60 killed in Afghan fighting:
Early today, Pakistani troops killed 17 militants, some believed to be from central Asia, along with women and children, after coming under fire when they surrounded two houses near Miranshah
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15965036-23109,00.html
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Full Version: Afghanistan
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > Foreign Policy and National Defense > Foreign Policy & National Defense Issues Archive
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GG19Ag03.html
Musharraf and his Taliban 'pals'
Kaushik Kapisthalam
The signs are unmistakable: America's "war on terror" is in jeopardy in Afghanistan, although the locus of the renewed Taliban-led efforts seems to be across the border in Pakistan.
Playing favorites
US and other Western government officials have always been lavish in their praise of Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf. Indeed, Musharraf's supposed about-turn on supporting the Taliban after the September 11 attacks is now accepted without question. Most Taliban emerged from madrassas (seminaries) in Pakistan. However, it has always been a reality that Musharraf has treated the Taliban differently than he did al-Qaeda. For instance, even though Pakistan has arrested and handed over to the US many senior al-Qaeda leaders, not a single senior Taliban commander has been handed over by Pakistan to either the US or the Afghan government.
It is an open secret in Pakistan that virtually the entire leadership of the Taliban military hierarchy lives and operates out of the city of Quetta, which is the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province. Since the fall of the Taliban in Kabul in late 2001, Western and Pakistani reporters have been able to interview Taliban commanders and other leading figures well inside Pakistan, especially around Quetta. Despite the documented facts, the Pakistan government has always flatly denied the presence of Taliban commanders in Quetta, or elsewhere inside Pakistan for that matter.
Afghan anger
The Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai has for some time been angry at the role of Pakistan in the recent resurgence of the Taliban. In the run-up to the Afghan presidential elections last year, Karzai complained about Taliban bases inside Pakistan to US President George W Bush. In the days that followed, Bush reportedly had a quiet conversation with Musharraf, asking him to look into Taliban activity emanating from Quetta. The Taliban attacks ended almost immediately.
The outgoing US ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, was a staunch critic of Pakistan's support for the Taliban. However, his anger was especially evident when he excoriated Pakistan a few weeks ago after a Pakistani television network was able to interview a Taliban commander named Mullah Usmani. Khalilzad questioned Pakistan's sincerity and wondered how a television network was able to talk to a Taliban commander even as Pakistani officials denied a Taliban presence in the country. What was left unsaid was that the US government soon came to know that Mullah Usmani gave the interview not from the tribal areas of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, but from the port city of Karachi.
To add substance to the allegations, Anis, the Afghan government daily, noted in its June 23 issue that Taliban were openly living in the Kachlogh and Pashtunabad regions of Quetta, and based their military presence in those regions. The report quoted people who recently visited Quetta and adjoining areas. The government-sponsored daily then went on to claim that senior Taliban leaders lived in residential blocks belonging to the Pakistani army in a place called Choni, which "is a military base and training center for the Pakistani army". Taliban commanders were being ferried inside Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), the report added.
Pakistan's fears
Ahmed Rashid, a noted expert on the Taliban, recently commented that behind Pakistan's continuing sponsorship of the Taliban and their destabilization efforts in Afghanistan lies a fear of India. During the Taliban years after they came into power in 1996, Pakistan essentially shut out other countries from Afghanistan. However, since the Taliban were deposed, India has moved into Afghanistan in a big way, with sponsorship of massive reconstruction projects, such as building key roads, hydroelectric facilities, schools and hospitals. While this may not seem dangerous to most observers, Pakistan's ruling elite have always taught themselves to see a sinister plot behind every Indian effort and the idea of an Indian presence on their Western borders accentuates Pakistani fears.
Pakistan's Urdu newspapers, whose content is tightly controlled by the government and intelligence agencies, routinely publish stories of "Indian agents" being involved in the separatist violence in Balochistan, and even the sectarian attacks deep inside Pakistan. Pakistan's military commanders and other leaders have also continued to point the finger at Indian "consulates" in the Afghan towns of Kandahar and Jalalabad as the source of troubles between Afghanistan and Pakistan. These fears, which many believe are unfounded, are used as a basis by the Pakistani establishment to justify continued support to the Taliban.
However, not many in Pakistan acknowledge what some see as extraordinary efforts by the US to accommodate Pakistani concerns in Afghanistan. To begin with, the US had pressed the Karzai government to restrict its security ties with India. The US also allowed Pakistan to veto a possible Indian military presence in Afghanistan, even though Indian troops there could have relieved the US of a tremendous burden, given the global American military deployment. American diplomats also pressured Karzai to curtail the power of former Northern Alliance elements, many of whom have been sidelined since 2004. This was done solely to assuage Pakistani concerns.
After the Afghan presidential election last year, the US negotiated a deal between the Karzai government and Pakistan under which former Taliban leaders would receive amnesty and be given roles in the government if they surrendered and renounced violence. For its part, Pakistan was supposed to hand over senior hardcore Taliban commanders to the Afghan government. However, when the time came for Pakistan to live up to its end of the bargain, the Musharraf government reneged. One former Western diplomat commented to Asia Times Online, "The Paks got greedy. They have figured that they need not settle for partial influence in Kabul when they can use the Talibs to control most of Afghanistan." The Pakistanis simply did not want to see a strong central government in Kabul, the diplomat added.
Musharraf's promise
Western leaders tout Musharraf's speech to Pakistanis a couple of days after September 11, in which he justified his decision to join the US side against jihadis. But few seem to recall that Musharraf made another less publicized speech on September 19, 2001 in Urdu, Pakistan's national language, in which he made it clear that he would do everything within his power to make sure that the Taliban emerged unharmed in the "war on terror". While the English-language speech was for Western consumption, the Urdu speech was meant to assuage his countrymen regarding the Taliban. Whether the US wants to admit it or not, it is patent now that Musharraf has kept that particular promise to protect the Taliban.
In a speech to the Australian Press Club in June this year, Musharraf justified Pakistan's support for the Taliban and insinuated that the US was to blame for September 11 because of its refusal to engage the Taliban regime before that event. To some, this was proof that the Pakistani establishment still felt that supporting the Taliban was in Pakistan's interests.
The former Western diplomat added that many in US military circles were deeply unhappy about Pakistan's role. The recent killing of US Navy special forces operatives and the downing of a US helicopter in northern Kunar province of Afghanistan were the handiwork not of the Taliban but of militiamen loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, according to the diplomat. Hekmatyar, who was based in Iran during the Taliban rule over Kabul, had now teamed up with Taliban commander Jalauddin Haqqani, both of whom were currently under the protection of the ISI, he said.
Musharraf and the Pakistani military establishment are unlikely to end their sponsorship of the Taliban, regardless of what the Afghan government or the coalition field commanders in Afghanistan may say or do. Some experts feel that it may be time for Bush to remind Musharraf that Pakistan can either be with the Taliban, or with the US - a choice that Musharraf supposedly made in favor of the latter soon after September 11. Without such pressure, however, it seems certain that America's Afghan project is inexorably heading towards disaster.
Kaushik Kapisthalam is a freelance defense and strategic affairs analyst based in the United States. He can be reached at contact@kapisthalam.com
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)
Musharraf and his Taliban 'pals'
Kaushik Kapisthalam
The signs are unmistakable: America's "war on terror" is in jeopardy in Afghanistan, although the locus of the renewed Taliban-led efforts seems to be across the border in Pakistan.
Playing favorites
US and other Western government officials have always been lavish in their praise of Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf. Indeed, Musharraf's supposed about-turn on supporting the Taliban after the September 11 attacks is now accepted without question. Most Taliban emerged from madrassas (seminaries) in Pakistan. However, it has always been a reality that Musharraf has treated the Taliban differently than he did al-Qaeda. For instance, even though Pakistan has arrested and handed over to the US many senior al-Qaeda leaders, not a single senior Taliban commander has been handed over by Pakistan to either the US or the Afghan government.
It is an open secret in Pakistan that virtually the entire leadership of the Taliban military hierarchy lives and operates out of the city of Quetta, which is the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province. Since the fall of the Taliban in Kabul in late 2001, Western and Pakistani reporters have been able to interview Taliban commanders and other leading figures well inside Pakistan, especially around Quetta. Despite the documented facts, the Pakistan government has always flatly denied the presence of Taliban commanders in Quetta, or elsewhere inside Pakistan for that matter.
Afghan anger
The Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai has for some time been angry at the role of Pakistan in the recent resurgence of the Taliban. In the run-up to the Afghan presidential elections last year, Karzai complained about Taliban bases inside Pakistan to US President George W Bush. In the days that followed, Bush reportedly had a quiet conversation with Musharraf, asking him to look into Taliban activity emanating from Quetta. The Taliban attacks ended almost immediately.
The outgoing US ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, was a staunch critic of Pakistan's support for the Taliban. However, his anger was especially evident when he excoriated Pakistan a few weeks ago after a Pakistani television network was able to interview a Taliban commander named Mullah Usmani. Khalilzad questioned Pakistan's sincerity and wondered how a television network was able to talk to a Taliban commander even as Pakistani officials denied a Taliban presence in the country. What was left unsaid was that the US government soon came to know that Mullah Usmani gave the interview not from the tribal areas of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, but from the port city of Karachi.
To add substance to the allegations, Anis, the Afghan government daily, noted in its June 23 issue that Taliban were openly living in the Kachlogh and Pashtunabad regions of Quetta, and based their military presence in those regions. The report quoted people who recently visited Quetta and adjoining areas. The government-sponsored daily then went on to claim that senior Taliban leaders lived in residential blocks belonging to the Pakistani army in a place called Choni, which "is a military base and training center for the Pakistani army". Taliban commanders were being ferried inside Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), the report added.
Pakistan's fears
Ahmed Rashid, a noted expert on the Taliban, recently commented that behind Pakistan's continuing sponsorship of the Taliban and their destabilization efforts in Afghanistan lies a fear of India. During the Taliban years after they came into power in 1996, Pakistan essentially shut out other countries from Afghanistan. However, since the Taliban were deposed, India has moved into Afghanistan in a big way, with sponsorship of massive reconstruction projects, such as building key roads, hydroelectric facilities, schools and hospitals. While this may not seem dangerous to most observers, Pakistan's ruling elite have always taught themselves to see a sinister plot behind every Indian effort and the idea of an Indian presence on their Western borders accentuates Pakistani fears.
Pakistan's Urdu newspapers, whose content is tightly controlled by the government and intelligence agencies, routinely publish stories of "Indian agents" being involved in the separatist violence in Balochistan, and even the sectarian attacks deep inside Pakistan. Pakistan's military commanders and other leaders have also continued to point the finger at Indian "consulates" in the Afghan towns of Kandahar and Jalalabad as the source of troubles between Afghanistan and Pakistan. These fears, which many believe are unfounded, are used as a basis by the Pakistani establishment to justify continued support to the Taliban.
However, not many in Pakistan acknowledge what some see as extraordinary efforts by the US to accommodate Pakistani concerns in Afghanistan. To begin with, the US had pressed the Karzai government to restrict its security ties with India. The US also allowed Pakistan to veto a possible Indian military presence in Afghanistan, even though Indian troops there could have relieved the US of a tremendous burden, given the global American military deployment. American diplomats also pressured Karzai to curtail the power of former Northern Alliance elements, many of whom have been sidelined since 2004. This was done solely to assuage Pakistani concerns.
After the Afghan presidential election last year, the US negotiated a deal between the Karzai government and Pakistan under which former Taliban leaders would receive amnesty and be given roles in the government if they surrendered and renounced violence. For its part, Pakistan was supposed to hand over senior hardcore Taliban commanders to the Afghan government. However, when the time came for Pakistan to live up to its end of the bargain, the Musharraf government reneged. One former Western diplomat commented to Asia Times Online, "The Paks got greedy. They have figured that they need not settle for partial influence in Kabul when they can use the Talibs to control most of Afghanistan." The Pakistanis simply did not want to see a strong central government in Kabul, the diplomat added.
Musharraf's promise
Western leaders tout Musharraf's speech to Pakistanis a couple of days after September 11, in which he justified his decision to join the US side against jihadis. But few seem to recall that Musharraf made another less publicized speech on September 19, 2001 in Urdu, Pakistan's national language, in which he made it clear that he would do everything within his power to make sure that the Taliban emerged unharmed in the "war on terror". While the English-language speech was for Western consumption, the Urdu speech was meant to assuage his countrymen regarding the Taliban. Whether the US wants to admit it or not, it is patent now that Musharraf has kept that particular promise to protect the Taliban.
In a speech to the Australian Press Club in June this year, Musharraf justified Pakistan's support for the Taliban and insinuated that the US was to blame for September 11 because of its refusal to engage the Taliban regime before that event. To some, this was proof that the Pakistani establishment still felt that supporting the Taliban was in Pakistan's interests.
The former Western diplomat added that many in US military circles were deeply unhappy about Pakistan's role. The recent killing of US Navy special forces operatives and the downing of a US helicopter in northern Kunar province of Afghanistan were the handiwork not of the Taliban but of militiamen loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, according to the diplomat. Hekmatyar, who was based in Iran during the Taliban rule over Kabul, had now teamed up with Taliban commander Jalauddin Haqqani, both of whom were currently under the protection of the ISI, he said.
Musharraf and the Pakistani military establishment are unlikely to end their sponsorship of the Taliban, regardless of what the Afghan government or the coalition field commanders in Afghanistan may say or do. Some experts feel that it may be time for Bush to remind Musharraf that Pakistan can either be with the Taliban, or with the US - a choice that Musharraf supposedly made in favor of the latter soon after September 11. Without such pressure, however, it seems certain that America's Afghan project is inexorably heading towards disaster.
Kaushik Kapisthalam is a freelance defense and strategic affairs analyst based in the United States. He can be reached at contact@kapisthalam.com
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)
US Gen.: Taliban recruiting children Boston Globe
Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya delivers a speech in Bagram U.S. base, 35km (22 miles) north of Kabul, Afghanistan, during a ceremony where Maj. Kamiya took command of the 18,000-strong U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in this March 15, 2005 file photo. Fierce fighting in recent months has devastated the ranks of the Taliban, prompting the rebels to recruit children and force some families to provide one son to fight with them, the U.S. commander said. The fighting has fractured the Taliban's command structure, preventing the militants from regrouping, even though there has been an upsurge in violence, Maj. Gen. Kamiya, the U.S. military operational commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday, July 23, 2005. Fierce fighting in recent months has devastated the ranks of the Taliban, prompting the rebels to recruit children and force some families to provide one son to fight with them, a U.S. commander said Saturday. The fighting has fractured the Taliban's command structure, preventing the militants from regrouping, even though there has been an upsurge in violence, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, the U.S. military operational commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview. Despite the setback -- more than 500 rebels have been killed since March -- the militants are likely to step up attacks in the lead-up to crucial Sept. 18 legislative elections, he said. "The Taliban and al-Qaida feel that this is their final chance to impede Afghanistan's progress to ... becoming a nation," Kamiya said. "They will challenge us all the way through Sept. 18." He said the rebels were desperately trying to recruit new fighters to replace those killed recently, and has even forced families in some areas "to give up one son to fight." "They have been hit so hard they now have to recruit more fighters. They are recruiting younger and younger fighters: 14, 15 and 16 years-old," Kamiya said. "The enemy is having a hard time keeping its recruit rates up." While the rebels have long been thought to have children in their ranks, there have been few reports of wide-scale child recruiting by the Taliban -- especially of those as young as 14. Kamiya's comments come two days after the United Nations said that the majority of an estimated 8,000 child soldiers in Afghanistan -- mostly in the ranks of private militias now allied to the government -- would have been demobilized and enrolled in education programs by the end of this year. The effort has focused largely on areas outside the country's southern and eastern regions, where the Taliban are strongest. Afghan officials repeatedly have said that many of the Taliban's fighters come from Islamic boarding schools, or madrassas, in Pakistan. But Kamiya said the Taliban was now getting most of its fresh recruits from inside Afghanistan. He said part of the reason the rebels have suffered such unprecedented losses recently was that they have been caught gathering in large groups three times since April and pounded by airstrikes and ground forces. Some 170 suspected insurgents were killed in a weeklong battle in June in a mountainous militant hideout. "There is no (rebel) organizational chain of command ... because we have succeeded thus far in disrupting their means to regroup and conduct a coordinated attack," Kamiya said. "They can no longer move around with impunity." His comments came despite U.S. forces last month suffering their deadliest loss since ousting the Taliban in 2001, when militants ambushed a U.S. Navy SEAL team killing three commandos, and hours later shooting down a special forces helicopter with 16 troops on board. Since March, when the rebels increased their attacks, 45 U.S. troops have been killed. Hundreds of Afghans also have been slain in recent months in near-daily ambushes, bombings and execution-style killings. The increase in violence has prompted local politicians and international observers to caution that three years of progress toward peace was threatened. In the latest violence, suspected rebels fatally shot a district judge in southern Kandahar province Saturday, a day after militants killed a local administrator in the same area. Two Afghan election workers were kidnapped by unidentified assailants in northeastern Nuristan province Friday, but released unharmed the next day, officials said. The violence has prompted the U.S. military to deploy an extra 700 troops to Afghanistan to bolster the 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition. A separate 8,000-strong NATO-led force is also bringing in 3,000 more troops to boost security ahead of the polls.
