing scant concern for human rights. Estimates run as high as 1.5 million dead and 10,000 villages destroyed. Now, Americans labor in the shadow of that history, and that helps to explain why alarm bells are ringing in the NATO headquarters here over the latest accounts of air raids that went wrong, causing dozens of civilian casualties.

AFGHANISTAN

NATO Mission Accused of ‘Wavering' Political Will in Afghanistan - Michael Evans, The Times

NATO’s mission in Afghanistan is being undermined by troop shortages and by the numerous operational restrictions which individual nations continue to impose on their troops, the military head of the alliance said yesterday.

As two German soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing in the usually quiet northern town of Kunduz, General John Craddock, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said there were now 70 national “caveats” which prevent troops from countries such as Germany, Spain, Italy and France from performing certain operational missions without first receiving authorisation from their governments.

Berlin has the power to veto any German soldiers from being redeployed from Kunduz to the southern provinces where the Taleban have concentrated their attacks on Nato forces.

Bomb attacks in the north are relatively rare but yesterday a suicide bomber targeted a German convoy, killing two soldiers and five Afghan children. Germany has about 3,300 troops in northern Afghanistan.

General Craddock, an American, accused NATO of demonstrating a “wavering” political will in Afghanistan. Although he has spoken out on a number of occasions about the need for more alliance troops, his remarks yesterday underlined the growing alarm over the way the campaign is going, following a summer resurgence by the Taleban. More than 230 foreign soldiers have been killed by insurgents in Afghanistan so far this year, most of them from bomb attacks.

More at The Times and Daily Telegraph.

PAKISTAN

Pakistani Legislators Show Little Appetite for a Fight - Jane Perlez, New York Times

An unusual parliamentary debate organized to forge a national policy on how to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda has exposed deep ambivalence about the militants, even as their reach extends to suicide attacks in the capital.

In one of his first initiatives as president, Asif Ali Zardari called the session in an effort to mobilize Pakistan’s political parties and its public to support the fight against the militants, which he has now called Pakistan’s war.

But instead, the nearly two weeks of closed sessions have been dominated by calls for dialogue with the Taliban and peppered with opposition to what lawmakers condemned as a war foisted on Pakistan by the United States, according to participants.

The tenor of the debate has highlighted the difficulties facing Mr. Zardari and Washington as they urgently try to focus Pakistan’s full attention on the militant threat at a time when the Pakistani military is locked in heavy fighting in the tribal areas.

More at The New York Times.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Taliban Claims Responsibility for Killing Female Aid Worker - Voice of America
British Aid Worker Killed in Kabul - The Times
Aid Worker Killed in Afghan Capital - New York Times
Taliban Gunmen Kill Western Aid Worker - Los Angeles Times
Afghan Taliban Target Christian Aid Worker - Christian Science Monitor
Growing Threat to Foreign Aid Staff - The Times
Germans Die in Day of Bloodshed - The Times

Pakistan

US Diplomat Meets Pakistani Leader in Peshawar - Voice of America

Pentagon sees fewer foreign fighters slipping into Afghanistan
Washington (AFP) Oct 22, 2008 - Fewer foreign fighters are slipping into Afghanistan since Pakistan launched its offensive in August against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in border tribal regions, the Pentagon said Wednesday. In a media briefing, US Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell welcomed "stepped-up operations" by the Pakistani military in Peshawar, and in Swat in particular, over the past two months. ... more

AFGHANISTAN

Afghans to Karzai: You Failed Us - Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor

Hajji Mohammed Aman sits in the half-light of his west Kabul real estate office and makes a demand of his president.

"When you decide to do something, you have to do it, even if it costs you your life," he says, firmly but without bluster.

The comment hints at why the country that once chose President Hamid Karzai to lead it into a new, democratic future is now turning against him. Both at home and abroad, Mr. Karzai is facing mounting criticism that he has lacked the courage to stop the government's descent into corruption and ineffectiveness.

Karzai's international allies are increasingly unwilling to accept inaction, and with presidential elections a year away, the man who once had an 83 percent approval rating now finds himself politically isolated and needing to resuscitate his image.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

Nine Afghan Soldiers Die in 'Friendly Fire' Attack by US Warplanes - Tom Coghlan, The Times

American aircraft have killed nine Afghan soldiers in an accidental attack on an army post – the latest in a string of deadly mistakes involving Western forces in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials said that the attack happened overnight on Tuesday in the eastern province of Khost. “Nine have been martyred, three wounded, one critically, in the attack by international forces,” said General Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Defence Ministry.

The ministry condemned the attack and said that such incidents would weaken the spirit of the Army, which is trained mostly by US troops. The US military said that its forces “may have mistakenly killed and injured” Afghan soldiers. “As a coalition convoy was returning from a previous operation, they were involved in multiple engagements. As a result of the engagements, soldiers were killed and injured,” it said.

“Initial reports from troops on the ground indicate that this may be a case of mistaken identity on both sides.”

More at The Times, Washington Post and New York Times.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

3 US Coalition Troops Killed in Afghanistan - Associated Press
US 'Spy Drone' Strikes on Pakistan Kill 11 - Agence France-Presse
Honour Payment for Slain Tribal Leader - The Australian
Honour Payment for Death of Tribal Governor Important - The Australian

Pakistan

Pakistan Asks for Help as Economy Faces Collapse - The Times
Pakistan Asks IMF for Aid to Repay Debt - Associated Press

Hot air and improbable peace

Afghan and Pakistani officials are talking up a mini-council (jirgagai) to be held in Islamabad at the end of the month to "restore peace in both countries and along the border regions". They might as well be whistling in the wind. Just as the recent Saudi initiative excluded the Taliban and therefore failed, the latest dialogue does not involve representatives of the Afghan resistance, let alone their affiliates. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Oct 23,'08)

Death stalks the highway to hell
The Kabul to Kandahar highway, reconstructed by the United States as "a symbol of Afghan renewal and progress", has instead become a symbol of the Taliban's resurgence. A trip on the 500-kilometer road now involves running a fearful gauntlet of kidnap, ambush and execution, and there is nothing the security forces can do to make it safer. (Oct 23,'08)

Hit and miss with Afghan air strikes
Air strikes against suspected Taliban leaders in Afghanistan were halted in 2004, in the belief they were ineffectual and caused too many civilian deaths. They resumed the following year, growing steadily to levels of thousands of raids a year. Yet they still have not proved effective against the Taliban, while non-combatants are being killed in record numbers, in part due to poor intelligence. - Gareth Porter (Oct 21,'08)

