Afghan NATO force hits targets inside Pakistan

By Jonathon Burch
1 hour, 49 minutes ago

KABUL (Reuters) - NATO forces in Afghanistan hit targets inside Pakistan with artillery and attack helicopters after coming under rocket fire from across the border, the alliance said on Wednesday.

Tension is high along the border with a sharp rise in attacks in eastern Afghanistan coming from inside Pakistan that Afghan and NATO officials blame on de-facto ceasefires between the Pakistani military and militants in its lawless tribal belt.

Troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) "received multiple rocket attacks from militants inside Pakistan, July 15," the alliance said in a statement.

"The troops identified a (compound) as the point of origin of the attacks and responded in self-defence with a combination of fire from attack helicopters and artillery into Pakistan."

Nine Afghan soldiers were wounded by the rocket attacks and ISAF responded immediately, an ISAF spokesman said. ISAF and the Pakistani army "coordinated their operation closely from the outset. The Pakistani military agreed to assist and search the area if the border firing continued," the statement said.

Despite cooperation and open lines of communication between army commanders on both sides of the border, Afghan leaders have blamed Pakistani agents for a string of attacks.

These have included a suicide bomb on the Kabul Indian Embassy last week that killed 58 people and an April assassination bid on President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan rejects the accusations and says the Afghan government is trying to deflect criticism of its own failure to stem the rising tide of Taliban violence.

NO GROUND INCURSION

The U.S. military, which provides the vast majority of troops in eastern Afghanistan, says attacks are up by 40 percent in the area over the last year, partly because of increased penetration of their soldiers into the mountainous region.

Another factor is the ceasefires in Pakistan which help secure the militants' rear.

But while cross-border firing has gone up from both sides, NATO denied it had any intention of mounting any incursion onto Pakistani soil.

"There is not, nor is there going to be, an incursion of NATO troops into Pakistan. There is no planning for, no mandate for, an incursion of NATO troops into Pakistan," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told a news briefing in Brussels.

But, he said, NATO troops "have the right to fire back in self-defence into Pakistan."

Western forces in Afghanistan are coming under increased pressure as the traditional summer fighting season gets into full swing with security analysts predicting July could be the worst month of violence yet since the Taliban's fall in 2001.

Already more U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan in May and June than in Iraq and there are less than a quarter the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have seized the initiative and the headlines in recent weeks with a series of high profile attacks.

U.S. troops pulled out of a remote outpost in northeastern Afghanistan, three days after Taliban militants briefly breached the defenses and killed nine U.S. soldiers, the biggest single loss of life for American forces in Afghanistan since 2005.

Foreign troops have also come under pressure in Afghanistan from a series of charges that their aircraft killed civilians.

Four women, four girls and an eight-year-old boy were killed in air strikes in the western province of Farah on Tuesday, local officials said.

(Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Charles Dick)

US 'killed 47 Afghan civilians'


BBC news

Page last updated at 14:14 GMT, Friday, 11 July 2008 15:14 UK


US 'killed 47 Afghan civilians'

A US air strike in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday killed 47 civilians, 39 of them women and children, an Afghan government investigating team says.

Reports at the time said that 20 people were killed in the airstrike in Nangarhar province. The US military said they were militants.

But local people said the dead were wedding party guests.

Correspondents say the issue of civilian casualties is hugely sensitive in Afghanistan.

President Hamid Karzai has said that no civilian casualty is acceptable.

Demand for trial

Mr Karzai set up a nine-man commission to look into Sunday's incident.

The commission is headed by Senate deputy speaker, Burhanullah Shinwari whose constituency is in Nangarhar province. He told the BBC: ''Our investigation found out that 47 civilians (were killed) by the American bombing and nine others injured.


Concern over Afghan civilian deaths

"There are 39 women and children" among those killed, he said. The eight other people who died were "between the ages of 14 and 18".

A spokeswoman for the US coalition, Lt Rumi Nielson-Green told the AFP news agency that the force was also investigating the incident and regretted any loss of civilian life. "We never target non-combatants. We do go to great length to avoid civilian casualties," she said.

At the time the US said that those killed were militants involved in previous mortar attacks on a Nato base.

The incident happened in the remote district of Deh Bala, close to the Afghan border.

Mirwais Yasini, deputy speaker for the lower house of parliament, also has his constituency in Nangarhar. ''We are very sad about the killings in Deh Bala. People should be compensated," he told the BBC.

"These operations widen the gap between the people and the government."