US Gen.: Taliban Recruiting Children Guardian Unlimited
Taliban Recruiting Children: US 580 CFRA Radio
KVIA - Edinburgh Evening News - all 277 related »
Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya delivers a speech in Bagram U.S. base, 35km (22 miles) north of Kabul, Afghanistan, during a ceremony where Maj. Kamiya took command of the 18,000-strong U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in this March 15, 2005 file photo. Fierce fighting in recent months has devastated the ranks of the Taliban, prompting the rebels to recruit children and force some families to provide one son to fight with them, the U.S. commander said. The fighting has fractured the Taliban's command structure, preventing the militants from regrouping, even though there has been an upsurge in violence, Maj. Gen. Kamiya, the U.S. military operational commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday, July 23, 2005. Fierce fighting in recent months has devastated the ranks of the Taliban, prompting the rebels to recruit children and force some families to provide one son to fight with them, a U.S. commander said Saturday. The fighting has fractured the Taliban's command structure, preventing the militants from regrouping, even though there has been an upsurge in violence, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, the U.S. military operational commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview. Despite the setback -- more than 500 rebels have been killed since March -- the militants are likely to step up attacks in the lead-up to crucial Sept. 18 legislative elections, he said. "The Taliban and al-Qaida feel that this is their final chance to impede Afghanistan's progress to ... becoming a nation," Kamiya said. "They will challenge us all the way through Sept. 18." He said the rebels were desperately trying to recruit new fighters to replace those killed recently, and has even forced families in some areas "to give up one son to fight." "They have been hit so hard they now have to recruit more fighters. They are recruiting younger and younger fighters: 14, 15 and 16 years-old," Kamiya said. "The enemy is having a hard time keeping its recruit rates up." While the rebels have long been thought to have children in their ranks, there have been few reports of wide-scale child recruiting by the Taliban -- especially of those as young as 14. Kamiya's comments come two days after the United Nations said that the majority of an estimated 8,000 child soldiers in Afghanistan -- mostly in the ranks of private militias now allied to the government -- would have been demobilized and enrolled in education programs by the end of this year. The effort has focused largely on areas outside the country's southern and eastern regions, where the Taliban are strongest. Afghan officials repeatedly have said that many of the Taliban's fighters come from Islamic boarding schools, or madrassas, in Pakistan. But Kamiya said the Taliban was now getting most of its fresh recruits from inside Afghanistan. He said part of the reason the rebels have suffered such unprecedented losses recently was that they have been caught gathering in large groups three times since April and pounded by airstrikes and ground forces. Some 170 suspected insurgents were killed in a weeklong battle in June in a mountainous militant hideout. "There is no (rebel) organizational chain of command ... because we have succeeded thus far in disrupting their means to regroup and conduct a coordinated attack," Kamiya said. "They can no longer move around with impunity." His comments came despite U.S. forces last month suffering their deadliest loss since ousting the Taliban in 2001, when militants ambushed a U.S. Navy SEAL team killing three commandos, and hours later shooting down a special forces helicopter with 16 troops on board. Since March, when the rebels increased their attacks, 45 U.S. troops have been killed. Hundreds of Afghans also have been slain in recent months in near-daily ambushes, bombings and execution-style killings. The increase in violence has prompted local politicians and international observers to caution that three years of progress toward peace was threatened. In the latest violence, suspected rebels fatally shot a district judge in southern Kandahar province Saturday, a day after militants killed a local administrator in the same area. Two Afghan election workers were kidnapped by unidentified assailants in northeastern Nuristan province Friday, but released unharmed the next day, officials said. The violence has prompted the U.S. military to deploy an extra 700 troops to Afghanistan to bolster the 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition. A separate 8,000-strong NATO-led force is also bringing in 3,000 more troops to boost security ahead of the polls.
US Gen.: Taliban Recruiting Children Guardian Unlimited
Taliban Recruiting Children: US 580 CFRA Radio
KVIA - Edinburgh Evening News - all 277 related »
Up to 50 Taliban killed in Afghan fighting-governor Reuters AlertNet
US and Afghan forces have killed up to 50 Taliban fighters in attacks in the central province of Uruzgan, the provincial governor said on Tuesday. A major Taliban ammunition depot was destroyed during the fighting late on Monday in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan and 25 Taliban guerrillas were captured, Uruzgan's Governor Jan Mohammad Khan told Reuters. "We have suffered some losses too, but I do not know how many," he said. "Between 40 and 50 Taliban men died in the fighting and bombing." Guerrilla violence has surged in Afghanistan ahead of parliamentary elections in September, the next big step in the country's difficult path to stability.
Forty Taliban killed in raid in Afghanistan Mail & Guardian Online
50 suspected Taliban killed in Afghanistan Boston Globe
USA Today - EiTB - Zaman Online - Radio Free Afghanistan - all 102 related »
US and Afghan forces have killed up to 50 Taliban fighters in attacks in the central province of Uruzgan, the provincial governor said on Tuesday. A major Taliban ammunition depot was destroyed during the fighting late on Monday in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan and 25 Taliban guerrillas were captured, Uruzgan's Governor Jan Mohammad Khan told Reuters. "We have suffered some losses too, but I do not know how many," he said. "Between 40 and 50 Taliban men died in the fighting and bombing." Guerrilla violence has surged in Afghanistan ahead of parliamentary elections in September, the next big step in the country's difficult path to stability.
Forty Taliban killed in raid in Afghanistan Mail & Guardian Online
50 suspected Taliban killed in Afghanistan Boston Globe
USA Today - EiTB - Zaman Online - Radio Free Afghanistan - all 102 related »
Up to 50 Taliban said killed in Afghan fighting Reuters AlertNet
US and Afghan forces killed up to 50 Taliban fighters in central Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Tuesday after the latest burst of violence in the run-up to crucial September elections. A major Taliban ammunition depot was destroyed and 25 guerrillas captured in the fighting late on Monday in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan province, Governor Jan Mohammad Khan said. "We have suffered some losses too, but I do not know how many," he told Reuters. "Between 40 and 50 Taliban men died in the fighting and bombing." U.S. and government forces have been responding to a surge in militant violence ahead of Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, the next big step in the country's difficult path to stability. Monday's fighting followed a clash in a village in the same district earlier that day in which six Afghan troops and one American soldier were killed, Khan said. Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi confirmed the loss of a major ammunition dump. But he put guerrilla losses at four and said more than 20 Afghan and U.S. troops died. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry O'Hara described Monday's fighting as a "successful" operation, but would neither confirm nor deny Khan's figures on Taliban losses. He said the operation was continuing. O'Hara said on Monday that 11 insurgents were killed to the west of Deh Rawud town, along with one American and one Afghan soldier. Another U.S. soldier was killed in an attack in the southern province of Helmand on Sunday.
TALIBAN REORGANISATION
Separately, Taliban guerrillas killed a district police chief in neighbouring Zabul province overnight, a local official said, while the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted police as saying that an election candidate was killed when his vehicle hit a landmine in the southeastern province of Paktika. The latest violence has followed a call by the Taliban's fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, urging unity in the fight against the Afghan government and foreign forces. Taliban spokesman Hakimi said Omar had divided Afghanistan into two war zones -- eastern and southern -- to make guerrilla efforts more effective, and commissions comprising 14 commanders had been established for each of the two zones. They would report to a leadership council expanded from 10 to 18 members, which would be supervised by two senior commanders, Mullah Brother and Mullah Obaidullah, who would report to Omar. Omar's whereabouts have remained unknown since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities in 2001. Elsewhere on Tuesday, about 2,000 Afghans chanted anti-U.S. slogans outside the main American base at Bagram to the north of Kabul after the arrest of several villagers in what the U.S. military called an anti-insurgent operation. O'Hara said U.S. and Afghan forces arrested eight people in a raid on a compound during which troops found improvised bombs. The protesters complained that three men had been detained when U.S. troops entered a house in Bagram village without permission and demanded their release. It was the biggest anti-U.S. protest since 16 people were killed and scores injured in May following a Newsweek magazine article -- later retracted -- that U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba desecrated the Koran, Islam's holy book.
(Additional reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai in SPIN BOLDAK and Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL)
Violence spikes in Afghanistan; American among dead Seattle Times
Afghan insurgents urged to unite BBC News
Indianapolis Star - Swissinfo - Zaman Online - all 64 related »
US and Afghan forces killed up to 50 Taliban fighters in central Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Tuesday after the latest burst of violence in the run-up to crucial September elections. A major Taliban ammunition depot was destroyed and 25 guerrillas captured in the fighting late on Monday in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan province, Governor Jan Mohammad Khan said. "We have suffered some losses too, but I do not know how many," he told Reuters. "Between 40 and 50 Taliban men died in the fighting and bombing." U.S. and government forces have been responding to a surge in militant violence ahead of Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, the next big step in the country's difficult path to stability. Monday's fighting followed a clash in a village in the same district earlier that day in which six Afghan troops and one American soldier were killed, Khan said. Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi confirmed the loss of a major ammunition dump. But he put guerrilla losses at four and said more than 20 Afghan and U.S. troops died. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry O'Hara described Monday's fighting as a "successful" operation, but would neither confirm nor deny Khan's figures on Taliban losses. He said the operation was continuing. O'Hara said on Monday that 11 insurgents were killed to the west of Deh Rawud town, along with one American and one Afghan soldier. Another U.S. soldier was killed in an attack in the southern province of Helmand on Sunday.
TALIBAN REORGANISATION
Separately, Taliban guerrillas killed a district police chief in neighbouring Zabul province overnight, a local official said, while the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted police as saying that an election candidate was killed when his vehicle hit a landmine in the southeastern province of Paktika. The latest violence has followed a call by the Taliban's fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, urging unity in the fight against the Afghan government and foreign forces. Taliban spokesman Hakimi said Omar had divided Afghanistan into two war zones -- eastern and southern -- to make guerrilla efforts more effective, and commissions comprising 14 commanders had been established for each of the two zones. They would report to a leadership council expanded from 10 to 18 members, which would be supervised by two senior commanders, Mullah Brother and Mullah Obaidullah, who would report to Omar. Omar's whereabouts have remained unknown since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities in 2001. Elsewhere on Tuesday, about 2,000 Afghans chanted anti-U.S. slogans outside the main American base at Bagram to the north of Kabul after the arrest of several villagers in what the U.S. military called an anti-insurgent operation. O'Hara said U.S. and Afghan forces arrested eight people in a raid on a compound during which troops found improvised bombs. The protesters complained that three men had been detained when U.S. troops entered a house in Bagram village without permission and demanded their release. It was the biggest anti-U.S. protest since 16 people were killed and scores injured in May following a Newsweek magazine article -- later retracted -- that U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba desecrated the Koran, Islam's holy book.
(Additional reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai in SPIN BOLDAK and Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL)
Violence spikes in Afghanistan; American among dead Seattle Times
Afghan insurgents urged to unite BBC News
Indianapolis Star - Swissinfo - Zaman Online - all 64 related »
Dozens killed in Afghanistan fighting:
Fighting between Taliban rebels and US and Afghan forces has killed about 50 suspected insurgents and two Afghan soldiers in the deadliest clashes in weeks.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EC9...80E36A8F8AA.htm
http://snipurl.com/gip4
Fighting between Taliban rebels and US and Afghan forces has killed about 50 suspected insurgents and two Afghan soldiers in the deadliest clashes in weeks.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EC9...80E36A8F8AA.htm
http://snipurl.com/gip4
===
Special Forces soldier killed in Afghanistan:
A Green Beret based at Fort Bragg died last week after he was attacked in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense said Tuesday.
http://snipurl.com/gip5
Special Forces soldier killed in Afghanistan:
A Green Beret based at Fort Bragg died last week after he was attacked in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense said Tuesday.
http://snipurl.com/gip5
Soldiers escape Afghan helicopter fire Ireland Online
A US-led Chinook helicopter was destroyed by a fire that broke out as it made a “hard landing” with six crew and 25 Afghan troops on board, the US military said today. No one was hurt. The incident occurred as the massive, twin-rotor aircraft was rushing troops to tackle militants near Spin Boldak, a town close to the border with Pakistan, a military statement said. It said hostile fire was not involved. US military spokesman Lt Col Jerry O’Hara said there were no casualties among the six crew and 25 troops on board. The accident comes a month after a Chinook that had been modified for special forces operations was shot down in eastern Kunar province, also near the border with Pakistan, killing all 16 US forces on board. In April, 15 US service members and three US civilians were killed when their Chinook went down in a sandstorm while returning to the main US base at Bagram. In a separate statement today, the military released the findings of an investigation into the cause of that crash. It said “the aircraft encountered a severe dust storm with winds over 45 knots that caused the pilots to lose outside visibility”.
US chopper wrecked by hard landing in Afghanistan Reuters AlertNet
US chopper wrecked by hard landing in Afghanistan Reuters.uk
BBC News - Guardian Unlimited - People's Daily Online - all 90 related »
A US-led Chinook helicopter was destroyed by a fire that broke out as it made a “hard landing” with six crew and 25 Afghan troops on board, the US military said today. No one was hurt. The incident occurred as the massive, twin-rotor aircraft was rushing troops to tackle militants near Spin Boldak, a town close to the border with Pakistan, a military statement said. It said hostile fire was not involved. US military spokesman Lt Col Jerry O’Hara said there were no casualties among the six crew and 25 troops on board. The accident comes a month after a Chinook that had been modified for special forces operations was shot down in eastern Kunar province, also near the border with Pakistan, killing all 16 US forces on board. In April, 15 US service members and three US civilians were killed when their Chinook went down in a sandstorm while returning to the main US base at Bagram. In a separate statement today, the military released the findings of an investigation into the cause of that crash. It said “the aircraft encountered a severe dust storm with winds over 45 knots that caused the pilots to lose outside visibility”.
US chopper wrecked by hard landing in Afghanistan Reuters AlertNet
US chopper wrecked by hard landing in Afghanistan Reuters.uk
BBC News - Guardian Unlimited - People's Daily Online - all 90 related »
washingtonpost.com
Prominent Afghan Clerics Targeted by Taliban, Authorities Say
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; A10
KABUL, Afghanistan -- It began with a spray of bullets and splintering glass. Maulvi Abdullah Fayyaz, a leading religious scholar in the southern city of Kandahar, was working in his office May 29 when two men on a motorbike pulled up outside the window and opened fire, leaving him dead.
Next to be killed was Eida Khan, the outspoken headmaster of a religious school in eastern Paktika province. He was dragged from his classroom at gunpoint June 16 and beheaded outside.
By the time Maulvi Niamatullah was shot to death in a remote district of Kandahar province July 24, he was the sixth prominent Afghan cleric to be slain by unknown assailants in less than two months, and the authorities had reached a disturbing conclusion.
"These murders are not coincidences. They are part of a strategy by Taliban fighters to kill Afghanistan's religious leaders," said Fazl Hadi Shinwari, head of the national council of religious scholars as well as chief justice of the Supreme Court.
A purported spokesman for the insurgent Taliban militia, Abdul Latif Hakimi, has asserted responsibility for Fayyaz's and Niamatullah's deaths on behalf of the group. Shinwari, echoing other officials, said he had "no doubt" that the militia was behind all six killings.
In part, officials believe the slayings reflect a recent shift by the insurgents toward "soft" civilian targets -- including tribal leaders, judges, election workers and doctors who have been killed in a wave of attacks this year, apparently aimed at disrupting parliamentary elections scheduled for September.
But the bearded, mostly elderly men who make up Afghanistan's ulema, or religious clergy, appear to be a particular focus of aggression because they are a crucial source of legitimacy for Afghanistan's emerging government, according to Afghan and Western officials.
The ulema are loosely organized into provincial councils, or shuras, which send representatives to a national council of more than 2,000 clerics, known as the Ulema Shura. The network first coalesced in 2002 to issue a religious edict that nullified the Taliban's call for holy war against foreign forces and the Afghan government.
In January, after President Hamid Karzai declared a campaign to curb the opium trade, the Ulema Shura pronounced drug cultivation and trafficking un-Islamic. More recently, the group affirmed that it was the religious duty of Afghanistan's overwhelmingly Muslim citizens to support the upcoming elections.
"Afghanistan is a very religious country, and people put a lot of faith in what their religious leaders tell them," said Sayed Hussein Halemi Balkhi, a member of the council. "When an edict comes from the Ulema Shura, they accept that."
The influence of the Afghan clergy is especially threatening to the insurgents, experts said, because the Taliban first emerged as a movement of religious students and based its claim to power on a promise to return Afghanistan to what its leaders asserted was the true practice of Islam.
"Someone who has the capacity to break down the religious authority of the Taliban is probably the most dangerous threat to them on the propaganda front," observed a Western diplomat based in Afghanistan.
That possibility was thrown into stark relief in May when Fayyaz convened clerics from across the country to strip Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader, of the title he had taken during the militia's rule: leader of the faithful. In 1995, the village cleric had claimed the highly symbolic designation before a throng of cheering followers, wrapping himself in a cloak reputed to have belonged to the prophet Muhammad.
Ten days after the May meeting, Fayyaz was assassinated. And several days after that, a suicide bomber attacked the mosque where Fayyaz's memorial service was being held, killing 20 mourners.
In retrospect, said a senior Afghan official, "we should have thought better about the implications" of nullifying Omar's title and "asked the clerics if they appreciated the risks. . . . This was an extremely daring thing for them to do, and it clearly led to the start of the killing of the clerics."
Shinwari, the chief justice, said informants told him that soon after Fayyaz's assassination, Taliban leaders met in Pakistan near the Afghan border to discuss whether to continue killing clerics. "Just one person opposed it," Shinwari said.
The Muslim clergymen targeted since then have been a diverse group. Some had been actively preaching in favor of the government, including Maulvi Saleh Mohammed, the head of the provincial council of southern Helmand province, who was shot on his way to morning prayers July 13. Eida Khan was known for using sermons to accuse neighboring Pakistan of fomenting terrorism.
Other victims were not considered particularly outspoken. One was the deputy leader of the Paktika provincial council, Maulvi Agha Jan, who was shot and stabbed to death with his wife July 7 by assailants who crept into their home while they slept.
Although clerics have been assassinated before now, the frequency and range of the recent attacks point to the Taliban insurgency's growing strength, experts and diplomats said.
Yet Afghan and Western officials also contend that the Islamic militia's willingness to risk alienating Afghans by killing religious leaders suggests a measure of desperation -- and may explain why the group has asserted responsibility for only several of the slayings.
"This is a self-defeating strategy in the long run," a Western official said.
Already, however, there are signs of a chilling effect.
"Definitely, some of our members said they will no longer speak out in favor of the government until they have protection," said Maulvi Sayed Imam, a leading member of the Kandahar shura, speaking by telephone. He said he no longer travels through the province to spread his message because it is too unsafe.
Balkhi said some clerics are also beginning to resent the government for failing to follow the Ulema Shura's more conservative decrees, including demands that TV shows stop featuring women dancing and singing and that the ban on selling alcohol be more stringently enforced.
"They feel that they face the danger for supporting the government but don't get anything from the government in exchange," he said.
The unease was palpable recently when members of the Ulema Shura gathered in a house in Kabul for a week-long meeting. Men in long beards and an assortment of turban styles greeted each other warmly, but some spoke of feeling sorrowful that so many of their number were no longer alive to attend.
"In one way, we are happy they were martyred, because God promises that this means they will get special treatment," said Maulvi Enayatullah Balekh of Kapisa province. "But we feel sad in our hearts that we cannot see them anymore."
Others leafed morosely through the Ulema Shura's newspaper, dominated by reports of Karzai and Shinwari denouncing the killings.