E-mail From Afghanistan - Roman Skaskiw, The Atlantic

... My Prediction: I’m fairly certain that so long as the illusionists in the Federal Reserve are able to forestall an implosion of the U.S. economy, American firepower and American wealth will prevail. The Deywagal Valley road will crest the ridge line and connect to the Korengal Valley road, to the great credit of whoever happens to be the PRT commander at the time. The sacrifice of the many good people who died will be invoked. The contractor will receive his last payment. The governor, escorted by the U.S. military, will give a speech. He will condemn the insurgents as agents of Pakistan. An approved Mullah will mention how even Mohammed worked with non-believers. Hopefully, the lives of Afghans along the roads will improve. A general will be in attendance. Then, the governor will return to his heavily guarded compound. He will meet with the PRT commander and ask for more projects. He will ask to be filled in on the PRT’s plan for the upcoming months. The handful of contractors with whom the PRT does business will wait patiently in the wings. Of course, there will still be violence, but our enterprise in Kunar Province is vast enough, and the people in the PRT smart enough, that statistics indicating progress will be produced and broadly advertised. The insurgents will still be referred to as “the bad guys,” Television will still resolutely confine itself to superficials, and young men will still like to fight.

My deal with the devil is finished. I've honored my commitment. I am back in my own country where the two main party candidates, despite all the cultural differences they represent, and despite the fervor with which red-team competes with blue-team, agree on Afghanistan, the bailout and everything else that matters to me...

Much more at The Atlantic.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Afghanistan Planning Second Round of Talks with Ex-Taliban - Voice of America
Pentagon Spokesman Cites Pakistan’s Improved Security Efforts - AFPS
Pakistan Uses Tribal Militias in Taliban War - New York Times
Pakistan Plan to Arm Tribal Militias Poses Risks - Voice of America
US Missile Attack Kills Nine in Pakistan - The Times
Suspected US Missile Strike Kills at Least 10 in Pakistan - Washington Post
New US missile attack on Pakistan - Daily Telegraph
Medical Engagements Provide More Than Health Care - AFPS
More US Troops to Afghanistan? - Christian Science Monitor opinion

Pakistan

Pakistan's Man in Washington Walks a Delicate Line - Los Angeles Times

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS

'US Strike' Kills Taleban Leader - BBC News

A suspected US missile strike has killed 20 people, including a top Taleban commander, in north-west Pakistan, witnesses and officials say.

Mohammad Omar was among the dead when the missile, reportedly fired by a pilotless US drone, hit a compound owned by him in South Waziristan.

Omar fought with the Taleban in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

The US has launched many missile strikes from Afghanistan against suspected militant targets recently.

More at BBC News, American Forces Press Service, Voice of America and Agence France-Presse.

US Takes to Air to Hit Militants Inside Pakistan - Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, New York Times

The White House has backed away from using American commandos for further ground raids into Pakistan after furious complaints from its government, relying instead on an intensifying campaign of airstrikes by the Central Intelligence Agency against militants in the Pakistani mountains.

According to American and Pakistani officials, attacks by remotely piloted Predator aircraft have increased sharply in frequency and scope in the past three months.

Through Sunday, there were at least 18 Predator strikes since the beginning of August, some deep inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, compared with 5 strikes during the first seven months of 2008.

At the same time, however, officials said that relying on airstrikes alone, the United States would be unable to weaken Al Qaeda’s grip in the tribal areas permanently.

More at The New York Times.

Afghan, Pakistan Leaders to Meet in Islamabad to Discuss Insurgency - Steve Herman, Voice of America

About 50 Afghan political and tribal leaders have gone to Pakistan for a meeting with their Pakistani counterparts to discuss the insurgency on both sides of the border.

Politicians, respected elders and Muslim clerics from Afghanistan and Pakistan will hold talks - dubbed as a mini-jirga -- in Islamabad from Monday to see if they can agree on joint action to end the rising violence by al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

The jirga system has been used for more than one thousand years by the region's Pashtun tribal leaders to decide important matters.

The two-day meeting in Pakistan is seen as a follow-up to a grand jirga last year in Kabul, when Afghans and Pakistanis pledged not to let their respective countries become training centers and sanctuaries for terrorism.

The reality is that militants, fighting both governments, continue to operate in the two countries.

More at Voice of America.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Area

Pakistan Takes Town as 'Corner Turned' - The Australian
Pakistani and Afghan Elders to Meet to Ponder Violence - Reuters
Briton Killed by Afghan Security Guard - The Times
Afghanistan on the Edge of Abyss - China Post opinion pt 1
Afghanistan on the Edge With No Solution - China Post opinion pt 2

Pakistan

Losing Friends in Pakistan - Washington Post opinion

Security Through Development:

Saving the National Solidarity Program in Afghanistan
Frankie Sturm, Truman National Security Project

28 October 2008


With violence mounting in Afghanistan, global attention has focused almost exclusively on military questions and troop shortages. Issues such as development and good government have been sidelined. This is unfortunate: development and security are not separate activities. Done right, development can bolster security by isolating the Taliban, fostering democracy, and creating a sense of legitimacy between Afghan citizens and their government.

The National Solidarity Program (NSP) has done just that, but it is in danger of having its funds cut by the United States. Facing persistent troop shortages for at least another year, it is in America’s best interest to increase funding for non-military programs that have boosted the security situation in Afghanistan. Adding additional troops is necessary, but until we have the manpower, we ought to invest in programs that can help keep the Taliban at bay in the interim. The NSP has passed that test. But to understand how programs such as the NSP can fight terror as well as hunger, we must first understand how poorly designed development policies undercut both prosperity and security.

Traditional Development – Give a Man a Fish

The international community has spent approximately $15 billion on aid in Afghanistan.1 Unfortunately, the aid money is not always well spent. Instead of going to directly to the Afghan people, much of the money goes to government agencies in donor countries, consultants, humanitarian groups, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Many of these organizations do excellent work. However, as aid professionals know too well, these groups all have different rules and regulations, making it difficult for a new government to create a coherent system for dealing with foreign aid.

Even worse, projects designed in the capitals of wealthy countries often respond to donors’ needs instead of recipients’ needs. In 2003, for example, Afghanistan recorded a bumper crop in wheat and resisted the World Food Programme’s desire to distribute food aid. Yet the food aid went on, depressing wheat prices and prompting struggling farmers to stop growing wheat and start growing opium.2 This gave the drug
trade a shot in the arm and provided an enhanced source of income for the Taliban. Afghans knew better, but the well-intentioned donors did not.

These circumstances make it nearly impossible for Afghanistan’s government to develop a solid administration and a predictable rule of law – there are simply too many interests and too many programs to juggle. It also encourages corruption. Since a functioning government is unable to solidify in such an atmosphere, many elites choose to follow the money by pushing pet projects and flattering foreign donors. As for regular Afghan citizens, they see this for what it is: corruption. Stories of wasted development aid and overpaid consultants are commonplace, which feeds cynicism among the Afghan people.3 Faith in the government decreases, and the Taliban’s message – that the government is a tool of the West, designed to oppress Muslims – begins to take root.

