Riot Erupts After Kabul Traffic Accident Forbes
A deadly traffic accident involving US troops sparked a riot in the Afghan capital on Monday, with US and Afghan security forces firing on protesters, police and witnesses said. At least four people were killed. Hundreds of protesters marched on palace of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai in the city center after the incident, shouting "Death to Karzai! Death to America!" Gunfire was also heard near the U.S. Embassy. The staff was moved to a secure location within the heavily fortified compound, said Chris Harris, an embassy spokesman. Rioters broke into shops and stole household items, and an AP reporter said he saw several demonstrators pull a foreign man from a vehicle and beat him. The man escaped and ran to a line of police, who fired shots over the heads of the demonstrators. Afghan troops deployed around Kabul, and two tanks of NATO peacekeepers drove at high speed through the city center. Rioters smashed police guard boxes and set fire to police cars. Witnesses said the incident began when a convoy of at least three U.S. Humvees came into the city from the outskirts and hit several civilian cars in rush-hour traffic jam. "The American convoy hit all the vehicles which were in their way. They didn't care about the civilians at all," said Mohammad Wali, 21, a shopkeeper. Three people were killed and 16 wounded in the crash, said Sher Shah Usafi, a Kabul police chief. U.S. forces then fired on the crowd, killing one person and wounding two, he said. A commander with the city's traffic police who was at the scene said he also saw U.S. forces firing on protesters. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick, confirmed U.S. troops were involved in the accident but said the military had "no indication that U.S. forces fired any shots." He said an investigation was continuing. Associated Press TV footage showed hundreds of angry young men hurling rocks at what appeared to be three U.S. military trucks and three Humvees as they sped from the area after the crash, their windscreens cracked by the stones. A center-mounted machine gun on one of the Humvees was seen firing into the air over the crowd as the vehicle sped away. The video footage also showed an Afghan man apparently hurt in the riots lying on the ground, being comforted by others around him. An AP reporter at the scene said he saw about 10 Afghan police firing into a crowd of about 50 demonstrators, and that U.S. troops had already left the area. The protesters scattered when the firing erupted, but later regrouped. Two helicopters belonging to a NATO-led peacekeeping force hovered over the area. Phones in Kabul were only working sporadically. Repeated attempts to get through to the city's hospitals to get the latest casualty toll from the unrest were unsuccessful. State television cut transmission of a live broadcast of parliament when one angry lawmaker interrupted the proceedings to protest the incident. "I have seen the incident. ... I come from that area and I have to tell you," Taj Mohammed Mujahid shouted before the house speaker ruled him out of order and the screen went black. Transmission resumed minutes later and parliamentary speaker Yunus Qanooni called for calm. "We call on the people to be tolerant because there is the risk this could be exploited by our enemies," he said, referring to Taliban rebels who are waging a fierce insurgency in the country's southern and eastern regions. He said the Cabinet was discussing the matter. Afghans often complain about what they call the aggressive driving tactics of the U.S. military. Convoys often pass through crowded areas at high speeds and sometimes disregard road rules. The U.S. military says such tactics are necessary to protect the troops from attack.
By RAHIM FAIEZ
Afghan protest over US accident CNN
Riot involving US forces erupts in Kabul Aljazeera.net
Santa Fe New Mexican - Calgary Sun - Kansas City Star - Chicago Tribune - all 300 related »

U.S. Bombs Kill More Than 50 In Afghanistan:

Maj. Quentin Innis, a coalition spokesman based in Kandahar, confirmed that coalition aircraft had dropped two 500-pound bombs on a Taliban compound, causing "a lot" of casualties
http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/.../ap2778938.html

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20 Dead in Afghan Riots:

Rioters set police cars on fire and shops all over Kabul closed down stemming from the violent crowds moving through the capital city's streets shouting "death to America" after the troop convoy was said to have killed seven civilians involved in the accident.
http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsectio...?articleid=9770

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Afghans riot after US troops kill four civilians:

Riots and gunfire broke out in the Afghan capital on Monday with people feared dead in violent demonstrations that erupted after US troops shot dead at least four civilians, witnesses said.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13413.htm

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A look at Afghanistan abuse cases:

A look at the cases against 15 soldiers accused of abusing Afghan detainees, including two who later died. The trials have been held at Fort Bliss, Texas.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/14694075.htm