Abdul Samad, a cleric from central Uruzgan province, arrived limping from a mine attack several weeks ago that left shrapnel in his foot. "I received several death threats before it happened," he said.
Noor Ala, an administrator for the shura, said Maulvi Agha of Paktika had recently complained of feeling insecure.
"Two weeks later, he was dead," Ala said.
Shinwari said he had asked the government to assign police officers to protect the clerics, but some at the meeting said they doubted that would solve the problem.
"If we have bodyguards, it means that we are on the side of the government," said Maulvi Esarullah of eastern Nangahar province. "We are supposed to be impartial."
"I don't want security for just us," said Abdul Basir Mahboubi of central Wardak province. "I want security for all of Afghanistan."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Prominent Afghan Clerics Targeted by Taliban, Authorities Say
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; A10
KABUL, Afghanistan -- It began with a spray of bullets and splintering glass. Maulvi Abdullah Fayyaz, a leading religious scholar in the southern city of Kandahar, was working in his office May 29 when two men on a motorbike pulled up outside the window and opened fire, leaving him dead.
Next to be killed was Eida Khan, the outspoken headmaster of a religious school in eastern Paktika province. He was dragged from his classroom at gunpoint June 16 and beheaded outside.
By the time Maulvi Niamatullah was shot to death in a remote district of Kandahar province July 24, he was the sixth prominent Afghan cleric to be slain by unknown assailants in less than two months, and the authorities had reached a disturbing conclusion.
"These murders are not coincidences. They are part of a strategy by Taliban fighters to kill Afghanistan's religious leaders," said Fazl Hadi Shinwari, head of the national council of religious scholars as well as chief justice of the Supreme Court.
A purported spokesman for the insurgent Taliban militia, Abdul Latif Hakimi, has asserted responsibility for Fayyaz's and Niamatullah's deaths on behalf of the group. Shinwari, echoing other officials, said he had "no doubt" that the militia was behind all six killings.
In part, officials believe the slayings reflect a recent shift by the insurgents toward "soft" civilian targets -- including tribal leaders, judges, election workers and doctors who have been killed in a wave of attacks this year, apparently aimed at disrupting parliamentary elections scheduled for September.
But the bearded, mostly elderly men who make up Afghanistan's ulema, or religious clergy, appear to be a particular focus of aggression because they are a crucial source of legitimacy for Afghanistan's emerging government, according to Afghan and Western officials.
The ulema are loosely organized into provincial councils, or shuras, which send representatives to a national council of more than 2,000 clerics, known as the Ulema Shura. The network first coalesced in 2002 to issue a religious edict that nullified the Taliban's call for holy war against foreign forces and the Afghan government.
In January, after President Hamid Karzai declared a campaign to curb the opium trade, the Ulema Shura pronounced drug cultivation and trafficking un-Islamic. More recently, the group affirmed that it was the religious duty of Afghanistan's overwhelmingly Muslim citizens to support the upcoming elections.
"Afghanistan is a very religious country, and people put a lot of faith in what their religious leaders tell them," said Sayed Hussein Halemi Balkhi, a member of the council. "When an edict comes from the Ulema Shura, they accept that."
The influence of the Afghan clergy is especially threatening to the insurgents, experts said, because the Taliban first emerged as a movement of religious students and based its claim to power on a promise to return Afghanistan to what its leaders asserted was the true practice of Islam.
"Someone who has the capacity to break down the religious authority of the Taliban is probably the most dangerous threat to them on the propaganda front," observed a Western diplomat based in Afghanistan.
That possibility was thrown into stark relief in May when Fayyaz convened clerics from across the country to strip Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader, of the title he had taken during the militia's rule: leader of the faithful. In 1995, the village cleric had claimed the highly symbolic designation before a throng of cheering followers, wrapping himself in a cloak reputed to have belonged to the prophet Muhammad.
Ten days after the May meeting, Fayyaz was assassinated. And several days after that, a suicide bomber attacked the mosque where Fayyaz's memorial service was being held, killing 20 mourners.
In retrospect, said a senior Afghan official, "we should have thought better about the implications" of nullifying Omar's title and "asked the clerics if they appreciated the risks. . . . This was an extremely daring thing for them to do, and it clearly led to the start of the killing of the clerics."
Shinwari, the chief justice, said informants told him that soon after Fayyaz's assassination, Taliban leaders met in Pakistan near the Afghan border to discuss whether to continue killing clerics. "Just one person opposed it," Shinwari said.
The Muslim clergymen targeted since then have been a diverse group. Some had been actively preaching in favor of the government, including Maulvi Saleh Mohammed, the head of the provincial council of southern Helmand province, who was shot on his way to morning prayers July 13. Eida Khan was known for using sermons to accuse neighboring Pakistan of fomenting terrorism.
Other victims were not considered particularly outspoken. One was the deputy leader of the Paktika provincial council, Maulvi Agha Jan, who was shot and stabbed to death with his wife July 7 by assailants who crept into their home while they slept.
Although clerics have been assassinated before now, the frequency and range of the recent attacks point to the Taliban insurgency's growing strength, experts and diplomats said.
Yet Afghan and Western officials also contend that the Islamic militia's willingness to risk alienating Afghans by killing religious leaders suggests a measure of desperation -- and may explain why the group has asserted responsibility for only several of the slayings.
"This is a self-defeating strategy in the long run," a Western official said.
Already, however, there are signs of a chilling effect.
"Definitely, some of our members said they will no longer speak out in favor of the government until they have protection," said Maulvi Sayed Imam, a leading member of the Kandahar shura, speaking by telephone. He said he no longer travels through the province to spread his message because it is too unsafe.
Balkhi said some clerics are also beginning to resent the government for failing to follow the Ulema Shura's more conservative decrees, including demands that TV shows stop featuring women dancing and singing and that the ban on selling alcohol be more stringently enforced.
"They feel that they face the danger for supporting the government but don't get anything from the government in exchange," he said.
The unease was palpable recently when members of the Ulema Shura gathered in a house in Kabul for a week-long meeting. Men in long beards and an assortment of turban styles greeted each other warmly, but some spoke of feeling sorrowful that so many of their number were no longer alive to attend.
"In one way, we are happy they were martyred, because God promises that this means they will get special treatment," said Maulvi Enayatullah Balekh of Kapisa province. "But we feel sad in our hearts that we cannot see them anymore."
Others leafed morosely through the Ulema Shura's newspaper, dominated by reports of Karzai and Shinwari denouncing the killings.
Abdul Samad, a cleric from central Uruzgan province, arrived limping from a mine attack several weeks ago that left shrapnel in his foot. "I received several death threats before it happened," he said.
Noor Ala, an administrator for the shura, said Maulvi Agha of Paktika had recently complained of feeling insecure.
"Two weeks later, he was dead," Ala said.
Shinwari said he had asked the government to assign police officers to protect the clerics, but some at the meeting said they doubted that would solve the problem.
"If we have bodyguards, it means that we are on the side of the government," said Maulvi Esarullah of eastern Nangahar province. "We are supposed to be impartial."
"I don't want security for just us," said Abdul Basir Mahboubi of central Wardak province. "I want security for all of Afghanistan."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...al_050801110109
Taliban becoming more ruthless in Afghanistan, says US general
Mon Aug 1, 7:01 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) -
Afghanistan's Taliban have become more ruthless and more willing to use suicide bombers and child soldiers in attacks, a US general said, vowing that polls next month would go ahead regardless.
"The US and Coalition forces are going to fight our way up to and through the elections," said Major General Jason Kamiya, the operational commander of the US-led forces fighting Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan.
"The Taliban are becoming more ruthless," he said. "They are targeting governmental leaders and popular Muslim religious leaders. We're seeing an increased threat to use suicide bombers."
Speaking at a Kabul press conference, he said that "Al-Qaeda and associated movements were handed a strategic defeat last year with Afghanistan's election of a president, but they will continue to challenge us".
More than 400 enemy fighters had been killed or captured in southern Afghanistan this year, driving the insurgents to resort to more extreme tactics because they could not defeat US forces in the field, Kamiya said.
Five clerics had been killed in southern and eastern Afghanistan in the past two months, and 21 people had been killed in the suicide bombing of the funeral of a cleric in the southern city of Kandahar, he said.
Kamiya said the Taliban's recruiting had been affected and the insurgents were increasingly using young and poorly trained fighters. He has earlier said some insurgents were thought to be only 14 years old.
"They are having trouble attracting recruits and they are forcing families to provide a son to serve in their ranks," the general said Monday. "We know this because the enemy fighters we kill are younger and less experienced."
Political violence in Afghanistan has escalated in recent months with more than 800 people killed so far this year compared to 850 in all of 2004.
The country goes to the polls on September 18 to elect a parliament and provincial councils after voting in President Hamid Karzai in October last year in elections that were held without widely-anticipated bloodshed.
An additional 1.6 million people have registered in recent weeks to vote in the upcoming elections, say officials, bringing the number of registered Afghan voters to around 12 million.
The total number of eligible voters is not known as a census has not been carried out in years but the total population is thought to be about 28 million, based on projections from 1980s figures.
Taliban becoming more ruthless in Afghanistan, says US general
Mon Aug 1, 7:01 AM ET
KABUL (AFP) -
Afghanistan's Taliban have become more ruthless and more willing to use suicide bombers and child soldiers in attacks, a US general said, vowing that polls next month would go ahead regardless.
"The US and Coalition forces are going to fight our way up to and through the elections," said Major General Jason Kamiya, the operational commander of the US-led forces fighting Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan.
"The Taliban are becoming more ruthless," he said. "They are targeting governmental leaders and popular Muslim religious leaders. We're seeing an increased threat to use suicide bombers."
Speaking at a Kabul press conference, he said that "Al-Qaeda and associated movements were handed a strategic defeat last year with Afghanistan's election of a president, but they will continue to challenge us".
More than 400 enemy fighters had been killed or captured in southern Afghanistan this year, driving the insurgents to resort to more extreme tactics because they could not defeat US forces in the field, Kamiya said.
Five clerics had been killed in southern and eastern Afghanistan in the past two months, and 21 people had been killed in the suicide bombing of the funeral of a cleric in the southern city of Kandahar, he said.
Kamiya said the Taliban's recruiting had been affected and the insurgents were increasingly using young and poorly trained fighters. He has earlier said some insurgents were thought to be only 14 years old.
"They are having trouble attracting recruits and they are forcing families to provide a son to serve in their ranks," the general said Monday. "We know this because the enemy fighters we kill are younger and less experienced."
Political violence in Afghanistan has escalated in recent months with more than 800 people killed so far this year compared to 850 in all of 2004.
The country goes to the polls on September 18 to elect a parliament and provincial councils after voting in President Hamid Karzai in October last year in elections that were held without widely-anticipated bloodshed.
An additional 1.6 million people have registered in recent weeks to vote in the upcoming elections, say officials, bringing the number of registered Afghan voters to around 12 million.
The total number of eligible voters is not known as a census has not been carried out in years but the total population is thought to be about 28 million, based on projections from 1980s figures.
Insurgents kill eight Afghan soldiers, police in attack on post:
Elsewhere a shootout left five people dead, while suspected militants also killed on election worker in the latest violence to hit the country ahead of next month's landmark elections.
http://snipurl.com/gp2e
Elsewhere a shootout left five people dead, while suspected militants also killed on election worker in the latest violence to hit the country ahead of next month's landmark elections.
http://snipurl.com/gp2e
Five soldiers killed in North Waziristan blast:
Five soldiers were killed and two others sustained injuries on Thursday when their military vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/aug2005-dai...main/main10.htm
http://snipurl.com/gr46
Five soldiers were killed and two others sustained injuries on Thursday when their military vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/aug2005-dai...main/main10.htm
http://snipurl.com/gr46
I killed US troops, British al-Qaeda gunman claims:
A MASKED British gunman claiming to be fighting with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan appeared on an Arabic satellite channel yesterday describing how he killed a team of US Special Forces.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22...1723202,00.html
http://snipurl.com/gqh0
A MASKED British gunman claiming to be fighting with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan appeared on an Arabic satellite channel yesterday describing how he killed a team of US Special Forces.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22...1723202,00.html
http://snipurl.com/gqh0
U.S to transfer hundreds of Afghan prisoners:
The United States will return about 110 Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo, Cuba, to Afghanistan, where the Kabul government will decide whether to detain or release them, the two countries said on Thursday.
http://snipurl.com/7736
The United States will return about 110 Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo, Cuba, to Afghanistan, where the Kabul government will decide whether to detain or release them, the two countries said on Thursday.
http://snipurl.com/7736
Villagers say civilians killed in U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan:
Afghan villagers said Thursday that U.S. warplanes had bombed houses, killing several civilians and wounding others, including an infant.
http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cf...0F-297AD8EA3254
http://snipurl.com/gwu3
Army Paratrooper in Afghanistan Dies From Wounds:
An 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper died as a result of wounds he received during an improvised explosive device attack near Ghazni, Afghanistan, Aug. 9.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2005/20050812_2406.html
http://snipurl.com/gwu4
Bomb blast wounds four at Afghan market: .
Elsewhere in the region, a gunfight between police and suspected Taliban rebels left two officers and three militants dead
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/new...ws/12367690.htm
http://snipurl.com/gwu5
Afghan villagers said Thursday that U.S. warplanes had bombed houses, killing several civilians and wounding others, including an infant.
http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cf...0F-297AD8EA3254
http://snipurl.com/gwu3
Army Paratrooper in Afghanistan Dies From Wounds:
An 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper died as a result of wounds he received during an improvised explosive device attack near Ghazni, Afghanistan, Aug. 9.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2005/20050812_2406.html
http://snipurl.com/gwu4
Bomb blast wounds four at Afghan market: .
Elsewhere in the region, a gunfight between police and suspected Taliban rebels left two officers and three militants dead
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/new...ws/12367690.htm
http://snipurl.com/gwu5
Taliban behead four spies in Afghanistan:
Taliban militants beheaded four people, including a policeman, for allegedly spying for the US-led military
http://pakistantimes.net/2005/08/13/top17.htm#1907
http://snipurl.com/gxac
Two U.S. soldiers killed in explosions in Afghanistan:
A U.S. soldier was killed in an explosion on Thursday in Afghanistan, while an Army paratrooper died from wounds received in another explosion earlier in the week.
http://story.irishsun.com/p.x/ct/9/id/88b3...11cd3571b4f088/
http://snipurl.com/gxad
Taliban militants beheaded four people, including a policeman, for allegedly spying for the US-led military
http://pakistantimes.net/2005/08/13/top17.htm#1907
http://snipurl.com/gxac
Two U.S. soldiers killed in explosions in Afghanistan:
A U.S. soldier was killed in an explosion on Thursday in Afghanistan, while an Army paratrooper died from wounds received in another explosion earlier in the week.
http://story.irishsun.com/p.x/ct/9/id/88b3...11cd3571b4f088/
http://snipurl.com/gxad
US begins major Afghan offensive Aljazeera.com
US and Afghan forces started on Saturday a major offensive to retake a remote mountain valley from Afghan rebels the US claims are involved in two of the deadliest ambushes targeting the US forces in Afghanistan, according to a report published by AP news Agency. Last June, three Navy SEALs were killed by Afghan rebels, and all 16 soldiers on a helicopter sent to rescue them were killed when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The major offensive in eastern Kunar province, near the Pakistani border, came at the end of a deadly week for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where seven Americans and dozens of Afghan rebels and civilians were killed. U.S. and Afghan forces began on Saturday a new military operation to retake a remote mountain valley from Afghan rebels the U.S. claims are involved in two of the deadliest ambushes targeting the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to a report published by AP news Agency. Last June, three Navy SEALs were killed by Afghan rebels, and all 16 soldiers on a helicopter sent to rescue them were killed when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The major offensive in eastern Kunar province, near the Pakistani border, came at the end of a deadly week for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where seven Americans and dozens of Afghan rebels and civilians were killed. Afghan rebels fired rockets at a nearby U.S. post and a troop convoy but no casualties were reported. According to Kirimat Tanhah, a commander in the U.S.-trained and financed Afghan Special Forces, the operation, expected to last for two weeks, is targeting a rebels network led by a local Taliban officer, Ahmed Shah, who claimed responsibility for the June 28 attacks. "Ismail's men ambushed the SEAL team and shot down the helicopter," Tanhah told The Associated Press.
Marines use donkeys
Frustrated with the limitations of using modern Humvee four-wheel-drives in Afghan’s rugged mountains, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan started using donkeys in their military operations there. The U.S. military rented 30 donkeys from local farmers to use in transferring food and water to Afghan and U.S. forces in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province. "With all the smart bombs and the modern stuff in war nowadays, this is the best way for us to resupply our troops there," said Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which is based in Hawaii. "It's also much cheaper for the U.S. taxpayer for us to rent the donkeys than for everything to be air-dropped." Also using aircraft has become very dangerous, after a special forces Chinook helicopter was shot down last June, killing all 16 troops on board. Although some of the U.S. troops received training in handling donkeys at the Marines' Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Nev., before they come to Afghanistan, the donkeys' stubbornness to cooperate frustrates the soldiers. "Marines have used donkeys since the American revolution," said Capt. John Moshane, as each animal was being spray painted with a number for identification. Donkeys have long been used by armies in Afghanistan, including by Mujahadeen Independence fighters who were battling the Soviet troops in the 1980s.
US launches Afghanistan offensive Aljazeera.net
Marines trade Humvees for donkeys Globe and Mail
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US and Afghan forces started on Saturday a major offensive to retake a remote mountain valley from Afghan rebels the US claims are involved in two of the deadliest ambushes targeting the US forces in Afghanistan, according to a report published by AP news Agency. Last June, three Navy SEALs were killed by Afghan rebels, and all 16 soldiers on a helicopter sent to rescue them were killed when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The major offensive in eastern Kunar province, near the Pakistani border, came at the end of a deadly week for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where seven Americans and dozens of Afghan rebels and civilians were killed. U.S. and Afghan forces began on Saturday a new military operation to retake a remote mountain valley from Afghan rebels the U.S. claims are involved in two of the deadliest ambushes targeting the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to a report published by AP news Agency. Last June, three Navy SEALs were killed by Afghan rebels, and all 16 soldiers on a helicopter sent to rescue them were killed when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The major offensive in eastern Kunar province, near the Pakistani border, came at the end of a deadly week for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where seven Americans and dozens of Afghan rebels and civilians were killed. Afghan rebels fired rockets at a nearby U.S. post and a troop convoy but no casualties were reported. According to Kirimat Tanhah, a commander in the U.S.-trained and financed Afghan Special Forces, the operation, expected to last for two weeks, is targeting a rebels network led by a local Taliban officer, Ahmed Shah, who claimed responsibility for the June 28 attacks. "Ismail's men ambushed the SEAL team and shot down the helicopter," Tanhah told The Associated Press.