The National Solidarity Program – Teach a Man to Fish

Fortunately, not all aid programs are created equal. We can break the cycle of division and corruption by taking a new approach to foreign aid. The National Solidarity Program is a model for what this approach should look like.4 The NSP provides bloc grants to local communities that compete for funds by designing their own projects. This creates transparency and accountability in the central government, because money from donors is kept in a single fund that is governed by clear rules. It promotes democracy and development at the local level, because individual communities elect councils to create and oversee their projects. Lastly, it gives Afghans a reason to believe in their own government and the international community that claims to support it.

The results speak for themselves. The NSP has financed more than 30,000 projects in 20,000 communities, touching the lives of 13 million people.5 By helping Afghans build schools, expand irrigation, and gain greater access to electricity, the program has gained widespread support and popularity. But more important than any single development project, the greatest success the NSP has registered to date is its ability to undercut the Taliban.6

When foreigners build schools, the Taliban burns them down. When Afghans build schools, Taliban fighters think twice. Local citizens feel a sense of ownership towards projects they have designed and built themselves. By attacking the products of Afghans’ labor, the Taliban wins nothing but anger and animosity. In areas of the country where the insurgency is at its strongest, many NSP projects remain untouched by violence. When they are attacked, citizens react. For instance, after insurgents set fire to a NSP school in a Kandahar village, it was promptly rebuilt. Four hundred and fifty boys and girls were then enrolled.7 The lesson is clear. When Afghans are able to secure their own development, they acquire the ability to develop their own security.

Small Investment, Big Payoff

Not only is the NSP successful, it is also cost effective. Its impressive accomplishments have taken place at a total cost of only $750 million.8 To put this in perspective, the United States spends more on Iraq in one week than the entire international community has spent on the NSP in six years. In terms of total aid to Afghanistan, only one half of one percent has been devoted to the NSP, making its gains all the more remarkable. Part of the reason the NSP has accomplished so much with so little is due to its high level of efficiency. According to the Institute for State Effectiveness, NSP projects are on average 30 percent cheaper than those built by foreign NGOs.9

Our allies in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany have recognized the promise of the NSP and have increased funding accordingly.10 American contributions to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) – the pool from which the NSP draws its funding – dropped from $74 million in 2006 to $50 million in 2007.11 Of all the money the United States has invested in the ARTF, only $13 million has gone to funding the NSP.12 Contrast this to U.S. spending on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan. From 2001-2006, the U.S. spent $1.6 billion on counter-narcotics.13 Spending on interdiction alone cost $343 million in 2007.14 The results? Opium exports surpassed $3 billion in 2006 and Afghanistan produces approximately 95% of the world’s heroin.15 Counter-narcotics efforts are crucial, but in terms of return on investment, our money seems to be going much further with the NSP.

Yet the program is currently facing a $160 million budget shortfall, and is struggling to reach into new villages and fund ongoing projects.16 Instead of cutting funding, elected officials in the U.S. should act to reverse this budget shortfall. The United States is already spending far more than any other country on aid to Afghanistan – but it is quality, just as much as quantity, that counts. For the sake of security, it is time to put our money where it can have the greatest impact: in a proven, quality program that has a track record of diminishing Taliban strength.


Funding the Future

If we invest in programs that bring local communities together with the central government, we can lay the groundwork for a future where a functioning state inspires the loyalty of its citizens. If we pour the bulk of our development dollars into ill-advised projects that bypass and divide Afghanistan’s already fragile government, the Taliban will continue to find a ready-made political vacuum to step in to. Given the military challenges we face, there is no excuse for cutting a non-military program that has proven its ability to weaken the Taliban and strengthen security for Americans and Afghans alike. We must expand funding for the NSP now.


End Notes
1.) “Major Donors Failing Afghanistan Due to $10 Billion Aid Shortfall,” Oxfam America, 25 March 2008: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublica...n-aid-shortfall.
2.) Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States, Oxford 2008.
3.) Rory Stewart, “How to Save Afghanistan,” TIME, 17 July 2008.
4.) “Why National Programs Are the Key to Success in Afghanistan,” Institute for State Effectiveness, 2008; “National Solidarity Program: A Hidden Success,” Institute for State Effectiveness, 2008.
5.) “Afghanistan: National Solidarity Program,” World Bank, 2008: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/C...:223547,00.html; Caroline Wadhams, Colin Cookman and Ben Dear, “Afghanistan Needs More Than Money: Greater U.S. Leadership Is Needed to Fix Development Problems,” 11 June 2008.
6.) Gregory Warner, “The Schools the Taliban Won’t Torch,” Washington Monthly, December 2007.
7.) “Lessons in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch, Volume 18, Number 6 ©, July 2006.
8.) “National Solidarity Program: A Hidden Success,” Institute for State Effectiveness, 2008.
9.) Ibid.
10.) Warner, Ibid.
11.) Wadhams, Cookman and Dear, Ibid.
12.) Warner, Ibid.
13.) “U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy for Afghanistan,” U.S. State Department, August 2007: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/90671.pdf.
14.) Thomas A. Schweich, “Counternarcotics Strategy and Police Training in Afghanistan,” Testimony Before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee, 4 October 2007: http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/93252.htm
15.) Matthew Lee, “Afghanistan Poppy Cultivation Skyrockets,” Washington Post, 4 August 2007; “U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy for Afghanistan,” Ibid.
16.) Mohammad Ehsan Zia, “Afghan Aid That Works,” Christian Science Monitor, 16 May 2008.

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban Insurgents Shoot Down US Helicopter in Afghanistan - Laura King, Los Angeles Times

Insurgents on Monday downed a US helicopter in a province near the capital, the American military said -- an unusual feat for the Taliban. The crew survived and was rescued, a US military spokesman said.

Also Monday, a suicide bomber dressed as an Afghan policeman killed two American soldiers and wounded several other people at a police station in northern Afghanistan, provincial officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, police in Baghlan province said. Afghan officers were among the injured, they said.

The American military confirmed the deaths of two members of the US-led coalition in the bombing in Baghlan's capital, Pol-e Khomri, but did not immediately confirm their nationalities. Three coalition soldiers were hurt in the blast, a spokesman said.