Aid workers killed in Afghanistan BBC News
Three women and a man working for the ActionAid charity have been shot dead in Afghanistan, officials say. The aid workers - all believed to be Afghan citizens - were killed in Mingajik district in the northern province of Jowzjan. They were reportedly attacked in their vehicle by gunmen riding motorcycles. Aid workers are often targeted in attacks blamed on the Taleban militia - but this is the first such attack in Afghanistan's relatively calm north. Two Afghan employees of the UN's children's charity, Unicef, were killed in a rocket attack on their vehicle earlier this month as they were driving from Herat, in the west, to Kandahar in the south-east. ActionAid has confirmed its staff were attacked in the north of the country. The charity has been working to bring modern healthcare to remote Afghan villages. A person claiming to be a spokesman for the Taleban telephoned the BBC on Monday warning of attacks in the north of the country. Troops from Sweden, operating under Nato command, have a base in Jowzjan province. The Taleban, which ruled Afghanistan until a US-led invasion in 2001, has vowed to attack foreign troops and those it regards as their collaborators. Hundreds of people have died in recent clashes between Taleban militants and Afghan security forces, backed by US-led troops.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/stor...1796794,00.html

Afghan province to provide one-third of world's heroin

· Poppy harvest to double in British-patrolled area
· £1.1bn from west since 2001 fails to stop trade

Declan Walsh in Kabul
Wednesday June 14, 2006
The Guardian



British patrol passes opium poppies in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan. Photo: John Moore/Getty


The Afghanistan province being patrolled by British troops will produce at least a third of the world's heroin this year, according to drug experts who are forecasting a record harvest that will be an embarrassment for the western-funded war on narcotics.

British officials are bracing themselves for the result of an annual UN poppy survey due later this summer. Early indications show an increase on Helmand's 1999 record of 45,000 hectares (112,500 acres) and a near-doubling of last year's crop.

"It's going to be massive," said one British drugs official. "My guess is it's going to be the biggest ever."

Helmand's bumper harvest highlights the failure of western counter-narcotics efforts that have cost at least $2bn (£1.1bn) since 2001. It could undo progress made last year, when poppy cultivation dropped 21% after a call for a "jihad" on drugs by the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.

It spells particularly bad news for Britain, which is leading the anti-narcotics campaign and has deployed 3,300 soldiers to the lawless province. Afghanistan produces almost 90% of the world's heroin, with about a third coming from Helmand. Drug experts say the province is as central to Afghanistan's illegal economy as California is to America's legal one. "If you took Helmand out of the picture, Afghanistan would fall from the world's top poppy grower to second or third place," said one US official.

British and American officials cannot resort to the tactics of the Taliban, which slashed poppy cultivation in 2001 by threatening to shoot farmers. But western efforts using less violent methods, such as encouraging farmers to grow legal crops, have proved fruitless.

The smuggling kingpins who control the £1.5bn trade have become rich, powerful and apparently untouchable. "Until Karzai arrests and jails one big dealer, people will not believe the central government is behind this drive," said a former American anti-narcotics contractor.

The most damaging allegations surround the minister charged with counter-narcotics, Muhammad Daud. Several western officials claim General Daud, a former Tajik warlord, has historical and family links to smuggling.

He denies the allegations. "It is very shameful for a big country with such a good reputation to make allegations like this," he said.

American congressmen are increasing the pressure to start poppy eradication with crop-spraying planes - a controversial tactic opposed by British and Afghan officials, who say it would be disastrous. "It could drive farmers into the hands of the insurgents," said one.

Britain's main enemy, the Taliban, has developed close links to drugs smugglers. On Sunday a British soldier, named as Captain Jim Philippson, became the first combat fatality in Helmand after a battle with suspected Taliban forces.

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_6_19_06.htm
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On War #171
June 19, 2006

Aaugh!

By William S. Lind

[The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Lind, writing in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the opinions or policy positions of the Free Congress Foundation, its officers, board or employees, or those of Kettle Creek Corporation.]

This Sunday’s sacred ritual of Mass, bagels and tea with the Grumpy Old Men’s Club was rudely disrupted by the headline of the day’s Washington Post: “U.S. Airstrikes Rise In Afghanistan as Fighting Intensifies.” Great, I thought; it’s probably cheaper than funding a recruiting campaign for the Taliban and lots more effective at creating new guerrillas.

Getting into the story just made the picture worse:

As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command…

The airstrikes appear to have increased in recent days as the United States and its allies have launched counteroffensives against the Taliban in the south and southeast, strafing and bombing a stronghold in Uruzgan province and pounding an area near Khost with 500-pound bombs.

One might add, “The Taliban has expressed its thanks to the U.S. Air Force for greatly increasing its popular support in the bombed areas.”

At present, the bombing is largely tied to the latest Somme-like “Big Push,” Operation Mountain Thrust, in which more than 10,000 U.S.-led troops are trying another failed approach to guerrilla war, the sweep. I have no doubt it would break the Mullah Omar Line, if it existed, which it doesn’t. Even the Brits seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid this time, with the June 19 Washington Times reporting that “British commanders declared for the first time yesterday that their troops were enjoying success in the restive south of Afghanistan after pushing faster than expected into rebel territory.” Should be in Berlin by September, old chap.

