US troops in Afghanistan massed close to the border yesterday for a possible attack on al-Qaeda and Taleban bases in the lawless North Waziristan tribal belt in Pakistan. Reports from the area said that hundreds of Nato troops were airlifted across the mountains from the village of Lowara Mandi, which has been an important base for cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. Heavy artillery and armoured vehicles were also being moved into position. The deployment followed a claim by the Afghan Government on Monday that the Pakistani Army and its spy agency had become “the world's biggest producers of terrorism and extremism”. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry accused Kabul of creating an “artificial crisis to satisfy short-term political expediencies”.Fight Drawing Foreign Jihadis - Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor
This week's brazen and deadly attack on a US-Afghan outpost in an area near the Pakistani border is raising new concerns that foreign fighters bent on fighting the West are retraining their sights from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sunday's predawn assault on the still-unfinished camp left nine US soldiers dead and was the worst single toll for US forces in Afghanistan since 2005. It came only a few days after the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said on a visit to Kabul that more foreign fighters are arriving in Pakistan's tribal areas just across the border. From there, he said, the foreign fighters, which intelligence has revealed includes members of Al Qaeda, can join Taliban forces in Afghanistan to launch attacks - like Sunday's - against US and Afghan forces.Taliban Push Has US on Defensive - The Australian
The US's ability to defeat insurgents in Afghanistan has been thrown further into doubt after Sunday's deadly Taliban attack on a US outpost in the east of the country - an area recently touted as a counterinsurgency success. Increasingly bold attacks on US and NATO forces have forced them on to the defensive and analysts say coalition forces are now stretched to deal with deteriorating fronts both in the south and the east. The spike in attacks has raised alarm with Afghan officials, who yesterday accused neighbouring Pakistan of being an "exporter of terrorism". Afghanistan said yesterday it would boycott a series of meetings with Pakistan unless "bilateral trust" was restored. The cabinet decision was announced soon after President Hamid Karzai directly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency and military officials of involvement in the latest series of deadly attacks, including Sunday's killings and the bombing of the Indian embassy last week.