The helicopter that was downed was flying over Wardak province, about 40 miles west of Kabul, the capital, when it came under small-arms fire from insurgents, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, an American military spokesman. Crew members returned fire, but damage to the helicopter forced the craft to make a hard landing.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS

Afghan, Pakistani Representatives Hold Jirga on Taliban Conflict - Barry Newhouse, Voice of America

A suspected US missile strike has killed 20 people in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal regions. The attack came hours before Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders and government representatives began two days of talks about the Taliban insurgency in both countries.

Residents of South Waziristan said the early morning missile strike hit the home of a Taliban commander outside the main town, Wana. Local residents reported some foreign militants were among the dead.

Since late August, more than 12 such missile strikes have hit targets mainly in the North and South Waziristan tribal agencies, which are considered key strongholds of Taliban factions that also operate in Afghanistan.

During the same time, Pakistan's military has been engaged in heavy fighting in the Bajaur tribal agency, where the army claimed this week that more than 1,500 militants and 73 soldiers have been killed since the operation began.

Despite the increase in US missile strikes and the intensified efforts of the Pakistani military, there is also growing support for using negotiations and diplomacy to resolve the Taliban conflict.

Last week Pakistan's parliament passed a resolution supporting peace talks as the government's top priority. This week, a group of Afghan tribal leaders, clerics and government officials arrived in Islamabad for talks with their Pakistani counterparts on the Taliban insurgency.

At the start of the two-day meeting traditionally known as a jirga, Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said both countries acknowledge that the Taliban insurgency must be resolved through diplomacy.

"There is an increasing realization that the use of force alone cannot yield the desired results. For lasting success, negotiations and reconciliation must be an essential part of the process" Qureshi said.

More at Voice of America.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

NATO Forces 'Hit Limit' - BBC News
US Airstrike Kills 20 People in Pakistan - New York Times
Afghan Bomb at Meeting Kills 2 GI’s and a Child - New York Times
Afghan National Security Forces Show Progress - AFPS

Pakistan

Pakistan's 'Plan C' - Wall Street Journal editorial

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS

Pakistani, Afghan Delegates Agree to Talks With Taliban - Barry Newhouse, Voice of America

Pakistani and Afghan political and tribal leaders meeting in Islamabad Tuesday have agreed to seek talks with Taliban insurgents in a bid to limit violence along their shared border. The announcement came after a two-day meeting described as a mini-jirga in the Pakistani capital.

The two-day "mini-jirga" in Islamabad ended with pledges to create new committees in both countries that will try to establish contact with Taliban groups.

Afghanistan's former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said those committees will work independently from any other peace talks being pursued by the two governments.

"We agreed that contacts should be established with the opposition," he said. "Apart from whatever else is happening in that regard, joint contacts will be established through jirga-gai by using other influential figures through the opposition groups in both countries."

Representatives of the Islamabad jirga said the term "opposition groups" refers to all those involved in the armed conflict in both countries.

Officials said the names of the representatives seeking talks with militants will be kept secret because of security concerns.

More at Voice of America.

Prospect of Peace Talks Rises in Afghanistan - Laura King, Los Angeles Times

The Afghan war is at its highest pitch since it began seven years ago, growing daily in scope and savagery. Yet on both sides of the conflict, the possibility of peace negotiations has gained sudden prominence.

Among Western and Afghan officials, analysts and tribal elders, field commanders and foot soldiers, the notion of talks with the Taliban, once dismissed out of hand, has recently become the subject of serious debate.

Both sides acknowledge that there are enormous impediments. Each camp has staked out negotiating positions that are anathema to the other. Neither side professes the slightest trust in the other's word. Each side claims not only a battlefield edge, but insists that it is winning the war for public support.

But whether they are willing to admit it publicly, both sides have powerful incentives for turning to negotiations rather than pushing ahead with a grinding war of attrition. Would-be mediators have emerged, preliminary contacts have taken place, and more indirect talks are likely soon.

All around, a sense of battle fatigue is undeniable.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

US Considers Talks With Some Afghan Taliban Elements - David Gollust, Voice of America

State Department officials say the United States is considering contacts with elements of Afghanistan's militant Islamic Taliban movement, as part of a broad Bush administration review of the conduct of the Afghan war. The review is expected to be completed after the US presidential election.

Officials here say that while no decisions have been made, the policy review could lead to a direct US dialogue with what are termed "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban.

The Bush administration began an urgent review of Afghanistan policy earlier this month, in the face of what US military officials say is a mounting insurgent threat in Afghanistan by the Taliban, elements of al-Qaida, and other Islamic extremists.

The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai has been engaged in contacts with relatively moderate Taliban elements brokered by Saudi Arabia.

The United States, while supporting the Saudi-led dialogue, has thus far spurned direct talks itself.

But a senior State Department official who spoke to reporters here Tuesday said the idea of UScontacts with some Taliban factions is "certainly something that has been discussed as part of the review."

More at Voice of America.

Afghans, Pakistanis Opt to Talk to Taliban - Shaiq Hussain, Washington Post

Pakistani and Afghan leaders on Tuesday agreed to make contact with insurgent groups, including the Taliban, in a bid to end bloodshed and violence in their troubled border regions.

Leaders from the neighboring countries reached the decision here at the end of a two-day jirgagai, or mini-tribal council, which was attended by 50 officials and tribal elders from both sides.

The meeting was held as a follow-up to a grand tribal jirga in Kabul in August 2007. "We agreed that contacts should be established with the opposition in both countries, joint contacts through the mini-tribal council," said former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, leader of the Afghan delegation.

More at The Washington Post.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

US Forces Kill Militants After Helicopter Attack in Afghanistan - AFPS
Afghanistan, Pakistan, US Military Forces Cooperate in Border Region - VOA
Garbage Sustains Afghan 'Ragpickers' - Washington Times

Afghanistan Tests Waters for Overture to Taliban - Carlotta Gall, New York Times

The Afghan government and its allies in the region have begun approaching the Taliban and other insurgent groups with new intensity to test the possibilities for eventual peace talks, Western diplomats and Afghan officials here say.

The diplomatic approaches have been stepped up over the last several months by the Afghan government, as well as by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the officials said. They are part of a broad political effort to stem the downward spiral of violence in Afghanistan and the steep decline of public support for the government during a year that has proved to be the bloodiest of the past seven.

Security has deteriorated to the point that a growing chorus of Western diplomats, NATO commanders and Afghans has begun to argue that the insurgency cannot be defeated solely by military means. Some officials in Kabul contend that the war against the insurgents cannot be won and are calling for negotiations...

More at The New York Times.

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Today we also make clear that the United States will hold any state, terrorist group or other nonstate actor or individual fully accountable for supporting or enabling terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction - whether by facilitating, financing or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts.