Marines use donkeys
Frustrated with the limitations of using modern Humvee four-wheel-drives in Afghan’s rugged mountains, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan started using donkeys in their military operations there. The U.S. military rented 30 donkeys from local farmers to use in transferring food and water to Afghan and U.S. forces in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province. "With all the smart bombs and the modern stuff in war nowadays, this is the best way for us to resupply our troops there," said Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, commander of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which is based in Hawaii. "It's also much cheaper for the U.S. taxpayer for us to rent the donkeys than for everything to be air-dropped." Also using aircraft has become very dangerous, after a special forces Chinook helicopter was shot down last June, killing all 16 troops on board. Although some of the U.S. troops received training in handling donkeys at the Marines' Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Nev., before they come to Afghanistan, the donkeys' stubbornness to cooperate frustrates the soldiers. "Marines have used donkeys since the American revolution," said Capt. John Moshane, as each animal was being spray painted with a number for identification. Donkeys have long been used by armies in Afghanistan, including by Mujahadeen Independence fighters who were battling the Soviet troops in the 1980s.
US launches Afghanistan offensive Aljazeera.net
Marines trade Humvees for donkeys Globe and Mail
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Former Members of the Taliban Turn Their Backs on Insurgency
By N.C. Aizenman
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A cartoon flickered on a television set in Abdul Samad Khaksar's living room as he took a drag from a cigarette and considered the merits of Afghanistan's former Taliban government.
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
By N.C. Aizenman
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A cartoon flickered on a television set in Abdul Samad Khaksar's living room as he took a drag from a cigarette and considered the merits of Afghanistan's former Taliban government.
To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle
Afghan offensive kills 28 rebels International Herald Tribune
KABUL The Afghan authorities were working on Tuesday to secure the release of a Lebanese engineer kidnapped by suspected Taliban rebels, a day after officials said at least 28 insurgents had been killed as part of a nationwide offensive against militants seeking to derail legislative elections next month. Meanwhile, U.S. Marines and Afghan forces pressed deeper into a valley near the border with Pakistan. The area is controlled by militants suspected of ambushing a team of U.S. commandos and shooting down a Special Forces helicopter on June 28, in the deadliest blow against Americans in Afghanistan since the U.S. ouster of the ruling Taliban in 2001. A U.S. military spokesman, Colonel James Yonts, said the operation was going well but might take a long time. Taliban rebels and other militants have stepped up attacks in the prelude to the Sept. 18 elections, the next major step toward democracy for Afghanistan after more than two decades of conflict. U.S. and Afghan officials have warned that the bloodshed, which has left nearly 1,000 people dead in less than six months, could threaten the elections. The Lebanese engineer, Mohammad Reza, who was working on a U.S.-funded road project, was taken captive by Taliban rebels as he drove on the main highway linking Kabul with the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday night, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Naweed Moez, said. No contact was reported to have been made with the kidnappers, but he said officials were working to secure Reza's release. In Zabul Province in the south, Afghan forces attacked a group of suspected militants, killing 16 and arresting one, a Defense Ministry statement said. It said the dead included a local Taliban commander, Mullah Nasir. In neighboring Uruzgan Province's Dehrawud district, a gun battle between Afghan soldiers and insurgents left five militants dead, the ministry said. In the adjacent Tirin Kot district, the police hunted down and killed six suspected guerrillas who had attacked a highway checkpoint, the provincial governor, Jan Mohammed Khan, reported. Nine alleged militants were also arrested there. A militant was also killed in Zabul as a mine that he was laying - apparently intended to hit a convoy of U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces - blew up prematurely, a local official, Rovi Khan, said. No members of the security forces were hurt in any of the incidents, all of which occurred on Sunday, according to the officials. A Defense Ministry spokesman, General Mohammed Saher Azimi, said the operation was nationwide but intensely focused on violence-plagued parts of the south and east. "We have enough troops to secure polling stations, and we are seeing successes every day in our fight against the militants," he said. "Their ability to disrupt the elections is diminishing." Yonts, the U.S. military spokesman, said the operation to take control of the valley in Kunar Province, where the twin assaults on the helicopter and the navy Seal commandos on June 28 left 19 U.S. service members dead, was part of the anti-guerrilla campaign ahead of the elections. "We are taking the fight to the enemy; it is not the enemy taking the fight to us," he said in Kabul. Hundreds of Afghan rebels, as well as militants from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Chechnya, are thought to be hiding in the region.
Lebanese engineer kidnapped NDTV.com
AFGHANISTAN: TALIBAN THREATENS TO KILL LEBANESE ENGINEER AKI
NewKerala.com - Virgin.net - GEO - all 176 related »
KABUL The Afghan authorities were working on Tuesday to secure the release of a Lebanese engineer kidnapped by suspected Taliban rebels, a day after officials said at least 28 insurgents had been killed as part of a nationwide offensive against militants seeking to derail legislative elections next month. Meanwhile, U.S. Marines and Afghan forces pressed deeper into a valley near the border with Pakistan. The area is controlled by militants suspected of ambushing a team of U.S. commandos and shooting down a Special Forces helicopter on June 28, in the deadliest blow against Americans in Afghanistan since the U.S. ouster of the ruling Taliban in 2001. A U.S. military spokesman, Colonel James Yonts, said the operation was going well but might take a long time. Taliban rebels and other militants have stepped up attacks in the prelude to the Sept. 18 elections, the next major step toward democracy for Afghanistan after more than two decades of conflict. U.S. and Afghan officials have warned that the bloodshed, which has left nearly 1,000 people dead in less than six months, could threaten the elections. The Lebanese engineer, Mohammad Reza, who was working on a U.S.-funded road project, was taken captive by Taliban rebels as he drove on the main highway linking Kabul with the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday night, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Naweed Moez, said. No contact was reported to have been made with the kidnappers, but he said officials were working to secure Reza's release. In Zabul Province in the south, Afghan forces attacked a group of suspected militants, killing 16 and arresting one, a Defense Ministry statement said. It said the dead included a local Taliban commander, Mullah Nasir. In neighboring Uruzgan Province's Dehrawud district, a gun battle between Afghan soldiers and insurgents left five militants dead, the ministry said. In the adjacent Tirin Kot district, the police hunted down and killed six suspected guerrillas who had attacked a highway checkpoint, the provincial governor, Jan Mohammed Khan, reported. Nine alleged militants were also arrested there. A militant was also killed in Zabul as a mine that he was laying - apparently intended to hit a convoy of U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces - blew up prematurely, a local official, Rovi Khan, said. No members of the security forces were hurt in any of the incidents, all of which occurred on Sunday, according to the officials. A Defense Ministry spokesman, General Mohammed Saher Azimi, said the operation was nationwide but intensely focused on violence-plagued parts of the south and east. "We have enough troops to secure polling stations, and we are seeing successes every day in our fight against the militants," he said. "Their ability to disrupt the elections is diminishing." Yonts, the U.S. military spokesman, said the operation to take control of the valley in Kunar Province, where the twin assaults on the helicopter and the navy Seal commandos on June 28 left 19 U.S. service members dead, was part of the anti-guerrilla campaign ahead of the elections. "We are taking the fight to the enemy; it is not the enemy taking the fight to us," he said in Kabul. Hundreds of Afghan rebels, as well as militants from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Chechnya, are thought to be hiding in the region.
Lebanese engineer kidnapped NDTV.com
AFGHANISTAN: TALIBAN THREATENS TO KILL LEBANESE ENGINEER AKI
NewKerala.com - Virgin.net - GEO - all 176 related »
Reservist convicted of abusing detainee Seattle Times
A military jury convicted an Army Reserve private yesterday of beating one of two detainees in Afghanistan who later died. The jury found Pfc. Willie Brand guilty of assault, maltreatment, false official swearing and maiming. It acquitted him of similar charges involving the second man.
Briefly: Vigil at community honors slain founder International Herald Tribune
Brother Roger, 90, Dies; Ecumenical Leader New York Times
BBC News - Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Guardian Unlimited - Independent - all 284 related »
A military jury convicted an Army Reserve private yesterday of beating one of two detainees in Afghanistan who later died. The jury found Pfc. Willie Brand guilty of assault, maltreatment, false official swearing and maiming. It acquitted him of similar charges involving the second man.
Briefly: Vigil at community honors slain founder International Herald Tribune
Brother Roger, 90, Dies; Ecumenical Leader New York Times
BBC News - Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Guardian Unlimited - Independent - all 284 related »
2 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan:
The two soldiers were traveling in an armored vehicle near the southern city of Kandahar, supporting a road construction project, when they were killed by a roadside bomb.
http://www.kten.com/article_print.asp?id=9668
http://snipurl.com/h1tk
Beaten To Death:
Military jury convicts Army reservist of abusing detainee in Afghanistan
http://www.abc15.com/news/morenews/index.asp?did=20822
http://snipurl.com/h1tl
The two soldiers were traveling in an armored vehicle near the southern city of Kandahar, supporting a road construction project, when they were killed by a roadside bomb.
http://www.kten.com/article_print.asp?id=9668
http://snipurl.com/h1tk
Beaten To Death:
Military jury convicts Army reservist of abusing detainee in Afghanistan
http://www.abc15.com/news/morenews/index.asp?did=20822
http://snipurl.com/h1tl
3 U.S. service members, Afghan killed in Afghanistan:
Militants clashed with coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, killing a U.S. Marine and an Afghan government soldier, as violence flared ahead of the nation's key legislative elections, the U.S. military said Friday.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08...htm?POE=NEWISVA
http://snipurl.com/h2vg
Militants clashed with coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, killing a U.S. Marine and an Afghan government soldier, as violence flared ahead of the nation's key legislative elections, the U.S. military said Friday.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08...htm?POE=NEWISVA
http://snipurl.com/h2vg
Roadside bomb kills 4 US soldiers Xinhua
Four US soldiers were killed and three others injured in a roadside bomb explosion in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, a US military statement said. The soldiers were patrolling in Daychopan district of Zabul province when the bomb exploded. They had been conducting offensive operations in support of an ongoing mission to search and defeat Taliban remnants in the area, according to the statement. The injured were sent to a nearby base for treatment and were said to be in stable condition.
Four US soldiers killed, three wounded in Afghanistan bombing Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription)
Afghan blast kills four US troops BBC News
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Four US soldiers were killed and three others injured in a roadside bomb explosion in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, a US military statement said. The soldiers were patrolling in Daychopan district of Zabul province when the bomb exploded. They had been conducting offensive operations in support of an ongoing mission to search and defeat Taliban remnants in the area, according to the statement. The injured were sent to a nearby base for treatment and were said to be in stable condition.
Four US soldiers killed, three wounded in Afghanistan bombing Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription)
Afghan blast kills four US troops BBC News
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Spain copter probe rules out Afghan attack - paper Reuters AlertNet
Spanish investigators probing a helicopter crash in Afghanistan which killed 17 peacekeepers have ruled out the possibility that it was shot down, El Pais newspaper reported on Sunday. The Cougar helicopter came down near the western city of Herat on Tuesday, killing all 17 troops who had been serving with the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). A second helicopter then carried out an emergency landing injuring five slightly. Defence Minister Jose Bono said on Tuesday that the helicopter could have been downed by an attack or an accident. A senior Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah said guerrillas had shot down the helicopter but offered no proof. But on Sunday newspapers El Pais and ABC, which quoted sources at the National Intelligence Centre, said no indications of an attack had been found. Herat is in a relatively secure part of Afghanistan and the Taliban and its Islamic allies are less active there than in other parts of the country. El Pais also said that investigators thought a technical fault was also unlikely to have caused the crash. No one at the Defence Ministry could comment on the press reports. Spain, which has roughly doubled its presence in Afghanistan ahead of the country's Sept. 18 parliamentary and provincial elections, will send 24 replacement troops on Monday, a Defence Ministry spokeswoman said. Bono is due to appear in parliament on Wednesday to discuss the disaster, the second for Spanish peacekeepers in Afghanistan. In 2003, 62 troops were killed when the plane bringing them home crashed in Turkey. Spain, which has about 840 troops in Afghanistan, held a state funeral for the 17 peacekeepers on Saturday, attended by a tearful royal family, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and several senior politicians.
Emotional funeral for Spanish troops Aljazeera.net
Spain Mourns Troops Killed in Afghanistan Guardian Unlimited
Special Broadcasting Service - TVNZ - Xinhua - Los Angeles Times - all 150 related »
Spanish investigators probing a helicopter crash in Afghanistan which killed 17 peacekeepers have ruled out the possibility that it was shot down, El Pais newspaper reported on Sunday. The Cougar helicopter came down near the western city of Herat on Tuesday, killing all 17 troops who had been serving with the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). A second helicopter then carried out an emergency landing injuring five slightly. Defence Minister Jose Bono said on Tuesday that the helicopter could have been downed by an attack or an accident. A senior Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah said guerrillas had shot down the helicopter but offered no proof. But on Sunday newspapers El Pais and ABC, which quoted sources at the National Intelligence Centre, said no indications of an attack had been found. Herat is in a relatively secure part of Afghanistan and the Taliban and its Islamic allies are less active there than in other parts of the country. El Pais also said that investigators thought a technical fault was also unlikely to have caused the crash. No one at the Defence Ministry could comment on the press reports. Spain, which has roughly doubled its presence in Afghanistan ahead of the country's Sept. 18 parliamentary and provincial elections, will send 24 replacement troops on Monday, a Defence Ministry spokeswoman said. Bono is due to appear in parliament on Wednesday to discuss the disaster, the second for Spanish peacekeepers in Afghanistan. In 2003, 62 troops were killed when the plane bringing them home crashed in Turkey. Spain, which has about 840 troops in Afghanistan, held a state funeral for the 17 peacekeepers on Saturday, attended by a tearful royal family, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and several senior politicians.
Emotional funeral for Spanish troops Aljazeera.net
Spain Mourns Troops Killed in Afghanistan Guardian Unlimited
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/internat...artner=homepage
G.I. Death Toll in Afghanistan Worst Since '01
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: August 22, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 21 - This year is already the deadliest for American soldiers in Afghanistan since the war of 2001, and the violence is likely to intensify before the nation's legislative elections on Sept. 18.
Pool photograph by Tomas Munita
A bodyguard secured the King's Palace of Jalalabad Sunday before President Hamid Karzai arrived.
Four soldiers were killed Sunday, meaning that 13 have been killed in August alone. Sixty-five Americans have been killed this year.
The latest four were killed when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the south. Three others were wounded in that bombing, the American military said. And two United States Embassy employees were wounded when their convoy was hit by an explosion close to Kabul, the capital, the military said.
While some fighters want to disrupt the elections, one Afghan general said others are coming in to help the ousted Taliban or Al Qaeda with the long-term aim of dislodging American troops from Afghanistan.
"The fact that fighters come across the border, that cannot be denied," the Afghan defense minister, Gen. Abdur Rahim Wardak, said in a recent interview. "There are more people crossing on mountain trails" connected to Pakistan, he said. Most of those coming in are described as Afghans, but others are said to be Pakistanis. General Wardak said the Taliban were saying they had acquired new antiaircraft missiles.
A senior security official said Al Qaeda was paying renewed attention to the country this year.
More money is coming in, probably from Arab countries, and a unit of Qaeda fighters has returned to the region from Iraq to teach local fighters an unspecified "new tactic they learned in Iraq," one security official said, explaining that he could not be identified because of the clandestine nature of his work.
While election workers and candidates have been attacked, the violence has spread wider, with the killings of more than six clerics and tribal elders since May. On Sunday, a cleric and another man were killed outside a district mosque, the latest of several attacks on pro-government clergy in which Taliban insurgents are suspected.
More than 40 Afghan National Army soldiers have been killed in combat since March, the defense minister said. And more than 50 policemen were killed in June and July, Interior Ministry figures show.
A total of 181 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan since military operations began in October 2001, more than 100 of them in attacks. One of the worst attacks took place in June, when 19 Americans died in the ambush of a Navy Seal team and the downing of a helicopter.
Foreign fighters from Pakistan and Central Asian states, and even from the Middle East and North Africa, have also been coming in, General Wardak said. "Dozens have been captured in the last two to three months," he said.
The soldiers killed Sunday were taking part in an operation to disrupt enemy forces in the Deychopan district of Zabul Province, an area of continued Taliban activity, the American military said in a statement. The three wounded men were injured in secondary explosions from ammunition in the stricken vehicle as they tried to save the men inside, it said.
The attack on the embassy convoy was perhaps more surprising, because it occurred close to Kabul, and was the first such attack in the area and on United States Embassy personnel in Afghanistan. The vehicle hit was part of a two-car convoy traveling on routine embassy business, said the embassy spokesman, Lou Fintor.
"Two Americans experienced minor injuries in the explosion and have been treated," he said. "The incident is under investigation."
The attack occurred on a dirt road in Paghman, a district west of Kabul. Although the area is known for its armed militias and thieves, no previous roadside bombings had occurred there.
A local television station showed videotape of the damaged American vehicle, with its hood blown off and the windscreen sprayed with dirt, but Afghan officials said that because it was an armored vehicle the passengers suffered only minor injuries.
Another Afghan security official, who asked not to be identified because he was not permitted to speak to reporters, said he suspected that Taliban elements were responsible rather than local militias, adding that the Taliban had supporters in every area.
In other incidents, Maulavi Abdullah Malang, the leader of the religious council in Panjwai district in Kandahar Province, and a supporter of the Afghan government, and a villager were fatally shot outside his mosque before dawn prayers on Sunday, Niaz Muhammad Sarhadi, the local district chief, said in a telephone interview.
Three men on a motorbike were seen fleeing the scene, he said. He blamed Taliban supporters for the attack. "They do not want people to cooperate with the government," he said. "They do not want good people and educated people."
Two Afghan policemen were also killed in Oruzgan, an adjacent province, and two fuel trucks destined for an American military base were ignited in Kunar Province in the east, The Associated Press reported.
Afghan officials said they expected more violence, in the form of bombings in major cities, assassinations of candidates and election officials and other "soft" targets, and armed attacks on polling stations or local government offices in some areas. Pakistanis who were arrested recently and Taliban fighters who surrendered to the government under an amnesty program described similar plans in recent interviews.