Of course, all this is accompanied by claims of many dead Taliban, who are conveniently interchangeable with dead locals who weren’t Taliban. Bombing from the air is the best way to drive up the body count, because you don’t even have to count bodies; you just make estimates based on the claimed effectiveness of your weapons, and feed them to ever-gullible reporters. By the time Operation Mountain Thrust is done thrusting into mountains, we should have killed the Taliban several times over.

Icing this particular cake is a strategic misconception of the nature of the Afghan war that only American generals could swallow. According to the same Post story,

U.S. officials say the activity is a response to an increasingly aggressive Taliban, whose leaders realize that long-term trends are against them as them as the power of the Afghan central government grows.

“I think the Taliban realize they have a window to act,” Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, commander of the 22,000 U.S. troops in the country, said in a recent interview. “The enemy is working against a window that he knows is closing.”

Except that the power of the U.S.-created Afghan government is receding, not growing, and the Taliban’s “window” only closes when Christ comes again.

Aaugh! The last time a nation’s civilian and military leadership was this incapable of learning from experience was under the Ching Dynasty.

Perhaps it’s time to offer a short refresher course in Guerrilla War 101:

Air power works against you, not for you. It kills lots of people who weren’t your enemy, recruiting their relatives, friends and fellow tribesmen to become your enemies. In this kind of war, bombers are as useful as 42 cm. siege mortars.

Big, noisy, offensives, launched with lots of warning, achieve nothing. The enemy just goes to ground while you pass on through, and he’s still there when you leave. Big Pushes are the opposite of the “ink blot” strategy, which is the only thing that works, when anything can.

Putting the Big Push together with lots of bombing in Afghanistan’s Pashtun country means we end up fighting most if not all of the Pashtun. In Afghan wars, the Pashtun always win in the end.

Quisling governments fail because they cannot achieve legitimacy.

You need closure, but your guerilla enemy doesn’t. He not only can fight until Doomsday, he intends to do just that—if not you, then someone else.

The bigger the operations you have to undertake, the more surely your enemy is winning.

The June 19 Washington Times also reported that

The ambassador from Afghanistan traveled to America’s heartland to promote his war-torn country as the “heart of Asia” and a good place to do business…

In his region, “all roads lead to Afghanistan,” he said…

Asia doesn’t have any heart, and Afghanistan doesn’t have any roads, not even one we can follow to get out.

William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation

http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=148742

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We face defeat in Afghanistan, Army chiefs warn Blair
Monday July 03, 2006 (0941 PST)

KABUL: Army chiefs have warned Tony Blair that British forces face defeat in Afghanistan unless more troops and equipment are sent out immediately, it has been claimed.

According to a senior military source, Army top brass have told the Government there is a possibility of failure in Afghanistan, where British soldiers have met significant resistance from the Taliban forces defeated by the US-Anglo invasion five years ago.

The source said that officers at the Services’ Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood, North London, run by Major General Nick Houghton, had told Ministers that ’strategic failure’ - military jargon for defeat - could not be ruled out.

The report comes amid growing pressure on Defence Secretary Des Browne to reinforce the 3,300-strong contingent of British troops in Afghanistan, where two Special Forces soldiers were killed last week after fighting with the Taliban.

Conservative frontbencher Patrick Mercer said: ’This has turned into a shooting war and our forces do not have the firepower to deal with it.

Army chiefs have told Mr Blair they urgently need more soldiers on the ground, extra artillery, more helicopters to ensure that wounded soldiers can be airlifted to medical centres, and GR7 Harriers to attack Taliban bases.

’The British forces are having difficulty in coping,’ a military source said. ’They were sent in there as peacekeepers and now find themselves in what is, in all but name, another war.

’They cannot get proper supplies and if men are injured, it is proving difficult to fly them out of the danger zone. That cannot go on.’

Extra resources

Both Lieutenant General David Richards, commander of the Nato force in Afghanistan, and General Sir Mike Jackson, Chief of the General Staff, are calling for extra resources.

When British forces were switched to Afghanistan from Iraq last year in a deal with America, former Defence Secretary John Reid said their main task would be peacekeeping. But they were soon taking on insurgents determined to bring down the democratic government of Afghanistan elected after the Taliban regime was toppled.

The British force was sent to Helmand Province, the Taliban stronghold, and is now involved in daily battles with its guerrillas. The resurgence in the Taliban has taken Britain and America by surprise.

In spite of several victories against Taliban fighters, the British force has been hampered by other problems. Because of the size of the area for which they are responsible, they have to fly troops to the front line to avoid Taliban forces attacking long-distance lorry convoys almost at will.

In an added complication, the Chinook helicopters they rely on are unable to operate in the intense heat of the Afghan summer.

Ministry of Defence aides say there is irritation in Downing Street that Spain and Germany, both with troops in safer parts of Afghanistan, are reluctant to divert forces to relieve the British contingent.