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS

Canadian Troops in Afghanistan Measure Success Inch by Inch - Candace Rondeaux, Washington Post

The pace is frustratingly slow for many of the 2,500 Canadian troops fighting to break the Taliban's hold on Kandahar. The insurgents move swiftly under cover through much of the province. But for the Canadians, every tactical wiggle in Kandahar involves days of planning and dozens -- sometimes hundreds -- of soldiers.

Since taking charge of security there in 2005, Canadian forces have mounted several major offensives aimed at driving the Taliban out of Zhari and the neighboring district of Panjwai, in the western part of the province. Yet Taliban fighters maintain a stranglehold on much of the area.

Skirmishes with the Taliban in the province this year alone account for about a quarter of Canadian casualties in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001. The Canadian force is less than a tenth the size of the 33,000-member U.S. force. Nonetheless, the Canadians are responsible for maintaining security in one of the most historically fractious parts of the country.

Meanwhile, they are also struggling to find their footing in their first large-scale combat operation since the Korean War.

More at The Washington Post.

As Taliban Overwhelm Police, Pakistanis Hit Back - Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times

On a rainy Friday evening in early August, six Taliban fighters attacked a police post in a village in Buner, a quiet farming valley just outside Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.

The militants tied up eight policemen and lay them on the floor, and according to local accounts, the youngest member of the gang, a 14-year-old, shot the captives on orders from his boss. The fighters stole uniforms and weapons and fled into the mountains.

Almost instantly, the people of Buner, armed with rifles, daggers and pistols, formed a posse, and after five days they cornered and killed their quarry. A video made on a cellphone showed the six militants lying in the dirt, blood oozing from their wounds.

The stand at Buner has entered the lore of Pakistan’s war against the militants as a dramatic example of ordinary citizens’ determination to draw a line against the militants.

More at The New York Times.

America Decides to Fight and win in Afghanistan - Nick Meo, Daily Telegraph analysis

Charred and mangled bodies littered the building, the victims of a suicide bomber who had penetrated security at one of the most heavily-guarded sites in the capital. A Taliban spokesman later gloatingly confirmed that the attack was aimed at the ministry's Western advisers, part of a new strategy of terror against Kabul's foreign aid community that saw British aid worker Gayle Williams shot dead two weeks ago.

It was a stark reminder of just how vicious the Taliban campaign in Afghanistan has become – and of the scale of the task facing the American general who has been ordered to claw back victory from the jaws of what is starting to look like defeat.

General David Petraeus, the 'warrior-scholar' credited with working a miracle in Iraq, is taking command of the war that America forgot. On Friday he started as head of US Central Command with orders to send more troops to Afghanistan, think up new tactics, and work out a strategy that, after years of muddle, bloodshed and drift under Nato's confused command, will take the battle to the Taliban and win the war.

His old enemy appear to be planning their own surge; US intelligence believes that Arab jihadists have been arriving in the Pakistan borderlands as Iraq cools and Afghanistan hots up.

More at The Daily Telegraph.

IRAQ

Iraq and US Confer on Iraqi Economy - Suadad al-Salhy and Katherine Zoepf, New York Times

With oil prices less than half what they were this summer, Iraqi and American officials are searching for new sources of money to jump-start Iraq’s economy.

At a meeting on Saturday, representatives from the two countries and a handful of foreign business people discussed ways to stimulate investment in business ventures in Iraq.

Almost 95 percent of Iraq’s revenues come from oil exports. The Iraqi government has said that it will have to reduce its 2009 budget to $67 billion from an earlier forecast of $80 billion because of slipping crude prices.

Bayan Jabr, Iraq’s finance minister, said spending would have to be reduced by more than 16 percent, leading to a drop in the money available for rebuilding infrastructure. Mr. Jabr said that the country figured that it needed almost $400 billion to rebuild and upgrade its infrastructure.

“We must seriously activate foreign investment in Iraq,” he said.

More at The New York Times.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Situation Normal, All Fouled Up - The Australian
US Forces Kill 19 Militants in Eastern Afghanistan Raids - Voice of America
Suicide Bomber Kills 8 in Pakistan - Voice of America
Brother of Afghan Minister Kidnapped in Pakistan - Associated Press
Wanted: Falcons and Handlers in Afghanistan - Washington Post
AQ Leader Thought Killed in North Waziristan Strike - Long War Journal blog
Concerning Special Operations Forces - Captain's Journal blog
Taliban Infiltrates Afghan Army and Police? - Military Watch blog
Paying Pakistan's Police - Military Watch blog

Pakistan

Petraeus Visits Shaky Anti-terror Ally Pakistan - Associated Press
US Military Chief Visits Pakistan - BBC News

Few outside the Beltway defense community have ever heard of Joe Collins, a retired army colonel who now teaches at the National War College after a stint, from 2001 to 2004, as a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Rumsfeld Pentagon. But, over the years, I have found him to be a consistent source of clear-eyed thinking about some of our most pressing security challenges. His latest essay on the [i]Small Wars Journal website only confirms that reputation. In it, he pours some cold water on the overheated hopes expressed by so many in recent weeks that negotiations with the Taliban can somehow magically turnaround a failing war effort.[/i]

PAKISTAN

US Airstrikes Creating Tension, Pakistan Warns - Candace Rondeaux, Washington Post

Pakistan's defense minister cautioned the newly appointed head of the US Central Command on Monday that launching further missile strikes in the country's troubled tribal areas could increase tensions between the two nations.

Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar issued the blunt warning to Gen. David H. Petraeus during his first official visit to Pakistan after taking over command last week of US military strategy in a region that includes Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. Mukhtar, who also called for more coordination between the US and Pakistani militaries, said the recent increase in US-led cross-border strikes had created "bad blood" between the two allies. On Friday, 27 people were killed in two US airstrikes in northwest Pakistan.

The Pakistani Defense Ministry said in a statement released shortly after the meeting that frequent attacks inside Pakistan by US Predator drones "could generate anti-American sentiments" and "create outrage and uproar" among Pakistanis.

More at The Washington Post.

Petraeus, in Pakistan, Hears Complaints About Missile Strikes - Jane Perlez, New York Times

In his new position as head of the United States Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus met top Pakistani officials on Monday for the first time and heard one message wherever he turned: American airstrikes against militants in the tribal areas are unhelpful.

General Petraeus, the former commander of American forces in Iraq, arrived in Pakistan as missile strikes from drone aircraft against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas had escalated. There were two separate missile attacks by American drones on Saturday. In retaliation, a suicide bomber killed eight Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in South Waziristan on Sunday.

After the meeting with General Petraeus, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan said in a statement: “Continuing drone attacks on our territory, which result in loss of precious lives and property, are counterproductive and difficult to explain by a democratically elected government. It is creating a credibility gap.”

More at The New York Times.