The Afghan officials said it was increasingly clear in recent weeks that the elections were not the only target,++ and they accused Pakistan, in particular, of supporting a long-term strategy of destabilization in Afghanistan to keep the country weak. "Maybe they see a stable Afghanistan as a threat to themselves," the security official said.
G.I. Death Toll in Afghanistan Worst Since '01
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: August 22, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 21 - This year is already the deadliest for American soldiers in Afghanistan since the war of 2001, and the violence is likely to intensify before the nation's legislative elections on Sept. 18.
Pool photograph by Tomas Munita
A bodyguard secured the King's Palace of Jalalabad Sunday before President Hamid Karzai arrived.
Four soldiers were killed Sunday, meaning that 13 have been killed in August alone. Sixty-five Americans have been killed this year.
The latest four were killed when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the south. Three others were wounded in that bombing, the American military said. And two United States Embassy employees were wounded when their convoy was hit by an explosion close to Kabul, the capital, the military said.
While some fighters want to disrupt the elections, one Afghan general said others are coming in to help the ousted Taliban or Al Qaeda with the long-term aim of dislodging American troops from Afghanistan.
"The fact that fighters come across the border, that cannot be denied," the Afghan defense minister, Gen. Abdur Rahim Wardak, said in a recent interview. "There are more people crossing on mountain trails" connected to Pakistan, he said. Most of those coming in are described as Afghans, but others are said to be Pakistanis. General Wardak said the Taliban were saying they had acquired new antiaircraft missiles.
A senior security official said Al Qaeda was paying renewed attention to the country this year.
More money is coming in, probably from Arab countries, and a unit of Qaeda fighters has returned to the region from Iraq to teach local fighters an unspecified "new tactic they learned in Iraq," one security official said, explaining that he could not be identified because of the clandestine nature of his work.
While election workers and candidates have been attacked, the violence has spread wider, with the killings of more than six clerics and tribal elders since May. On Sunday, a cleric and another man were killed outside a district mosque, the latest of several attacks on pro-government clergy in which Taliban insurgents are suspected.
More than 40 Afghan National Army soldiers have been killed in combat since March, the defense minister said. And more than 50 policemen were killed in June and July, Interior Ministry figures show.
A total of 181 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan since military operations began in October 2001, more than 100 of them in attacks. One of the worst attacks took place in June, when 19 Americans died in the ambush of a Navy Seal team and the downing of a helicopter.
Foreign fighters from Pakistan and Central Asian states, and even from the Middle East and North Africa, have also been coming in, General Wardak said. "Dozens have been captured in the last two to three months," he said.
The soldiers killed Sunday were taking part in an operation to disrupt enemy forces in the Deychopan district of Zabul Province, an area of continued Taliban activity, the American military said in a statement. The three wounded men were injured in secondary explosions from ammunition in the stricken vehicle as they tried to save the men inside, it said.
The attack on the embassy convoy was perhaps more surprising, because it occurred close to Kabul, and was the first such attack in the area and on United States Embassy personnel in Afghanistan. The vehicle hit was part of a two-car convoy traveling on routine embassy business, said the embassy spokesman, Lou Fintor.
"Two Americans experienced minor injuries in the explosion and have been treated," he said. "The incident is under investigation."
The attack occurred on a dirt road in Paghman, a district west of Kabul. Although the area is known for its armed militias and thieves, no previous roadside bombings had occurred there.
A local television station showed videotape of the damaged American vehicle, with its hood blown off and the windscreen sprayed with dirt, but Afghan officials said that because it was an armored vehicle the passengers suffered only minor injuries.
Another Afghan security official, who asked not to be identified because he was not permitted to speak to reporters, said he suspected that Taliban elements were responsible rather than local militias, adding that the Taliban had supporters in every area.
In other incidents, Maulavi Abdullah Malang, the leader of the religious council in Panjwai district in Kandahar Province, and a supporter of the Afghan government, and a villager were fatally shot outside his mosque before dawn prayers on Sunday, Niaz Muhammad Sarhadi, the local district chief, said in a telephone interview.
Three men on a motorbike were seen fleeing the scene, he said. He blamed Taliban supporters for the attack. "They do not want people to cooperate with the government," he said. "They do not want good people and educated people."
Two Afghan policemen were also killed in Oruzgan, an adjacent province, and two fuel trucks destined for an American military base were ignited in Kunar Province in the east, The Associated Press reported.
Afghan officials said they expected more violence, in the form of bombings in major cities, assassinations of candidates and election officials and other "soft" targets, and armed attacks on polling stations or local government offices in some areas. Pakistanis who were arrested recently and Taliban fighters who surrendered to the government under an amnesty program described similar plans in recent interviews.
The Afghan officials said it was increasingly clear in recent weeks that the elections were not the only target,++ and they accused Pakistan, in particular, of supporting a long-term strategy of destabilization in Afghanistan to keep the country weak. "Maybe they see a stable Afghanistan as a threat to themselves," the security official said.
The 5-Minute Briefing: Turmoil in Afghanistan Independent
Last year, it held presidential elections. This year, it is holding its first democratic parliamentary elections, on 18 September. The US hopes to hold them up to show Afghanistan has made a successful transition to democracy since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. For Afghans, they will be the culmination of a tumultuous four years that have seen them go from living under the medieval religious law of the Taliban to founding their first parliament.
How is the current security situation in Afghanistan?
Bad and getting worse. Since the euphoria after last year's presidential elections passed without serious violence, the level of bloodshed in Afghanistan has risen drastically this year. More than 1,000 people have been killed in fighting over the past six months. The majority have been insurgents but nearly 200 Afghan civilians have died in the bloodiest six months since the fall of the Taliban, as well as about 100 members of the Afghan security forces. Sixty-six US soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year. There have been attacks in Kabul, which was previously a haven from the violence. There have been two kidnappings of Westerners in Kabul, though in both cases the hostages have been released safely. In the Pashtun-dominated south and east, US and Afghan forces have fought full-scale battles with insurgents.
Who are the insurgents?
The majority appear to be a resurgent Taliban. It is believed they are being aided by volunteers crossing from Pakistan. They also appear to be getting help from al-Qa'ida remnants, or foreign volunteers with a similar ideology. Videos of insurgent attacks in Iraq have been distributed in Afghanistan.
What is the scale of resistance?
US and Afghan troops have fought a week-long operation to regain control of the Korengal Valley, in Konar province near the border with Pakistan. In June, the US suffered its worst defeat in Afghanistan in the area, when the Taliban shot down one of its helicopters, killing all 16 servicemen on board. The helicopter was on its way to rescue Navy Seals special forces on the run after being ambushed by insurgents. US forces yesterday declared the operation to retake the Korengal Valley a success, and said 40 suspected rebels had been killed. They said 65 insurgents had been killed in separate fighting in Zabol, to the south. US soldiers who have been in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been quoted as saying the Taliban they encounter in battle are fighting even harder than the Iraqi insurgents. But so far, the resistance has not been anywhere near as widespread as in Iraq.
Are there fears the violence could affect the elections?
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections, but they said yesterday they would not target polling stations. Last year, there were widespread fears they would attack voters at polling stations, but in the event they did not.
Violence Spiraling As Elections Near RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
US military claims killing 105 insurgents in Zabul and Kunar PakTribune.com
Reuters - Cleveland Plain Dealer - Fort Worth Star Telegram - Santa Fe New Mexican - all 492 related »
Last year, it held presidential elections. This year, it is holding its first democratic parliamentary elections, on 18 September. The US hopes to hold them up to show Afghanistan has made a successful transition to democracy since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. For Afghans, they will be the culmination of a tumultuous four years that have seen them go from living under the medieval religious law of the Taliban to founding their first parliament.
How is the current security situation in Afghanistan?
Bad and getting worse. Since the euphoria after last year's presidential elections passed without serious violence, the level of bloodshed in Afghanistan has risen drastically this year. More than 1,000 people have been killed in fighting over the past six months. The majority have been insurgents but nearly 200 Afghan civilians have died in the bloodiest six months since the fall of the Taliban, as well as about 100 members of the Afghan security forces. Sixty-six US soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year. There have been attacks in Kabul, which was previously a haven from the violence. There have been two kidnappings of Westerners in Kabul, though in both cases the hostages have been released safely. In the Pashtun-dominated south and east, US and Afghan forces have fought full-scale battles with insurgents.
Who are the insurgents?
The majority appear to be a resurgent Taliban. It is believed they are being aided by volunteers crossing from Pakistan. They also appear to be getting help from al-Qa'ida remnants, or foreign volunteers with a similar ideology. Videos of insurgent attacks in Iraq have been distributed in Afghanistan.
What is the scale of resistance?
US and Afghan troops have fought a week-long operation to regain control of the Korengal Valley, in Konar province near the border with Pakistan. In June, the US suffered its worst defeat in Afghanistan in the area, when the Taliban shot down one of its helicopters, killing all 16 servicemen on board. The helicopter was on its way to rescue Navy Seals special forces on the run after being ambushed by insurgents. US forces yesterday declared the operation to retake the Korengal Valley a success, and said 40 suspected rebels had been killed. They said 65 insurgents had been killed in separate fighting in Zabol, to the south. US soldiers who have been in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been quoted as saying the Taliban they encounter in battle are fighting even harder than the Iraqi insurgents. But so far, the resistance has not been anywhere near as widespread as in Iraq.
Are there fears the violence could affect the elections?
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections, but they said yesterday they would not target polling stations. Last year, there were widespread fears they would attack voters at polling stations, but in the event they did not.
Violence Spiraling As Elections Near RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
US military claims killing 105 insurgents in Zabul and Kunar PakTribune.com
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Quelling Afghan violence remains distant goal- UN Reuters.uk
The UN Security Council condemned on Tuesday a recent increase in attacks by al Qaeda, the Taliban and others that may disrupt Afghanistan's upcoming parliamentary and provincial elections. The 15-member council issued a statement after Jean Arnault, the special U.N. envoy for Afghanistan, warned that quelling extremist violence still remained a distant goal for millions of Afghans more than three years after The United States toppled the Taliban rulers. "Bringing extremist violence and other forms of insecurity under control will remain at the top of the agenda for the government, and for millions of Afghans for whom the most basic dividend of peace -- security -- remains a distant goal..." Arnault told an open meeting of the council.. Afghanistan is holding elections on September 18 with 5,800 candidates. The Council condemned "attempts to disrupt the political process by terrorist acts or other forms of violence." "The Security Council expresses grave concern about the increased attacks by the Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists groups in Afghanistan over the past few months," said the statement read by Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the current council president. Taliban fighters have said they would not attack polling places, to avoid killing civilians. But a movement spokesman told Reuters on Monday it would continue to attack government and international forces. "This may indicate that extremists, perhaps wiser from last year's experience with the presidential election, have decided to target pro-government and international forces rather than to try and stop the parliamentary election," Arnault said. "However, it is too soon to rule out attempts at causing major disruptions of the election before, during or after polling day," he said. Arnault referred to a recent U.N. and Afghan Human Rights Commission report warning that extremists' actions could disenfranchise the Pashtun population, the ethnic group that dominated the Taliban. The report also showed escalating threats and attacks against candidates, election workers, civic educators, religious leaders, government leaders and soldiers. The Security Council statement endorsed the effort to bring in reinforcements by NATO, which has some 10,500 troops and the U.S.-led military with 20,000 troops. The parliamentary and provincial elections are the last step in efforts towards elected government in Afghanistan, set out by a December 2001 agreement reached in Bonn, Germany. Arnault said Kabul had proposed a high-level conference on a "post-Bonn compact" in January, shortly after the anticipated inauguration of a new National Assembly.
Afghan Elections Threatened by Insurgency, UN Says Bloomberg
Afghan insurgents, UN prep for election Monsters and Critics.com
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The UN Security Council condemned on Tuesday a recent increase in attacks by al Qaeda, the Taliban and others that may disrupt Afghanistan's upcoming parliamentary and provincial elections. The 15-member council issued a statement after Jean Arnault, the special U.N. envoy for Afghanistan, warned that quelling extremist violence still remained a distant goal for millions of Afghans more than three years after The United States toppled the Taliban rulers. "Bringing extremist violence and other forms of insecurity under control will remain at the top of the agenda for the government, and for millions of Afghans for whom the most basic dividend of peace -- security -- remains a distant goal..." Arnault told an open meeting of the council.. Afghanistan is holding elections on September 18 with 5,800 candidates. The Council condemned "attempts to disrupt the political process by terrorist acts or other forms of violence." "The Security Council expresses grave concern about the increased attacks by the Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists groups in Afghanistan over the past few months," said the statement read by Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the current council president. Taliban fighters have said they would not attack polling places, to avoid killing civilians. But a movement spokesman told Reuters on Monday it would continue to attack government and international forces. "This may indicate that extremists, perhaps wiser from last year's experience with the presidential election, have decided to target pro-government and international forces rather than to try and stop the parliamentary election," Arnault said. "However, it is too soon to rule out attempts at causing major disruptions of the election before, during or after polling day," he said. Arnault referred to a recent U.N. and Afghan Human Rights Commission report warning that extremists' actions could disenfranchise the Pashtun population, the ethnic group that dominated the Taliban. The report also showed escalating threats and attacks against candidates, election workers, civic educators, religious leaders, government leaders and soldiers. The Security Council statement endorsed the effort to bring in reinforcements by NATO, which has some 10,500 troops and the U.S.-led military with 20,000 troops. The parliamentary and provincial elections are the last step in efforts towards elected government in Afghanistan, set out by a December 2001 agreement reached in Bonn, Germany. Arnault said Kabul had proposed a high-level conference on a "post-Bonn compact" in January, shortly after the anticipated inauguration of a new National Assembly.
Afghan Elections Threatened by Insurgency, UN Says Bloomberg
Afghan insurgents, UN prep for election Monsters and Critics.com
Voice of America - BBC News - Hindustan Times - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty - all 61 related »
http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...C0101/508220314
Monday, August 22, 2005
Taliban regains Afghan foothold
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder News Service
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Nearly four years after a U.S.-led military intervention toppled them from power, the Taliban has re-emerged as a potent threat to stability in Afghanistan.
Though it's a far cry from the mass movement that overran most of the country in the 1990s, today's Taliban is fighting a guerrilla war with new weapons, including portable anti-aircraft missiles, and equipment bought with cash sent through Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, according to Afghan and Western officials. While it was in power, the Taliban provided safe haven to bin Laden and al-Qaida.
The money is coming from "rogue elements and factional elements living in the Middle East," Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview with Knight Ridder.
"Al-Qaida is channeling money and equipment," said Lt. George Hughbanks, a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Zabul province, one of the worst hit by the Taliban insurgency.
The Taliban is now a disparate assemblage of radical groups estimated to number several thousand, far fewer than when it was in power before November 2001. The fighters operate in small cells that occasionally come together for specific missions. They're unable to hold territory or defeat coalition troops.
They're linked by a loose command structure and an aim of driving out U.S.-led coalition and NATO troops, toppling U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai and reimposing hard-line Islamic rule on Afghanistan, according to Afghan and Western officials and experts.
The Taliban insurgents have adopted some of the terrorist tactics that their Iraqi counterparts have used to stoke popular anger at the Iraqi government and the U.S. military. They've stalled reconstruction and fomented sectarian tensions in a country that remains mired in poverty and corruption, illegal drugs and ethnic and political hatred.
Their tactics include attacks with homemade explosives, and beheadings, assassinations and kidnappings targeting public officials and others who cooperate in international democracy-building efforts and reconstruction.
The violence continued last week when a homemade bomb planted by the Taliban killed two U.S. soldiers near the southern city of Kandahar, bringing the number killed in hostile actions in the past six months to at least 44.
The new American ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald E. Neumann, said Thursday that the Taliban had "absolutely no chance" of derailing Sept. 18's parliamentary and provincial council polls because security would be too tight.
The Taliban's new tactics, however, suggest to some experts that the surge in violence that began five months ago is more than an effort to impede the elections.
These experts fear that the Taliban's resurgence may be part of an al-Qaida strategy aimed at keeping the U.S. military stressed and bleeding not only in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan.
"I think they (al-Qaida) are opening a second front," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence analyst who's now at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "I don't think the elections are really the focus."
"These are people who see this in broader terms," he said.
U.S. officials in Washington said they had no proof of such an al-Qaida-coordinated strategy. But an American defense official said he couldn't exclude it, and that he and other U.S. officials were concerned about the lessons the Taliban was drawing from Iraq.
"It would be extremely naive of us not to believe that the enemy is a thinking, learning, adapting enemy," said the American defense official, who requested anonymity because the issue is an intelligence matter. "There is certainly learning that is going on and we have to remind ourselves of not falling into the trap of not understanding it."
"It's potentially much larger than Iraq and Afghanistan," he said.
What some of the experts now call the "neo-Taliban" is said to comprise four components:
\• Most of the original top leaders who were never captured, including Mullah Omar, who founded the movement among members of Afghanistan's dominant Pashtun ethnic group. Their fighters are said to include loyalists from the original movement and newly indoctrinated Afghan students from radical Islamic schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Great numbers of Muslims support us in spite of (President) Bush's wish," Dadullah said in an interview July 20 with Al-Jazeera. "We have continued to receive support from our Muslim brothers across the globe."
\• Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hizb-e-Islami party, the main recipients of U.S.- funded weapons that Pakistan funneled to the mujahedeen groups that fought the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.
\• Pakistani Islamic extremists, foreign jihadis and al-Qaida fighters from Chechnya, Uzbekistan and Arab countries whom sympathetic Pashtun tribes in Pakistan's tribal belt sheltered after the U.S.-led intervention.
\• Afghan drug merchants, lumber and gem smugglers, and criminal gangs who cover their activities by portraying themselves as defending Afghanistan from non-Muslims.
The Taliban seized power in the 1990s after decades of civil war and imposed an Islamist regime. Many of its followers died in the U.S.-led intervention, and others, including several senior leaders, switched sides under a government amnesty program.
Instead of collapsing, however, the movement transformed itself. When the snows melted this past spring, the Taliban surprised Afghan and U.S. commanders with its renewed insurgency.
"We were all under the assumption that things in the country were under control," Defense Minister Wardak said.
Afghan and Western officials alleged that the escalating insurgency is being aided by Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.
"Pakistan is ... fanning the flames," charged Latfullah Maashal, the chief spokesman of the Afghan Interior Ministry. "The Pakistanis ... do not want to see a strong, peaceful and prosperous country (Afghanistan)."