Pakistan’s Dress-rehearsal Should Scare the US - Bronwen Maddox, The Times opinion

Pakistan treated General David Petraeus to a full-costume preview of the breakdown of every part of its society yesterday. Thousands of lawyers and journalists took to the streets to protest against the refusal of President Zardari to restore top judges. At the same time, Zardari is in urgent talks with Saudi Arabia to raise cash so that he can avoid turning to the International Monetary Fund, with its awkward demands for reform. The border with Afghanistan is also in turmoil after an airstrike on Friday, reported to be from a US unmanned aircraft in Pakistan’s airspace.

The reassuring feature of Pakistan has always been that extremism has been peripheral, and that government has worked, sort of. But we are now seeing a glimpse of what disintegration would look like. The threat that Pakistan will move towards extremism should be top of the new US president’s list of fears abroad. It could mean the defeat of even the reduced aims that the US and Nato still hold for Afghanistan. Pakistan itself could present a far worse problem than its neighbour – nuclear-armed, and with more than five times as many people.

More at The Times.

AFGHANISTAN

Afghan Officials Aided an Attack on US Soldiers - Eric Schmitt, New York Times

An internal review by the American military has found that a local Afghan police chief and another district leader helped Taliban militants carry out an attack on July 13 in which nine United States soldiers were killed and a remote American outpost in eastern Afghanistan was nearly overrun.

Afghan and American forces had started building the makeshift base just five days before the attack, and villagers repeatedly warned the American troops in that time that militants were plotting a strike, the report found. It said that the warnings did not include details, and that troops never anticipated such a large and well-coordinated attack.

The assault involved some 200 fighters, nearly three times the number of Americans and Afghans defending the site.

As evidence of collusion between the district police chief and the Taliban, the report cited large stocks of weapons and ammunition that were found in the police barracks in the adjacent village of Wanat after the attackers were repelled. The stocks were more than the local 20-officer force would be likely to need, and many of the weapons were dirty and appeared to have been used recently. The police officers were found dressed in “crisp, clean new uniforms,” the report said, and were acting “as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.”

More at The New York Times.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Troops Dismantle Drug Nest, Deal Blow to Taliban Finances - AFPS
French Aid Worker Kidnapped in Kabul - The Times
Intel Official: Afghan Agent Killed by Gunmen - Associated Press

Pakistan

Petraeus Makes Pakistan a Priority - The Australian
US General Discusses Regional Security Issues With Pakistani Officials - VOA

U.S. war aims in Afghanistan grow doubtful: - U.S. war aims in Afghanistan that call for the defeat of the Taliban and a strong central government in Kabul have become increasingly unrealistic in the face of growing violence and corruption.

Taliban to US: There is nothing to talk about: "There is nothing to talk about. This is not a political campaign for policy change or power sharing or Cabinet ministries. We are waging jihad to bring Islamic law back to Afghanistan," Mullah Sabir told Newsweek.

Pakistan to pressure next US leader to end missile strikes: At the same time, in an unusually frank statement, a senior Foreign Ministry official in Islamabad warned that relations between the two nominally close allies in the war on terror were extremely strained "politically and diplomatically".

Voters vent their rage as bombers leave 250 dead: MORE than 60 bomb blasts across 10 cities in the past six months means India is challenging Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as the world's most terrorism-affected country.

Afghan Government Reaches Out to Tribes - Jim Michaels, USA Today

Afghanistan's government has stepped up efforts to win the cooperation of tribal leaders to try to build security at the village level and fend off the Taliban. The strategy has the backing of coalition forces and is similar to a successful effort in Iraq, where powerful tribal leaders turned on al-Qaeda.

"We're coming back to recognize tribal leadership, to empower and acknowledge them as leaders within their communities," said US Army Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker, deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, the tribal movement started in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, and eventually spread throughout the country. It helped isolate al-Qaeda from the local population.

"We need to leverage the tribal system in Afghanistan as was done in Iraq," said US Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan...

... "The Taliban are anti-tribal," ... "They are trying to destroy the tribal structures. … This gives the Pakistani and Afghani governments a crowbar" to drive a wedge between the Taliban and the general population.

More at USA Today.

Learning From Experience: Afghanistan stabilized after 9/11. Let's get back to what was working. By Clare Lockhart at Slate.

Clare Lockhart is the director of the Institute for State Effectiveness and co-author, with Ashraf Ghani, of Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. She spent some three years on the ground in Afghanistan and continues to work to revitalize U.S. strategy in that country. This Slate article is an excellent example of learning from the past about the part of counterinsurgency most of us understand least well: the economic and governance lines of operation.

Both candidates for the U.S. presidency pledged to make Afghanistan a top priority. The war there now tops the news on a daily basis with tales of the devastating hardships of the Afghan people and the deaths of Afghans and NATO soldiers. The untold story is that Afghanistan was well on its way to stability in 2004. It is essential that President Obama understands why the nation slipped into chaos. The challenge now is to win the peace...

Learning From Experience at Slate.

... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

AFGHANISTAN

Afghan Awakening - Bing West, The National Interest

In September of 2008, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a remarkable statement. He said, “I’m not convinced we’re winning in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can. That is why I intend to commission and... am looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region.” Considering that the United States has been at war in Afghanistan for seven years now, clearly whatever our strategy is, it has not worked.

There has developed an unquestioning consensus that we need to do more. The Democratic Party, united in demanding a swift withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, supports expanding the war in Afghanistan. The same is true of the Republican Party and the Pentagon. The mainstream press, while savaging the White House for lacking a sensible plan and sufficient troops in Iraq, accepted without question sending more troops to Afghanistan. And now that the surge in Iraq is winding down, a surge for Afghanistan is in the cards.

While US troop numbers will increase, we don’t know whether other NATO countries will provide willing and able boots on the ground. Regardless of NATO Europe, America must deal with Pakistan and the sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban that has festered there like a infectious wound. The corruption attendant to opium continues to tear apart the fabric of trust in Afghan society. Local military and police forces must be trained. Above all, we need to define our goals and acknowledge our limitations on this vital front.

More at The National Interest.

Obama: ‘Taking the Fight’ to Afghanistan - Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes

A worsening war in Afghanistan - and a growing Taliban and al-Qaida insurgency in the tribal areas of nuclear-armed neighboring Pakistan - will loom large on the agenda for President-elect Barack Obama during the next four years.

On the campaign trail, Obama argued that the war in Iraq has drained troops and resources from the battlefield in Afghanistan, causing the situation there to deteriorate. He has described Afghanistan as "the war we need to win," and he has pledged to send at least two more brigades of US troops to reinforce the 70,000 U.S. and NATO forces already serving in the country.