The Taliban is being allowed to maintain arms depots, training camps and sanctuaries in the lawless tribal belt on Pakistan's side of the frontier, he said.
Islamabad denies the charge, saying it stopped supporting the Taliban after al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Taliban regains Afghan foothold
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder News Service
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Nearly four years after a U.S.-led military intervention toppled them from power, the Taliban has re-emerged as a potent threat to stability in Afghanistan.
Though it's a far cry from the mass movement that overran most of the country in the 1990s, today's Taliban is fighting a guerrilla war with new weapons, including portable anti-aircraft missiles, and equipment bought with cash sent through Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, according to Afghan and Western officials. While it was in power, the Taliban provided safe haven to bin Laden and al-Qaida.
The money is coming from "rogue elements and factional elements living in the Middle East," Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview with Knight Ridder.
"Al-Qaida is channeling money and equipment," said Lt. George Hughbanks, a U.S. Army intelligence officer in Zabul province, one of the worst hit by the Taliban insurgency.
The Taliban is now a disparate assemblage of radical groups estimated to number several thousand, far fewer than when it was in power before November 2001. The fighters operate in small cells that occasionally come together for specific missions. They're unable to hold territory or defeat coalition troops.
They're linked by a loose command structure and an aim of driving out U.S.-led coalition and NATO troops, toppling U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai and reimposing hard-line Islamic rule on Afghanistan, according to Afghan and Western officials and experts.
The Taliban insurgents have adopted some of the terrorist tactics that their Iraqi counterparts have used to stoke popular anger at the Iraqi government and the U.S. military. They've stalled reconstruction and fomented sectarian tensions in a country that remains mired in poverty and corruption, illegal drugs and ethnic and political hatred.
Their tactics include attacks with homemade explosives, and beheadings, assassinations and kidnappings targeting public officials and others who cooperate in international democracy-building efforts and reconstruction.
The violence continued last week when a homemade bomb planted by the Taliban killed two U.S. soldiers near the southern city of Kandahar, bringing the number killed in hostile actions in the past six months to at least 44.
The new American ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald E. Neumann, said Thursday that the Taliban had "absolutely no chance" of derailing Sept. 18's parliamentary and provincial council polls because security would be too tight.
The Taliban's new tactics, however, suggest to some experts that the surge in violence that began five months ago is more than an effort to impede the elections.
These experts fear that the Taliban's resurgence may be part of an al-Qaida strategy aimed at keeping the U.S. military stressed and bleeding not only in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan.
"I think they (al-Qaida) are opening a second front," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence analyst who's now at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "I don't think the elections are really the focus."
"These are people who see this in broader terms," he said.
U.S. officials in Washington said they had no proof of such an al-Qaida-coordinated strategy. But an American defense official said he couldn't exclude it, and that he and other U.S. officials were concerned about the lessons the Taliban was drawing from Iraq.
"It would be extremely naive of us not to believe that the enemy is a thinking, learning, adapting enemy," said the American defense official, who requested anonymity because the issue is an intelligence matter. "There is certainly learning that is going on and we have to remind ourselves of not falling into the trap of not understanding it."
"It's potentially much larger than Iraq and Afghanistan," he said.
What some of the experts now call the "neo-Taliban" is said to comprise four components:
\• Most of the original top leaders who were never captured, including Mullah Omar, who founded the movement among members of Afghanistan's dominant Pashtun ethnic group. Their fighters are said to include loyalists from the original movement and newly indoctrinated Afghan students from radical Islamic schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Great numbers of Muslims support us in spite of (President) Bush's wish," Dadullah said in an interview July 20 with Al-Jazeera. "We have continued to receive support from our Muslim brothers across the globe."
\• Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hizb-e-Islami party, the main recipients of U.S.- funded weapons that Pakistan funneled to the mujahedeen groups that fought the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.
\• Pakistani Islamic extremists, foreign jihadis and al-Qaida fighters from Chechnya, Uzbekistan and Arab countries whom sympathetic Pashtun tribes in Pakistan's tribal belt sheltered after the U.S.-led intervention.
\• Afghan drug merchants, lumber and gem smugglers, and criminal gangs who cover their activities by portraying themselves as defending Afghanistan from non-Muslims.
The Taliban seized power in the 1990s after decades of civil war and imposed an Islamist regime. Many of its followers died in the U.S.-led intervention, and others, including several senior leaders, switched sides under a government amnesty program.
Instead of collapsing, however, the movement transformed itself. When the snows melted this past spring, the Taliban surprised Afghan and U.S. commanders with its renewed insurgency.
"We were all under the assumption that things in the country were under control," Defense Minister Wardak said.
Afghan and Western officials alleged that the escalating insurgency is being aided by Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.
"Pakistan is ... fanning the flames," charged Latfullah Maashal, the chief spokesman of the Afghan Interior Ministry. "The Pakistanis ... do not want to see a strong, peaceful and prosperous country (Afghanistan)."
The Taliban is being allowed to maintain arms depots, training camps and sanctuaries in the lawless tribal belt on Pakistan's side of the frontier, he said.
Islamabad denies the charge, saying it stopped supporting the Taliban after al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/08/24/61667.html
Afghanistan government criticizes US military courts over prisoner abuse cases
18:58 2005-08-24
Afghanistan's government Wednesday said it was disappointed with the "unexpectedly lenient" sentences U.S. military courts have handed down to American soldiers convicted of abusing two Afghan detainees who later died.
A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said U.S. military prosecutors should appeal the cases and push for harsher penalties.
One soldier has been sentenced to two months in prison, another to three months. A third was demoted and given a letter of reprimand and a fine. A fourth was given a reduction in rank and pay.
"The punishments given to those soldiers were very light and unexpectedly lenient," said presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi. "This is a very serious issue. They should receive severe punishments."
He said the government was considering bringing the matter up with U.S. authorities.
A member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission was even harsher in his criticism.
"These punishments are a joke. They all should have got 20 years in prison or be sentenced to death," said Ahmad Shah Midad. "A person's life has been taken. They must be punished properly."
The courts-martial had occurred in the U.S. state of Texas over the past few weeks. The soldiers were charged in relation to the deaths of two Afghans who were in detention at Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, in late 2002, reports The AP.
According to Human Rights Watch, which said it has obtained unreleased Army reports about the deaths, the two men were chained to the ceiling in standing positions, one at the waist and one by the wrists, while their feet remained on the ground.
One of them was maimed over a five-day period, dying with his leg muscle tissue destroyed from blows to his knees and lower body, the New York-based rights group has said.
An autopsy performed by a medical examiner and cited by the Army showed that Dilawar's legs were so damaged by blows that amputation would have been necessary, according to an Army report dated July 6, 2004.
Habibullah died of a pulmonary embolism apparently caused by blood clots formed in his legs from the beatings, according to a June 1, 2004, military report.
A spokesman for the Afghan human rights commission, a state funded body, said the sentences were "disappointing."
"It's unbelievably lenient that these soldiers received such light sentences," said Ahmad Nader Nadery. "We want the United States to justify to us why these people have received such leniency," informs Denton Record Chronicle.
Afghanistan government criticizes US military courts over prisoner abuse cases
18:58 2005-08-24
Afghanistan's government Wednesday said it was disappointed with the "unexpectedly lenient" sentences U.S. military courts have handed down to American soldiers convicted of abusing two Afghan detainees who later died.
A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said U.S. military prosecutors should appeal the cases and push for harsher penalties.
One soldier has been sentenced to two months in prison, another to three months. A third was demoted and given a letter of reprimand and a fine. A fourth was given a reduction in rank and pay.
"The punishments given to those soldiers were very light and unexpectedly lenient," said presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi. "This is a very serious issue. They should receive severe punishments."
He said the government was considering bringing the matter up with U.S. authorities.
A member of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission was even harsher in his criticism.
"These punishments are a joke. They all should have got 20 years in prison or be sentenced to death," said Ahmad Shah Midad. "A person's life has been taken. They must be punished properly."
The courts-martial had occurred in the U.S. state of Texas over the past few weeks. The soldiers were charged in relation to the deaths of two Afghans who were in detention at Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, in late 2002, reports The AP.
According to Human Rights Watch, which said it has obtained unreleased Army reports about the deaths, the two men were chained to the ceiling in standing positions, one at the waist and one by the wrists, while their feet remained on the ground.
One of them was maimed over a five-day period, dying with his leg muscle tissue destroyed from blows to his knees and lower body, the New York-based rights group has said.
An autopsy performed by a medical examiner and cited by the Army showed that Dilawar's legs were so damaged by blows that amputation would have been necessary, according to an Army report dated July 6, 2004.
Habibullah died of a pulmonary embolism apparently caused by blood clots formed in his legs from the beatings, according to a June 1, 2004, military report.
A spokesman for the Afghan human rights commission, a state funded body, said the sentences were "disappointing."
"It's unbelievably lenient that these soldiers received such light sentences," said Ahmad Nader Nadery. "We want the United States to justify to us why these people have received such leniency," informs Denton Record Chronicle.
Bomb kills GI, injures 4 in attack near border Chicago Tribune
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- A bomb killed a US service member and wounded four others when it exploded near their armored vehicle in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Saturday.
Bomb Explosion in Afghanistan: One US Soldier Killed, Four Injured Zaman Online
Afghan candidate killed, 3 GIs wounded San Jose Mercury News
New York Times - Ireland Online - all 222 related »
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- A bomb killed a US service member and wounded four others when it exploded near their armored vehicle in eastern Afghanistan, the military said Saturday.
Bomb Explosion in Afghanistan: One US Soldier Killed, Four Injured Zaman Online
Afghan candidate killed, 3 GIs wounded San Jose Mercury News
New York Times - Ireland Online - all 222 related »
300 US airmen bound from Iraq, Afghan to Louisiana Reuters
The US military will send home from Iraq and Afghanistan more than 300 Air Force airmen based at an installation in Mississippi battered by Hurricane Katrina to to allow them to assist their families, officials said on Saturday. The airmen, both active-duty airmen and reservists, will end their deployments early and return to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, to help their families and aid in base recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Air Force said in a statement released in Qatar. They will not be participating in the broader relief effort in the region, officials said. In addition, nearly 100 airmen due to deploy from Keesler to Iraq and Afghanistan will remain at the base, with their positions overseas filled by others in the Air Force not affected by the hurricane, the Air Force said. "We're robust enough (in manpower) that this wouldn't upset anything. But it's the right thing to do to bring them back," said Lt. Col. Patrick Barnes, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon. Barnes said there were roughly 20,000 Air Force personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the U.S. Central Command region. Keesler Air Force Base took a direct hit from Katrina but its staff and their families survived unharmed in a shelter, the base said. Half the base was under water, with critical functions operating on backup power. "We are facilitating the effort to expeditiously replace airmen directly affected by this catastrophe with other Air Force personnel," Air Force Brig. Gen. Allen Peck, Combined Forces Air Component deputy commander, said in a statement. "They can't effectively perform the mission if their heads and hearts are focused on the safety and welfare of their loved ones." Air Force personnel with family living in the hurricane-ravaged region who are not assigned to Keesler must request emergency leave through normal channels, officials said, and leave will be granted on a case-by-case basis. Army Lt. Gen. John Vines, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said on Friday that 10,000 U.S. ground troops in Iraq are from the region affected by Katrina. But he said that only those who have had a family member killed or hurt will be permitted to return home. "The problem is that the security mission goes on here. And if we take some out, those that are left are at some risk. It increases their risk," Vines told reporters at the Pentagon. Officials said a combat brigade of about 3,000 soldiers from the Louisiana Army National Guard, mobilized to active duty to fight in Iraq, were about to come home as part of their regular rotation schedule. Vines said the unit's return may be accelerated by about a week. A list of needs presented to President George W. Bush by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco included the return of a Louisiana-based combat team from Iraq to help with disaster relief. "We have never needed them so much," she said.
Katrina: 300 US airmen to return from Iraq and Afghanistan Ireland Online
300 US forces from disaster area sent home Reuters AlertNet
CNN International - Houston Chronicle - Islam Online - WSTM-TV - all 231 related »
The US military will send home from Iraq and Afghanistan more than 300 Air Force airmen based at an installation in Mississippi battered by Hurricane Katrina to to allow them to assist their families, officials said on Saturday. The airmen, both active-duty airmen and reservists, will end their deployments early and return to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, to help their families and aid in base recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Air Force said in a statement released in Qatar. They will not be participating in the broader relief effort in the region, officials said. In addition, nearly 100 airmen due to deploy from Keesler to Iraq and Afghanistan will remain at the base, with their positions overseas filled by others in the Air Force not affected by the hurricane, the Air Force said. "We're robust enough (in manpower) that this wouldn't upset anything. But it's the right thing to do to bring them back," said Lt. Col. Patrick Barnes, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon. Barnes said there were roughly 20,000 Air Force personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the U.S. Central Command region. Keesler Air Force Base took a direct hit from Katrina but its staff and their families survived unharmed in a shelter, the base said. Half the base was under water, with critical functions operating on backup power. "We are facilitating the effort to expeditiously replace airmen directly affected by this catastrophe with other Air Force personnel," Air Force Brig. Gen. Allen Peck, Combined Forces Air Component deputy commander, said in a statement. "They can't effectively perform the mission if their heads and hearts are focused on the safety and welfare of their loved ones." Air Force personnel with family living in the hurricane-ravaged region who are not assigned to Keesler must request emergency leave through normal channels, officials said, and leave will be granted on a case-by-case basis. Army Lt. Gen. John Vines, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said on Friday that 10,000 U.S. ground troops in Iraq are from the region affected by Katrina. But he said that only those who have had a family member killed or hurt will be permitted to return home. "The problem is that the security mission goes on here. And if we take some out, those that are left are at some risk. It increases their risk," Vines told reporters at the Pentagon. Officials said a combat brigade of about 3,000 soldiers from the Louisiana Army National Guard, mobilized to active duty to fight in Iraq, were about to come home as part of their regular rotation schedule. Vines said the unit's return may be accelerated by about a week. A list of needs presented to President George W. Bush by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco included the return of a Louisiana-based combat team from Iraq to help with disaster relief. "We have never needed them so much," she said.
Katrina: 300 US airmen to return from Iraq and Afghanistan Ireland Online
300 US forces from disaster area sent home Reuters AlertNet
CNN International - Houston Chronicle - Islam Online - WSTM-TV - all 231 related »
Prison abuse: Soldier cleared News24
Fort Bliss - A military jury acquitted an army reservist on charges related to the beating of an Afghan prisoner who later died. Sergeant Christopher W Greatorex of the Cincinnati-based 377th Military Police Company had been charged with abusing a detainee named, Habibullah, at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan in 2002 and then lying about it.
Guardsman from Clark is cleared of abusing Afghan detainee Louisville Courier-Journal
Ohio reservist acquitted of abusing Afghan prisoner USA Today
Boston Globe - Washington Post - Ireland Online - Houston Chronicle - all 250 related »
Fort Bliss - A military jury acquitted an army reservist on charges related to the beating of an Afghan prisoner who later died. Sergeant Christopher W Greatorex of the Cincinnati-based 377th Military Police Company had been charged with abusing a detainee named, Habibullah, at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan in 2002 and then lying about it.
Guardsman from Clark is cleared of abusing Afghan detainee Louisville Courier-Journal
Ohio reservist acquitted of abusing Afghan prisoner USA Today
Boston Globe - Washington Post - Ireland Online - Houston Chronicle - all 250 related »
US-Afghan forces kill 30 suspected militants:
US-led and Afghan troops killed some 30 suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan as the defence minister survived an assassination attempt
http://snipurl.com/hkx6
US-led and Afghan troops killed some 30 suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan as the defence minister survived an assassination attempt
http://snipurl.com/hkx6
The Taliban's battle over the ballot:
The Taliban are buying more sophisticated arms, and Russian and Chinese-made surface-to-air missiles in particular are flowing into Afghanistan in increasing numbers
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GI10Ag01.html
The Taliban are buying more sophisticated arms, and Russian and Chinese-made surface-to-air missiles in particular are flowing into Afghanistan in increasing numbers
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GI10Ag01.html
The Sunday Times - World
September 11, 2005
51st US soldier this year is killed in forgotten war
Tim Albone, Baylough, Afghanistan
IT WAS just after midnight when the radio crackled and a shout of “Man down, man down” came over the airwaves. The signal was weak and the voice barely audible, but the message to the men of Kelts platoon of the US Army’s 503rd Airborne was painfully clear.
Earlier that evening a patrol of 16 Americans and 25 Afghan soldiers and police had set off from their mud compound at Baylough, in Afghanistan’s restive southern province of Zabul, to stake out the house of Mullah Toor Manan, a local Taliban commander.
The Afghans covered the front of the house; Captain Mike Kloepper, the commanding officer, and Lieutenant Derek Hines, 25, his second-in-command, took the back.
The sound of gunfire alerted the men at base that something was wrong. Then came the message on the radio.
Manan, number 15 on America’s most wanted list, had apparently been alerted by sounds outside and he and his bodyguard burst out of the back of the house. Before they were both shot and killed they unloaded several rounds — one of which went through Hines’s left shoulder, passing through his chest. He and his Afghan interpreter died.
Hines was the 51st US soldier to die in hostile fire in Afghanistan this year, the highest annual number since the 2001 invasion. His killing has underlined the threat still posed by the Taliban in its southern stronghold in the run-up to parliamentary elections next Sunday.
Fighting the remnants of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Islamic erstwhile rulers will be the main challenge for British troops who are to play the leading role in a multinational force to be deployed in nearby Helmand province next May.
“This is the front line in the war on terror,” said Lieutenant Mark Bush, a 25-year-old member of Kelts platoon. Bush said the Day Chopan district in the north of Zabul, for which he was responsible, had suffered more violent attacks than anywhere else in Afghanistan. It was also one of the most conservative areas, where a mere 90 of the 4,500 women eligible to vote had registered.
Bush, a calm, reflective man who plays guitar, said: “I remember watching the footage of 9/11 and seeing someone run into the smoke to help people. I wanted to be the type of person that helps people. I’m helping these people to be free from terrorists.”
The base used to be a police headquarters and is as austere as it is isolated. It has no running water and all waste has to be burnt. Rocket attacks are a regular event. Defence is a matter of damage limitation.
A western security source said he believed the local Taliban were being trained and assisted by militants from Chechnya, Uzbekistan and other central Asian countries. The Day Chopan area is so dangerous that almost all supplies are flown in by helicopter from Kandahar. The helicopters fly in twos — a Chinook to carry supplies and an Apache to protect it from ground attack.
When it comes to taking on the Taliban, however, the American soldiers have no alternative but to venture beyond their base, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Hines’s father Steven, a policeman with the anti-terrorist taskforce at Boston’s Logan airport, said last week that when told of his son’s death he was initially angry with the American government for having sent him on such a mission.
However, his anger was tempered by the knowledge that his son truly believed in the work he was undertaking. “I don’t want to minimise his memory by getting mad at the government,” Steven Hines said. “He didn’t have to go to Ranger school or Airborne school. He chose to. He was fearless.”
Among the dead man’s comrades, however, there is frustration at how little is understood in America about what they are going through.
“We thought we wouldn’t take our guns off safety, but this is a war,” said Private Justin Berg, at 24 one of the older members of the platoon. “In America they call it ‘Who-gives-a-stan’. They don’t think anything is going on here any more.”
Gunmen fired on a vehicle belonging to Abdul Rahim Wardak, the defence minister, yesterday, shortly after he had got out. Nobody was hurt in the incident, which happened after a helicopter carrying the army chief, General Bismillah Khan, was forced to crash land. He escaped without injury.
September 11, 2005
51st US soldier this year is killed in forgotten war
Tim Albone, Baylough, Afghanistan
IT WAS just after midnight when the radio crackled and a shout of “Man down, man down” came over the airwaves. The signal was weak and the voice barely audible, but the message to the men of Kelts platoon of the US Army’s 503rd Airborne was painfully clear.
Earlier that evening a patrol of 16 Americans and 25 Afghan soldiers and police had set off from their mud compound at Baylough, in Afghanistan’s restive southern province of Zabul, to stake out the house of Mullah Toor Manan, a local Taliban commander.
The Afghans covered the front of the house; Captain Mike Kloepper, the commanding officer, and Lieutenant Derek Hines, 25, his second-in-command, took the back.
The sound of gunfire alerted the men at base that something was wrong. Then came the message on the radio.
Manan, number 15 on America’s most wanted list, had apparently been alerted by sounds outside and he and his bodyguard burst out of the back of the house. Before they were both shot and killed they unloaded several rounds — one of which went through Hines’s left shoulder, passing through his chest. He and his Afghan interpreter died.
Hines was the 51st US soldier to die in hostile fire in Afghanistan this year, the highest annual number since the 2001 invasion. His killing has underlined the threat still posed by the Taliban in its southern stronghold in the run-up to parliamentary elections next Sunday.
Fighting the remnants of Afghanistan’s fundamentalist Islamic erstwhile rulers will be the main challenge for British troops who are to play the leading role in a multinational force to be deployed in nearby Helmand province next May.
“This is the front line in the war on terror,” said Lieutenant Mark Bush, a 25-year-old member of Kelts platoon. Bush said the Day Chopan district in the north of Zabul, for which he was responsible, had suffered more violent attacks than anywhere else in Afghanistan. It was also one of the most conservative areas, where a mere 90 of the 4,500 women eligible to vote had registered.
Bush, a calm, reflective man who plays guitar, said: “I remember watching the footage of 9/11 and seeing someone run into the smoke to help people. I wanted to be the type of person that helps people. I’m helping these people to be free from terrorists.”
The base used to be a police headquarters and is as austere as it is isolated. It has no running water and all waste has to be burnt. Rocket attacks are a regular event. Defence is a matter of damage limitation.
A western security source said he believed the local Taliban were being trained and assisted by militants from Chechnya, Uzbekistan and other central Asian countries. The Day Chopan area is so dangerous that almost all supplies are flown in by helicopter from Kandahar. The helicopters fly in twos — a Chinook to carry supplies and an Apache to protect it from ground attack.
When it comes to taking on the Taliban, however, the American soldiers have no alternative but to venture beyond their base, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Hines’s father Steven, a policeman with the anti-terrorist taskforce at Boston’s Logan airport, said last week that when told of his son’s death he was initially angry with the American government for having sent him on such a mission.
However, his anger was tempered by the knowledge that his son truly believed in the work he was undertaking. “I don’t want to minimise his memory by getting mad at the government,” Steven Hines said. “He didn’t have to go to Ranger school or Airborne school. He chose to. He was fearless.”
Among the dead man’s comrades, however, there is frustration at how little is understood in America about what they are going through.
“We thought we wouldn’t take our guns off safety, but this is a war,” said Private Justin Berg, at 24 one of the older members of the platoon. “In America they call it ‘Who-gives-a-stan’. They don’t think anything is going on here any more.”
Gunmen fired on a vehicle belonging to Abdul Rahim Wardak, the defence minister, yesterday, shortly after he had got out. Nobody was hurt in the incident, which happened after a helicopter carrying the army chief, General Bismillah Khan, was forced to crash land. He escaped without injury.
Afghans set for historic vote despite violence fear Reuters AlertNet
Afghans head to the polls on Sunday for parliamentary elections nearly four years after the Taliban were ousted, with turnout expected to be high despite a wave of militant violence and threats of more.
Eleven die in clashes as Afghans prepare to vote Khaleej Times
Shadow of the Taliban Channel 4 News
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Afghans head to the polls on Sunday for parliamentary elections nearly four years after the Taliban were ousted, with turnout expected to be high despite a wave of militant violence and threats of more.
Eleven die in clashes as Afghans prepare to vote Khaleej Times
Shadow of the Taliban Channel 4 News
Guardian Unlimited - Telegraph.co.uk - Reuters.uk - Daily Times - all 340 related »
Afghans Vote Despite Threats of Attacks ABC News
Afghans chose a legislature for the first time in decades Sunday, embracing their newly recovered democratic rights and braving threats of Taliban attacks to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques.
A woman casts her vote in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005. Afghanistan held landmark parliamentary elections on Sunday, the first in three decades. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das).
Violence in the hours before voting began and during the day killed 15 people, including a French commando in the U.S.-led coalition that is helping Afghans build a democracy after a quarter-century of conflict. But there were no signs of a spectacular attack threatened by Taliban militants to disrupt the vote. Sunday's vote was considered the last formal step toward democracy on a path set out after a U.S.-led force drove the Taliban from power in 2001, when they refused to hand over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks. Washington hopes the political advances will weaken the insurgency and let it begin withdrawing at least some of the 20,000 American soldiers providing security in Afghanistan, but some people worry that a too-rapid pullout could embolden rebels. President Bush called the vote successful and a major step forward, commending the "the tremendous progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years." A stepped-up campaign by insurgents over the past six months killed 1,200 people, including seven candidates and four election workers. It appeared tight security helped on election day, with only three people injured and no one killed near polling places, although officials said they thwarted plots to smuggle explosives into polling places in pens and a clock. Despite violence elsewhere in the country, the focus was on getting out the vote after intense efforts by United Nations officials and the U.S.-led coalition to organize the election and provide security for voters. "We are making history," President Hamid Karzai said while casting his ballot. "It's the day of self-determination for the Afghan people. After 30 years of wars, interventions, occupations and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward, making an economy, making political institutions." Around 8 million people voted in last October's presidential election, and there were high hopes even more would turn out Sunday. Organizers said they would not have any turnout figures before Monday, but some officials in the field and independent monitors said it appeared fewer people voted. "It's hard to gauge the exact numbers, but the impression we have is that the turnout is lower," said Saman Zia-Zarifi, deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, which had 14 observers monitoring the elections. Chief electoral officer Peter Erben said voting started slowly, but "after the morning, it has seriously picked up all over Afghanistan." Polls closed at 4 p.m. (7:30 a.m. EDT), although those already in line were allowed to vote, a process that took hours in some places, Erben said. Violence in the two days leading up to the vote left at least 22 people dead. Early Sunday, fierce fighting in eastern Afghanistan killed three militants and two Afghan policemen, while two American soldiers were wounded. Erben reported 19 small-arms attacks on polling centers over the previous 24 hours, most with no effect, although a handful of stations in one area closed temporarily because of gunfire and three people were wounded. He said 16 polling centers were unable to open at all, mostly due to security problems. Some 12.4 million Afghans were registered to vote for the 249-seat lower house of parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, and 420 seats on 34 provincial assemblies. Nearly 5,800 candidates including 582 women were on the ballots. A quarter of the seats being voted on were reserved for women, who make up more than 42 percent of registered voters. The more than 6,000 polling stations were guarded by about 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops in the U.S.-led coalition and a separate NATO peacekeeping force.
Enthusiasm ran high.
"Today is a magnificent day for Afghanistan," said Ali Safar, 62, standing in line to vote in Kabul. "We want dignity, we want stability and peace." Vote counting begins Tuesday, and partial provisional results will be released once 20 percent of the ballots in a province are tallied. Complete provisional results are expected early next month. Many people hoped the polls would marginalize the insurgents and end a spiral of violence that started in 1979 when Soviet troops invaded, then continued through a devastating civil war and the oppressive rule of the hard-line Taliban. The Taliban said they would not attack civilians heading to polls but warned them to stay away from areas where militants might attack security forces and foreign troops. Afghans clutching voter identification cards filed into schools with lessons still scrawled on blackboards or stepped over piles of shoes to cast ballots in mosques. Tents served as polling stations in remote areas. With nearly three-quarters of the populace illiterate, voting was slow as people spent as much as 10 minutes wading through ballots up to seven pages long to find pictures of candidates or symbols that represent them. Each voter dipped a finger in indelible purple ink to prevent repeat voting. Women, some in all-encompassing burqas, were segregated from men at many polling centers, entering through back doors and voting in separate rooms. Women also voted in the presidential election. At a Kuchi nomad voting center east of Kabul, an Associated Press Television News cameraman saw women handing their ballots to men to fill out as electoral officials looked without intervening. Human Rights Watch said children appeared to vote at one polling station northeast of Kabul. In the Kunar region, "three to five" polling centers were closed because of small-arms fire nearby, then reopened after security forces restored calm, Erben said. Security forces said Saturday they had thwarted at least four bombings, including an attempt to blow up a massive dam. Associated Press reporters Daniel Cooney and Steve Gutterman in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Polls close as Afghans vote for new parliament CBC News
Rebels attack as Afghans go to the polls Ireland Online
Sify - Khaleej Times - The Age (subscription) - CTV.ca - all 1,101 related »
Afghans chose a legislature for the first time in decades Sunday, embracing their newly recovered democratic rights and braving threats of Taliban attacks to cast votes in schools, tents and mosques.
A woman casts her vote in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005. Afghanistan held landmark parliamentary elections on Sunday, the first in three decades. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das).
Violence in the hours before voting began and during the day killed 15 people, including a French commando in the U.S.-led coalition that is helping Afghans build a democracy after a quarter-century of conflict. But there were no signs of a spectacular attack threatened by Taliban militants to disrupt the vote. Sunday's vote was considered the last formal step toward democracy on a path set out after a U.S.-led force drove the Taliban from power in 2001, when they refused to hand over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks. Washington hopes the political advances will weaken the insurgency and let it begin withdrawing at least some of the 20,000 American soldiers providing security in Afghanistan, but some people worry that a too-rapid pullout could embolden rebels. President Bush called the vote successful and a major step forward, commending the "the tremendous progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years." A stepped-up campaign by insurgents over the past six months killed 1,200 people, including seven candidates and four election workers. It appeared tight security helped on election day, with only three people injured and no one killed near polling places, although officials said they thwarted plots to smuggle explosives into polling places in pens and a clock. Despite violence elsewhere in the country, the focus was on getting out the vote after intense efforts by United Nations officials and the U.S.-led coalition to organize the election and provide security for voters. "We are making history," President Hamid Karzai said while casting his ballot. "It's the day of self-determination for the Afghan people. After 30 years of wars, interventions, occupations and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward, making an economy, making political institutions." Around 8 million people voted in last October's presidential election, and there were high hopes even more would turn out Sunday. Organizers said they would not have any turnout figures before Monday, but some officials in the field and independent monitors said it appeared fewer people voted. "It's hard to gauge the exact numbers, but the impression we have is that the turnout is lower," said Saman Zia-Zarifi, deputy Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, which had 14 observers monitoring the elections. Chief electoral officer Peter Erben said voting started slowly, but "after the morning, it has seriously picked up all over Afghanistan." Polls closed at 4 p.m. (7:30 a.m. EDT), although those already in line were allowed to vote, a process that took hours in some places, Erben said. Violence in the two days leading up to the vote left at least 22 people dead. Early Sunday, fierce fighting in eastern Afghanistan killed three militants and two Afghan policemen, while two American soldiers were wounded. Erben reported 19 small-arms attacks on polling centers over the previous 24 hours, most with no effect, although a handful of stations in one area closed temporarily because of gunfire and three people were wounded. He said 16 polling centers were unable to open at all, mostly due to security problems. Some 12.4 million Afghans were registered to vote for the 249-seat lower house of parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, and 420 seats on 34 provincial assemblies. Nearly 5,800 candidates including 582 women were on the ballots. A quarter of the seats being voted on were reserved for women, who make up more than 42 percent of registered voters. The more than 6,000 polling stations were guarded by about 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops in the U.S.-led coalition and a separate NATO peacekeeping force.
Enthusiasm ran high.
"Today is a magnificent day for Afghanistan," said Ali Safar, 62, standing in line to vote in Kabul. "We want dignity, we want stability and peace." Vote counting begins Tuesday, and partial provisional results will be released once 20 percent of the ballots in a province are tallied. Complete provisional results are expected early next month. Many people hoped the polls would marginalize the insurgents and end a spiral of violence that started in 1979 when Soviet troops invaded, then continued through a devastating civil war and the oppressive rule of the hard-line Taliban. The Taliban said they would not attack civilians heading to polls but warned them to stay away from areas where militants might attack security forces and foreign troops. Afghans clutching voter identification cards filed into schools with lessons still scrawled on blackboards or stepped over piles of shoes to cast ballots in mosques. Tents served as polling stations in remote areas. With nearly three-quarters of the populace illiterate, voting was slow as people spent as much as 10 minutes wading through ballots up to seven pages long to find pictures of candidates or symbols that represent them. Each voter dipped a finger in indelible purple ink to prevent repeat voting. Women, some in all-encompassing burqas, were segregated from men at many polling centers, entering through back doors and voting in separate rooms. Women also voted in the presidential election. At a Kuchi nomad voting center east of Kabul, an Associated Press Television News cameraman saw women handing their ballots to men to fill out as electoral officials looked without intervening. Human Rights Watch said children appeared to vote at one polling station northeast of Kabul. In the Kunar region, "three to five" polling centers were closed because of small-arms fire nearby, then reopened after security forces restored calm, Erben said. Security forces said Saturday they had thwarted at least four bombings, including an attempt to blow up a massive dam. Associated Press reporters Daniel Cooney and Steve Gutterman in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Polls close as Afghans vote for new parliament CBC News
Rebels attack as Afghans go to the polls Ireland Online
Sify - Khaleej Times - The Age (subscription) - CTV.ca - all 1,101 related »
http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=7324
September 20, 2005
Democratic Hallucinations in Afghanistan and Iraq
by Ivan Eland
Insular and secretive presidential administrations often deny reality to the point of absurdity when they blunder into foreign misadventures. The classic example is the Johnson administration during the Vietnam War. The Bush administration’s current quagmires in Iraq and even Afghanistan are taking on that air. For example, the administration is congratulating itself on the Afghan legislative and provincial election day passing without rampant strikes by a resurgent Taliban; recent attacks have spiked to the worst levels since that group was removed from power in 2001. In fact, U.S. military sources have already started floating a proposal to pull out some U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Similar talk of a U.S. troop drawdown from Iraq after the December Iraqi elections also has come from the U.S. military.
All this chatter about U.S. troop withdrawal comes at a time of increased Taliban strikes—which have killed a record number of U.S. troops, seven Afghan electoral candidates, and four campaign workers—and a wave of insurgent carnage in Iraq that has caused the third largest monthly U.S. military death toll and the worst death count in Baghdad since the U.S. invasion. In Afghanistan, the reduced violence on election day probably indicates that the guerrillas were smart enough to lay low to avoid intensified security measures. The Taliban will likely renew the ferocity of their attacks again shortly. Unfortunately, U.S.-led efforts to stand up Afghan security forces have floundered, and the Bush administration would depend on increasing levels of NATO troops to pick up the slack from any U.S. drawdown. But many NATO countries prefer peacekeeping in secure areas and are unenthusiastic about having their forces actively fight against the Taliban. Similarly, in Iraq, the problems of creating Iraqi security forces to replace any reductions in U.S. troops are well known.
In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the disconnect between talk of troop withdrawal and increased violence can partially be attributed to the U.S. military putting pressure on the Bush administration for relief from its globally overstretched condition. But with next year’s congressional elections in the United States looming, the Republicans would like to show some sort of troop reduction to insulate themselves from Democratic attacks on the issue.
Of course, the short-term goal of reducing U.S. forces exacerbates the administration’s difficulty in achieving its long-term objective in both conflicts: winning. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that if existing force levels of the world’s best army cannot stamp out the Taliban and Iraqi insurgencies, then their partial replacement with inferior forces are unlikely to do so either. The administration’s goal in both conflicts—if there is a coherent plan at all—seems to be: buy time until democratic processes dampen the rebellion.
Yet in Afghanistan, the authority of the “democratically-elected” central government of Hamid Karzai is weak in most of the country. The elections are likely to produce a parliament filled with ex-communist commanders, Islamist warlords, and former Taliban leaders—many with non-democratic tendencies and murderous pasts.
In Iraq, the rancor over the proposed constitution has Sunni Arabs registering in droves to defeat it and will probably end up further inflaming the already intensifying insurgency. As a demonstration of how bad things are, the best outcome for the United States in Iraq might be the constitution’s defeat. If rejection occurred, negotiations among the Kurds, Shi’a, and Sunni Arabs would have to begin again. If the constitution passes over Sunni attempts to derail it, the increased sense of Sunni alienation might very well spark increased levels of violence.
In short, regrettably, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is yet ready for democracy. Experts on the democratization of countries speak of a democratic culture being required before genuinely democratic institutions and processes can take hold. Afghanistan and Iraq, like South Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s, have not developed such a culture.