Obama has also pledged to press NATO allies to contribute more forces, and he has said he will step up training for the Afghan army and police, as well as increase non-military aid to Afghanistan by $1 billion.

More at Stars and Stripes.

US Says Taliban Put Afghans in Line of Fire - Abdul Waheed Wafa and Sangar Rahmi, New York Times

As Afghan officials reported more civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes on Thursday, witnesses to a strike that apparently hit a wedding party on Monday said the civilian death toll could be more than double the 40 reported so far by Afghan officials.

The United States military says it is conducting a joint investigation with the Afghan authorities into the strike on the wedding party, which took place in the Shah Wali Kot district of the southern province of Kandahar, where the Taliban insurgency has been strong.

On Thursday, American officials offered their first account of the events, saying that insurgents had prevented civilians from fleeing the area, trapping them in a firefight pitting coalition and Afghan Army forces against the militants who had ambushed those forces.

More at The New York Times.

Afghan Aid to Insurgents Alleged in Attack on US Troops - M. Karim Faiez and Laura King, Los Angeles Times

A US military report released Thursday says at least two local Afghan officials were believed to have colluded in a July attack by insurgents on a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan that killed nine US soldiers.

It was the largest loss of American troops' lives in a single land battle since the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. The intense, hours-long assault by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters, during which the lightly manned outpost was nearly overrun, also left 27 US soldiers and four Afghan troops injured.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Fragile Success Against Afghanistan's Opium Economy - Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor

A year ago, the province that surrounds this dusty town of onion farmers was Afghanistan's No. 2 producer of opium. Today, Nangarhar has eradicated opium entirely.

It is the most dramatic reversal in a year offering the first hints of progress against opium, with harvests declining nationwide.

Yet in the chalk-white fields above Ghani Khel, tribal elder Pat Zirak Mohammad predicts that Nangarhar's opium ban will not last. To grow anything other than poppy, his people need a dam to harness water from seasonal floods. But he is skeptical that the government will deliver. "If that doesn't happen, our people will again grow poppy," he says.

Through its bold attempts to ban poppy in recent years, Nangarhar has become the preeminent case study on how to wean Afghanistan from its poppy crop. Mr. Mohammad's words point to the difficulty of making success last.

In a country that produces 90 percent of the world's opium, and where opium is tied to rampant corruption and violence, the benefits of such bans are clear.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

IRAQ

US Gives Iraq Final Text of Draft Forces Agreement - David Gollust, Voice of America

The Bush administration says it has sent Iraq what it says is the final text of an agreement on a continued presence of US troops in Iraq beyond the end of the year. US officials say they accepted some Iraqi-proposed amendments, but that as far as the United States is concerned the negotiating process has ended.

Officials here say the final text was conveyed in a letter from President Bush to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and that while the US side may provide further clarifications it considers the negotiations over.

The two sides have struggled for weeks to reach agreement on a status-of-forces agreement that will govern the presence of US troops in Iraq beyond December 31, when the UN Security Council mandate for foreign forces in Iraq expires.

The draft accord would allow US forces to remain in Iraq for as long as another three years. The parties have struggled to agree on details such as legal jurisdiction over American soldiers who might commit off-duty crimes.

A senior US diplomat said Iraq late last month proposed scores of amendments to a tentative draft. He said the text the United States has sent back to Baghdad accepts many of the proposed changes, but rejects a number of others.

More at Voice of America.

Iraq Repeats Insistence on Fixed Withdrawal Date - Ernesto Londoño, Mary Beth Sheridan and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post

Two days after the election of Barack Obama, Iraq's chief spokesman said with unusual forcefulness Thursday that his government will continue to insist on a firm withdrawal date for US troops, despite American demands that any pullout be subject to prevailing security conditions.

"Iraqis would like to know and see a fixed date," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an interview in which he also reiterated Iraq's position that American forces be subject to Iraqi legal jurisdiction in some instances.

Iraqi officials, who see President-elect Obama's views on the timing of a US withdrawal as consonant with their own, appear to be leveraging his election to pressure the Bush administration to make last-minute concessions. Dabbagh said negotiations to reach a status-of-forces agreement, which would sanction the US military presence in Iraq beyond 2008, would collapse if no deal is reached by the end of this month.

More at The Washington Post.

Obama Victory Alters the Tenor of Iraqi Politics - Alissa Rubin, New York Times

Barack Obama may have been elected only three days ago, but his victory is already beginning to shift the political ground in Iraq and the region.

Iraqi Shiite politicians are indicating that they will move faster toward a new security agreement about American troops, and a Bush administration official said he believed that Iraqis could ratify the agreement as early as the middle of this month.

“Before, the Iraqis were thinking that if they sign the pact, there will be no respect for the schedule of troop withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011,” said Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a major Shiite party. “If Republicans were still there, there would be no respect for this timetable. This is a positive step to have the same theory about the timetable as Mr. Obama.”

Mr. Obama has said that he favors a 16-month schedule for withdrawing combat brigades, a timetable about twice as fast as that provided for in the draft American and Iraqi accord.

More at The New York Times.

Iraq / OIF

Iraq Orders F-16s, Helicopters - United Press International
In a Desert Camp, Iraqis Find Aid and Zone of Trust - Christian Science Monitor
Coalition Troops Target al-Qaida in Iraq Networks, Detain 17 - AFPS
Soldiers in Iraq Focus on Restoring Infrastructure - AFPS
Shell Secures 25-year Access to Iraq's Oil, Gas - United Press International

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Death and No Progress Fighting the Taliban - The Australian
Petraeus Visits Bagram, Discusses War in Afghanistan - AFPS
Military Investigates Possible New Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan - VOA
Coalition, Afghan Forces Investigate Possible Civilian Casualties - AFPS
Coalition Forces Kill Insurgents Throughout Afghanistan - AFPS
Two Deadly Suicide Blasts Hit Pakistan's Northwest - Voice of America
Pakistan Officials: Missile Strike Kills 8 or More - Associated Press

Pakistan

Pakistan will Hang Cyber Terrorists - Daily Telegaph

AFGHANISTAN

Afghan Awakening - Bing West, The National Interest

In September of 2008, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a remarkable statement. He said, “I’m not convinced we’re winning in Afghanistan. I am convinced we can. That is why I intend to commission and... am looking at a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region.” Considering that the United States has been at war in Afghanistan for seven years now, clearly whatever our strategy is, it has not worked.

There has developed an unquestioning consensus that we need to do more. The Democratic Party, united in demanding a swift withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, supports expanding the war in Afghanistan. The same is true of the Republican Party and the Pentagon. The mainstream press, while savaging the White House for lacking a sensible plan and sufficient troops in Iraq, accepted without question sending more troops to Afghanistan. And now that the surge in Iraq is winding down, a surge for Afghanistan is in the cards.