Other comparisons with the Vietnam War can be made. After first avoiding Vietnam-like body counts of enemy dead, wounded, and captured, the U.S. military is now doing them to demonstrate that it is winning—at the same time that increasing violence indicates that the opposite is happening. Also, U.S. government pronouncements are being made that are ludicrous on their face. For example, after two days of bombing and shooting attacks attributed to the foreign Islamic jihadists under Abu Musab Zarqawi, which killed a record 190 people, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the senior U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, claimed, “Zarqawi is on the ropes.” This whopper resembles U.S. claims before the 1968 communist Tet Offensive that the United States was winning the Vietnam War. Although the U.S. military defeated the offensive by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, the “credibility gap” exposed by the strength of the offensive was the beginning of the end of U.S. popular support for the war.
Similar U.S. credibility gaps are yawning in both Afghanistan and Iraq at a time when the public at home is already restless about such foreign entanglements and when the Bush administration seems to have no coherent long-term plan to extricate the United States with dignity from such quagmires. To those who lived through the 1960s and early 1970s, the situation is unfortunately all too familiar.
September 20, 2005
Democratic Hallucinations in Afghanistan and Iraq
by Ivan Eland
Insular and secretive presidential administrations often deny reality to the point of absurdity when they blunder into foreign misadventures. The classic example is the Johnson administration during the Vietnam War. The Bush administration’s current quagmires in Iraq and even Afghanistan are taking on that air. For example, the administration is congratulating itself on the Afghan legislative and provincial election day passing without rampant strikes by a resurgent Taliban; recent attacks have spiked to the worst levels since that group was removed from power in 2001. In fact, U.S. military sources have already started floating a proposal to pull out some U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Similar talk of a U.S. troop drawdown from Iraq after the December Iraqi elections also has come from the U.S. military.
All this chatter about U.S. troop withdrawal comes at a time of increased Taliban strikes—which have killed a record number of U.S. troops, seven Afghan electoral candidates, and four campaign workers—and a wave of insurgent carnage in Iraq that has caused the third largest monthly U.S. military death toll and the worst death count in Baghdad since the U.S. invasion. In Afghanistan, the reduced violence on election day probably indicates that the guerrillas were smart enough to lay low to avoid intensified security measures. The Taliban will likely renew the ferocity of their attacks again shortly. Unfortunately, U.S.-led efforts to stand up Afghan security forces have floundered, and the Bush administration would depend on increasing levels of NATO troops to pick up the slack from any U.S. drawdown. But many NATO countries prefer peacekeeping in secure areas and are unenthusiastic about having their forces actively fight against the Taliban. Similarly, in Iraq, the problems of creating Iraqi security forces to replace any reductions in U.S. troops are well known.
In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the disconnect between talk of troop withdrawal and increased violence can partially be attributed to the U.S. military putting pressure on the Bush administration for relief from its globally overstretched condition. But with next year’s congressional elections in the United States looming, the Republicans would like to show some sort of troop reduction to insulate themselves from Democratic attacks on the issue.
Of course, the short-term goal of reducing U.S. forces exacerbates the administration’s difficulty in achieving its long-term objective in both conflicts: winning. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that if existing force levels of the world’s best army cannot stamp out the Taliban and Iraqi insurgencies, then their partial replacement with inferior forces are unlikely to do so either. The administration’s goal in both conflicts—if there is a coherent plan at all—seems to be: buy time until democratic processes dampen the rebellion.
Yet in Afghanistan, the authority of the “democratically-elected” central government of Hamid Karzai is weak in most of the country. The elections are likely to produce a parliament filled with ex-communist commanders, Islamist warlords, and former Taliban leaders—many with non-democratic tendencies and murderous pasts.
In Iraq, the rancor over the proposed constitution has Sunni Arabs registering in droves to defeat it and will probably end up further inflaming the already intensifying insurgency. As a demonstration of how bad things are, the best outcome for the United States in Iraq might be the constitution’s defeat. If rejection occurred, negotiations among the Kurds, Shi’a, and Sunni Arabs would have to begin again. If the constitution passes over Sunni attempts to derail it, the increased sense of Sunni alienation might very well spark increased levels of violence.
In short, regrettably, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is yet ready for democracy. Experts on the democratization of countries speak of a democratic culture being required before genuinely democratic institutions and processes can take hold. Afghanistan and Iraq, like South Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s, have not developed such a culture.
Other comparisons with the Vietnam War can be made. After first avoiding Vietnam-like body counts of enemy dead, wounded, and captured, the U.S. military is now doing them to demonstrate that it is winning—at the same time that increasing violence indicates that the opposite is happening. Also, U.S. government pronouncements are being made that are ludicrous on their face. For example, after two days of bombing and shooting attacks attributed to the foreign Islamic jihadists under Abu Musab Zarqawi, which killed a record 190 people, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the senior U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, claimed, “Zarqawi is on the ropes.” This whopper resembles U.S. claims before the 1968 communist Tet Offensive that the United States was winning the Vietnam War. Although the U.S. military defeated the offensive by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, the “credibility gap” exposed by the strength of the offensive was the beginning of the end of U.S. popular support for the war.
Similar U.S. credibility gaps are yawning in both Afghanistan and Iraq at a time when the public at home is already restless about such foreign entanglements and when the Bush administration seems to have no coherent long-term plan to extricate the United States with dignity from such quagmires. To those who lived through the 1960s and early 1970s, the situation is unfortunately all too familiar.
Karzai Wants End to U.S.-Led Operations
KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday challenged the need for continued U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan such as air strikes and house searches.
Instead, he recommended that foreign governments should "concentrate on where terrorists are trained, on their bases, on the supply to them, on the money coming to them" _ a veiled reference to alleged support that militants get from neighboring Pakistan.
Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of aiding Taliban rebels and other militants, a charge Islamabad denies.
Karzai said the need for major military operations by U.S.-led coalition forces has eased and that air strikes are no longer effective. He also demanded an immediate end to foreign troops searching people's homes without his government's authorization.
"I don't think there is a big need for military activity in Afghanistan anymore," he told reporters in Kabul. "The nature of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan has changed now.
"No coalition forces should go to Afghan homes without the authorization of the Afghan government. ... The use of air power is something that may not be very effective now."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday challenged the need for continued U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan such as air strikes and house searches.
Instead, he recommended that foreign governments should "concentrate on where terrorists are trained, on their bases, on the supply to them, on the money coming to them" _ a veiled reference to alleged support that militants get from neighboring Pakistan.
Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of aiding Taliban rebels and other militants, a charge Islamabad denies.
Karzai said the need for major military operations by U.S.-led coalition forces has eased and that air strikes are no longer effective. He also demanded an immediate end to foreign troops searching people's homes without his government's authorization.
"I don't think there is a big need for military activity in Afghanistan anymore," he told reporters in Kabul. "The nature of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan has changed now.
"No coalition forces should go to Afghan homes without the authorization of the Afghan government. ... The use of air power is something that may not be very effective now."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
World leaders praise Afghan election, pledge support Daily Times
KABUL: Afghanistan’s allies commended Afghans for their bravery in defying Taliban threats to vote in legislative elections held on Sunday and promised their unstinting support.
Vote count begins amid al-Qaeda taunts The Age (subscription)
WRAPUP 1-As Afghans count votes, Karzai queries US tactics Reuters AlertNet
International Herald Tribune - Xinhua - News24 - ABC News - all 1,667 related »
KABUL: Afghanistan’s allies commended Afghans for their bravery in defying Taliban threats to vote in legislative elections held on Sunday and promised their unstinting support.
Vote count begins amid al-Qaeda taunts The Age (subscription)
WRAPUP 1-As Afghans count votes, Karzai queries US tactics Reuters AlertNet
International Herald Tribune - Xinhua - News24 - ABC News - all 1,667 related »
Seven killed in Afghan ambush :
Suspected Taliban rebels ambushed police in two southern Afghanistan provinces on Tuesday, sparking firefights that left seven people dead and four seriously injured, officials said.
http://tinyurl.com/bqvc6
Suspected Taliban rebels ambushed police in two southern Afghanistan provinces on Tuesday, sparking firefights that left seven people dead and four seriously injured, officials said.
http://tinyurl.com/bqvc6
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/GI22Ag01.html
The opposition face of Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KABUL - The national resistance to the decade-long occupation of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union in the 1980s is a source of national pride for the country.
In the chaotic years after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the victorious mujahideen (holy warriors) fought a bloody civil war as they vied with one another to fill the political vacuum. This contributed directly to the rise of the Taliban and their seizure of Kabul in 1996.
When the Taliban fled in the face of the US-led invasion in late 2001, mujahideen leaders once again rose to prominence as interim (now elected) President Hamid Karzai struggled to establish his writ beyond the capital.
One of these is Yunus Qanooni, Karzai's chief rival in last year's presidential elections and a candidate in the weekend's parliamentary elections. Qanooni, a former education and interior minister under Karzai, has substantial support within the Panjsher Valley in the north of the country. Like slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, Qanooni is an ethnic Tajik Panjshiri. He fought beside Masoud against both the Soviets and the Taliban. He also served as Masoud's personal spokesman, as well as one of his senior military and political advisers.
When Masoud was assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives days before September 11 in 2001, Qanooni effectively took control of the militias Masoud had commanded.
In the past four years he has smartly turned the former armed bands into effective political activists, and their presence was highly visible across Kabul in the elections.
Qanooni is not particularly popular with the US-led forces in Afghanistan as he now opposes Karzai, but he has positioned himself as an indispensable feature of Afghan politics, whether he holds office or not.
In a rare interview with the foreign media, Qanooni spoke to Asia Times Online.
Asia Times Online: What is the future of the mujahideen in the new parliamentary politics of Afghanistan?
Yunus Qanooni: The mujahideen's importance cannot be down-played. They were important and they will remain important. Nobody can reject them. That's why they are contesting the polls and they will form a dominant presence in the upcoming parliament. [The results of Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than three decades will not be known until early October.]
ATol: The West is skeptical of the mujahideen, will it tolerate their heavy mandate in parliament, and their role in decision-making?
YQ: The West does not have a choice. They have to respect public opinion. The West is only concerned about peace and stability in Afghanistan. Only the mujahideen can ensure that.
ATol: Is the future of Afghanistan secular or Islamic?
YQ: Afghanistan is a Muslim country, with a 99% Muslim population. There is no place for secularism in Afghanistan. Our official religion is Islam and no system will be acceptable other than Islam. However, let me make clear here that the Taliban's concepts of Islam are not acceptable. Islam is a progressive and tolerant religion. Moderate and tolerant Islam is the future of Afghanistan and the international community should not be concerned on that because an Islamic welfare state of Afghanistan would not pose any threat to anybody, nor have any agenda against anybody.
ATol: People in Kabul seem to be concerned about the dearth of human resources in Afghanistan. Who will run the system?
YQ: I do not agree with this notion. We have qualified Afghans all over the world who can serve their nation and country. The same people also came to Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban, but due to the wrong handling of the incumbent Afghan government, they went back. At the same time, I would also like to mention that the government wrongly projects the literacy rate in the country. It is more than it projects. If the future government keeps upright policies, qualified people will return and definitely serve Afghanistan.
ATol: The Karzai government has announced a general amnesty for all Taliban. Is there any chance for people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar? [ Hekmatyar heads the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) . Hekmatyar is a legendary mujahideen figure who fought against the occupying Soviets in the 1980s and became premier in 1993. He remains active in the Taliban-led insurgency.]
YQ: I disagree with the Karzai government's dialogue policy with the Taliban. As a result of this wrong policy, violence and terrorism is encouraged in Afghanistan. I do not see any chance that the government will achieve any success with this policy. The Taliban have only exploited this chance and the number of their attacks has intensified. I tell you, the Taliban have a rigid ideology and they will not compromise on that until their ideology gets recognition in the government, and they will not give up their fight against the government.
As far as ordinary Taliban are concerned, we have no problem with them, but there should not be any compromise with their leadership. As far as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is concerned, I do not see any chance of an amnesty for him as his policies are in contrast with the present government and the coalition forces.
ATol: But Hekmatyar's HIA is likely to call the shots in the parliament as 25% of the candidates came from this party, even though some leading figures claim that they have left it.
YQ: I disagree that the HIA will get any significant representation in parliament. Nonetheless, the real authority is public opinion. It's up to them whom they elect and whom they do not.
ATol: Warlordism is a problem in Afghanistan. Why it is not controllable?
YQ: This problem has not really been identified - who is a warlord and who is not? There is no absolute definition when one talks about warlordism in Afghanistan. When it suits, they are given government offices and they are not blamed as warlords, but when political differences emerge, they are blamed for warlordism. The same with terrorism in southern and southeastern Afghanistan. This does not mean that the Taliban are strong in those areas, it means that the government strategy is weak. There is a strong presence of the national army, police and coalition forces, and despite that, if violence is not controlled, it means that the government's strategy is flawed.
ATol: What share does Pakistan have in the insurgency in Afghanistan?
YQ: Pakistan supports the Taliban. However, it is neither in the national interest of Pakistan nor of Afghanistan. Both countries should take care of each other's interests and should have a policy of friendship.
ATol: Do you have any specific idea of how and where Pakistan supports the Taliban?
YQ: To me this is not important. The important thing is that the Taliban are working against the interests of Afghanistan and they are getting support from Pakistan.
ATol: Afghanistan has become a narco-state. Who is responsible? [See Opium gold unites US friends and foes, Asia Times Online, September 3]
YQ: The narco trade is an international problem. A full syndicate is involve
The opposition face of Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KABUL - The national resistance to the decade-long occupation of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union in the 1980s is a source of national pride for the country.
In the chaotic years after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the victorious mujahideen (holy warriors) fought a bloody civil war as they vied with one another to fill the political vacuum. This contributed directly to the rise of the Taliban and their seizure of Kabul in 1996.
When the Taliban fled in the face of the US-led invasion in late 2001, mujahideen leaders once again rose to prominence as interim (now elected) President Hamid Karzai struggled to establish his writ beyond the capital.
One of these is Yunus Qanooni, Karzai's chief rival in last year's presidential elections and a candidate in the weekend's parliamentary elections. Qanooni, a former education and interior minister under Karzai, has substantial support within the Panjsher Valley in the north of the country. Like slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, Qanooni is an ethnic Tajik Panjshiri. He fought beside Masoud against both the Soviets and the Taliban. He also served as Masoud's personal spokesman, as well as one of his senior military and political advisers.
When Masoud was assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives days before September 11 in 2001, Qanooni effectively took control of the militias Masoud had commanded.
In the past four years he has smartly turned the former armed bands into effective political activists, and their presence was highly visible across Kabul in the elections.
Qanooni is not particularly popular with the US-led forces in Afghanistan as he now opposes Karzai, but he has positioned himself as an indispensable feature of Afghan politics, whether he holds office or not.
In a rare interview with the foreign media, Qanooni spoke to Asia Times Online.
Asia Times Online: What is the future of the mujahideen in the new parliamentary politics of Afghanistan?
Yunus Qanooni: The mujahideen's importance cannot be down-played. They were important and they will remain important. Nobody can reject them. That's why they are contesting the polls and they will form a dominant presence in the upcoming parliament. [The results of Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than three decades will not be known until early October.]
ATol: The West is skeptical of the mujahideen, will it tolerate their heavy mandate in parliament, and their role in decision-making?
YQ: The West does not have a choice. They have to respect public opinion. The West is only concerned about peace and stability in Afghanistan. Only the mujahideen can ensure that.
ATol: Is the future of Afghanistan secular or Islamic?
YQ: Afghanistan is a Muslim country, with a 99% Muslim population. There is no place for secularism in Afghanistan. Our official religion is Islam and no system will be acceptable other than Islam. However, let me make clear here that the Taliban's concepts of Islam are not acceptable. Islam is a progressive and tolerant religion. Moderate and tolerant Islam is the future of Afghanistan and the international community should not be concerned on that because an Islamic welfare state of Afghanistan would not pose any threat to anybody, nor have any agenda against anybody.
ATol: People in Kabul seem to be concerned about the dearth of human resources in Afghanistan. Who will run the system?
YQ: I do not agree with this notion. We have qualified Afghans all over the world who can serve their nation and country. The same people also came to Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban, but due to the wrong handling of the incumbent Afghan government, they went back. At the same time, I would also like to mention that the government wrongly projects the literacy rate in the country. It is more than it projects. If the future government keeps upright policies, qualified people will return and definitely serve Afghanistan.
ATol: The Karzai government has announced a general amnesty for all Taliban. Is there any chance for people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar? [ Hekmatyar heads the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) . Hekmatyar is a legendary mujahideen figure who fought against the occupying Soviets in the 1980s and became premier in 1993. He remains active in the Taliban-led insurgency.]
YQ: I disagree with the Karzai government's dialogue policy with the Taliban. As a result of this wrong policy, violence and terrorism is encouraged in Afghanistan. I do not see any chance that the government will achieve any success with this policy. The Taliban have only exploited this chance and the number of their attacks has intensified. I tell you, the Taliban have a rigid ideology and they will not compromise on that until their ideology gets recognition in the government, and they will not give up their fight against the government.
As far as ordinary Taliban are concerned, we have no problem with them, but there should not be any compromise with their leadership. As far as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is concerned, I do not see any chance of an amnesty for him as his policies are in contrast with the present government and the coalition forces.
ATol: But Hekmatyar's HIA is likely to call the shots in the parliament as 25% of the candidates came from this party, even though some leading figures claim that they have left it.
YQ: I disagree that the HIA will get any significant representation in parliament. Nonetheless, the real authority is public opinion. It's up to them whom they elect and whom they do not.
ATol: Warlordism is a problem in Afghanistan. Why it is not controllable?
YQ: This problem has not really been identified - who is a warlord and who is not? There is no absolute definition when one talks about warlordism in Afghanistan. When it suits, they are given government offices and they are not blamed as warlords, but when political differences emerge, they are blamed for warlordism. The same with terrorism in southern and southeastern Afghanistan. This does not mean that the Taliban are strong in those areas, it means that the government strategy is weak. There is a strong presence of the national army, police and coalition forces, and despite that, if violence is not controlled, it means that the government's strategy is flawed.
ATol: What share does Pakistan have in the insurgency in Afghanistan?
YQ: Pakistan supports the Taliban. However, it is neither in the national interest of Pakistan nor of Afghanistan. Both countries should take care of each other's interests and should have a policy of friendship.
ATol: Do you have any specific idea of how and where Pakistan supports the Taliban?
YQ: To me this is not important. The important thing is that the Taliban are working against the interests of Afghanistan and they are getting support from Pakistan.
ATol: Afghanistan has become a narco-state. Who is responsible? [See Opium gold unites US friends and foes, Asia Times Online, September 3]
YQ: The narco trade is an international problem. A full syndicate is involve