While US troop numbers will increase, we don’t know whether other NATO countries will provide willing and able boots on the ground. Regardless of NATO Europe, America must deal with Pakistan and the sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban that has festered there like a infectious wound. The corruption attendant to opium continues to tear apart the fabric of trust in Afghan society. Local military and police forces must be trained. Above all, we need to define our goals and acknowledge our limitations on this vital front.

More at The National Interest.

Obama: ‘Taking the Fight’ to Afghanistan - Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes

A worsening war in Afghanistan - and a growing Taliban and al-Qaida insurgency in the tribal areas of nuclear-armed neighboring Pakistan - will loom large on the agenda for President-elect Barack Obama during the next four years.

On the campaign trail, Obama argued that the war in Iraq has drained troops and resources from the battlefield in Afghanistan, causing the situation there to deteriorate. He has described Afghanistan as "the war we need to win," and he has pledged to send at least two more brigades of US troops to reinforce the 70,000 U.S. and NATO forces already serving in the country.

Obama has also pledged to press NATO allies to contribute more forces, and he has said he will step up training for the Afghan army and police, as well as increase non-military aid to Afghanistan by $1 billion.

More at Stars and Stripes.

US Says Taliban Put Afghans in Line of Fire - Abdul Waheed Wafa and Sangar Rahmi, New York Times

As Afghan officials reported more civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes on Thursday, witnesses to a strike that apparently hit a wedding party on Monday said the civilian death toll could be more than double the 40 reported so far by Afghan officials.

The United States military says it is conducting a joint investigation with the Afghan authorities into the strike on the wedding party, which took place in the Shah Wali Kot district of the southern province of Kandahar, where the Taliban insurgency has been strong.

On Thursday, American officials offered their first account of the events, saying that insurgents had prevented civilians from fleeing the area, trapping them in a firefight pitting coalition and Afghan Army forces against the militants who had ambushed those forces.

More at The New York Times.

Afghan Aid to Insurgents Alleged in Attack on US Troops - M. Karim Faiez and Laura King, Los Angeles Times

A US military report released Thursday says at least two local Afghan officials were believed to have colluded in a July attack by insurgents on a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan that killed nine US soldiers.

It was the largest loss of American troops' lives in a single land battle since the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. The intense, hours-long assault by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters, during which the lightly manned outpost was nearly overrun, also left 27 US soldiers and four Afghan troops injured.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Fragile Success Against Afghanistan's Opium Economy - Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor

A year ago, the province that surrounds this dusty town of onion farmers was Afghanistan's No. 2 producer of opium. Today, Nangarhar has eradicated opium entirely.

It is the most dramatic reversal in a year offering the first hints of progress against opium, with harvests declining nationwide.

Yet in the chalk-white fields above Ghani Khel, tribal elder Pat Zirak Mohammad predicts that Nangarhar's opium ban will not last. To grow anything other than poppy, his people need a dam to harness water from seasonal floods. But he is skeptical that the government will deliver. "If that doesn't happen, our people will again grow poppy," he says.

Through its bold attempts to ban poppy in recent years, Nangarhar has become the preeminent case study on how to wean Afghanistan from its poppy crop. Mr. Mohammad's words point to the difficulty of making success last.

In a country that produces 90 percent of the world's opium, and where opium is tied to rampant corruption and violence, the benefits of such bans are clear.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Death and No Progress Fighting the Taliban - The Australian
Petraeus Visits Bagram, Discusses War in Afghanistan - AFPS
Military Investigates Possible New Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan - VOA
Coalition, Afghan Forces Investigate Possible Civilian Casualties - AFPS
Coalition Forces Kill Insurgents Throughout Afghanistan - AFPS
Two Deadly Suicide Blasts Hit Pakistan's Northwest - Voice of America
Pakistan Officials: Missile Strike Kills 8 or More - Associated Press

Pakistan

Pakistan will Hang Cyber Terrorists - Daily Telegaph

AFGHANISTAN

US Acknowledges 37 Afghan Civilians Killed in Fighting Last Week - M. Karim Faiez and Laura King, Los Angeles Times

The US military acknowledged Saturday that 37 civilians were killed and 35 injured during fighting last week in Kandahar province between insurgents and coalition forces.

Although the American statement stopped short of taking direct blame for civilian casualties in a southern province that is one of the country's most active battlefields, it demonstrated an unusually swift public response to claims of mass casualties made by Afghan officials.

The finding came just three days after provincial officials and the Afghan president's office asserted that three dozen people had died in an errant US airstrike on a wedding party in a village outside the city of Kandahar.

The city, the main population center in Afghanistan's south, was the onetime stronghold of the Taliban. Militants and coalition forces clash almost daily in surrounding Kandahar province, which is a center of Afghanistan's drug trade.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Report Details Attack on GIs in Afghanistan - Kent Harris and Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes

The Army’s official report on the July battle in Afghanistan that killed nine paratroops and wounded 27 others is filled with details of heroism, desperation and a calculated risk gone wrong.

It begins with the decision to close down an "extremely vulnerable" combat outpost nearby and relocate to Wanat, a move discussed by the brigade for more than a year.

Ten months of coordination with Afghan officials about the land allowed militants to plan an attack "that only required refinement once the land was occupied."

On July 9, in the early morning darkness, the US troops and 24 Afghan paratroops established the vehicle patrol base.

Each day, locals warned the US troops of an impending attack.

"There was intelligence an attack would occur," the report found, "but this was to be expected for the Waygal District."

Troops expected a "probing attack" of around 20 militants. Instead, at around 4:20 a.m., the force of 200 enemy launched a complex, well-organized attack that first targeted the troops’ heavy weapons.

More at Stars and Stripes.

US Electricity Project Forges Ahead Despite Afghan Terrain and Taliban - Carlotta Gall, New York Times

Five shipping containers marked with the Afghan flag, some of them still wrapped in plastic, now sit in the construction camp at Kajaki Dam, Afghanistan’s biggest hydroelectric project.

They hold the United States government’s largest single gift to Afghanistan of the past seven years: massive pieces of a new 200-ton hydroelectric turbine that, when installed, will double the electricity supply to the towns and districts of southern Afghanistan.

The $180 million project, which includes distribution lines and substations, is intended to reach 1.8 million people and provide jobs and economic renewal to the most troubled and violent part of the country.

More at The New York Times.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Pakistan Airstrikes Kill 13 Militants - Voice of America
Pakistan Troops 'Kill Journalist' - BBC News
Spanish Troops Killed in Afghanistan - BBC News
Rethinking the War - The Times editorial
Focus on Afghanistan - Daily Telegraph editorial