He said that those who passed on intelligence to the US military ahead of the air strike should be tried, "as well as those who carried out the bombing".

Mr Yasini demanded that "all operations should be conducted in full co-operation with our security forces in the future".

'Ashamed'

Correspondents say most civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by Taleban fighters and other militants opposed to President Karzai and US and Nato-led forces. On Monday a suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul killed 41 people, most of them civilians.

However, foreign troops have also often killed civilians, leading to an erosion of support for their presence in Afghanistan.

Last year a US army spokesman said he was "deeply ashamed" after US marines killed 19 civilians near Jalalabad in Nangarhar province.

Only a few months earlier, a Nato spokesman said that civilian casualties were the main issue for the Nato-led force to resolve.

"I believe the single thing that we have done wrong and we are striving extremely hard to improve on is killing innocent civilians," Brig Richard Nugee said.

President Karzai has been scathing in his criticism over the deaths of Afghan civilians, even summoning foreign commanders in May, 2007 to tell them "that the patience of the Afghan people is wearing thin with the continued killing of innocent civilians".

Two days ago, the Red Cross said that at least 250 Afghan civilians had been killed or wounded in insurgent attacks or military action in the previous six days. It called on all parties to the conflict to avoid civilian casualties.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7501538.stm

NO GROUND INCURSION

Is the US Preparing To Attack Pakistan?

by Eric Margolis
by Eric Margolis


DIGG THIS

The Bush Administration may be preparing to lash out at old ally Pakistan, which Washington now blames for its humiliating failures to crush al-Qaida, capture its elusive leaders, or defeat Taliban resistance forces in Afghanistan.

One is immediately reminded of the Vietnam War when the Pentagon, unable to defeat North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces, urged invasion of Cambodia.

Sources in Washington say the Pentagon is drawing up plans to attack Pakistan’s "autonomous" tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Limited "hot pursuit" ground incursions by US forces based in Afghanistan, intensive air attacks, and special forces raids into Pakistan’s autonomous tribal region are being evaluated.

This weekend, the US national intelligence chief and other intelligence spokesmen confirmed that strikes against "terrorist targets" in Pakistan’s tribal belt are increasingly possible. These warnings were designed to both further pressure Pakistan’s beleaguered strongman, President Pervez Musharraf into sending more troops to the tribal areas to fight his own people, and to prepare US public opinion for a possible widening of the Afghanistan war into Pakistan.

Pakistan’s 27,200 sq km tribal belt, officially known as the Federal Autonomous Tribal Area, or FATA, is home to 3.3 million Pashtun tribesmen. It has become a safe haven for al-Qaida, Taliban, other Afghan resistance groups, and a hotbed of anti-American activity, thanks mostly to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan which drove many militants across the border into Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is very likely sheltered in this region, as US intelligence claims.

I spent a remarkable time in this wild, medieval region during the 1980’s and 90’s, traveling alone where even Pakistani government officials dared not go, visiting the tribes of Waziristan, Orakzai, Khyber, Chitral, and Kurram, and meeting their chiefs, called "maliks."

These tribal belts are always referred to as "lawless." Pashtun tribesmen could shoot you if they didn’t like your looks. Rudyard Kipling warned British Imperial soldiers over a century ago, when fighting cruel, ferocious Pashtun warriors of the Afridi clan, if they fell wounded, "save your last bullet for yourself."

But there is law: the traditional Pashtun tribal code, Pashtunwali, that strictly governs behavior and personal honor. Protecting guests was sacred. I was captivated by this majestic mountain region and wrote of it extensively in my book, "War at the Top of the World."

The 40 million Pashtun – called "Pathan" by the British – are the world’s largest tribal group. Imperial Britain divided them by an artificial border, the Durand Line, which went on to become, like so many other British colonial boundaries, today’s Afghanistan-Pakistan border. When Pakistan was created in 1947, the Pashtun were split between that new nation and Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Pashtun number 28–30 million, plus an additional 2.5 million refugees from Afghanistan. Pashtuns, one of the British Indian Army’s famed "martial races," occupy many senior positions in Pakistan’s military, intelligence service and bureaucracy, and naturally have much sympathy for their embattled tribal cousins in Afghanistan. The 15 million Pashtun of Afghanistan form that nation’s largest ethnic group and just under half the population.

The tribal agency’s Pashtun reluctantly joined newly-created Pakistan in 1947 under express constitutional guarantee of total autonomy and a ban on Pakistani troops ever entering there.

But under intense US pressure, President Pervez Musharraf violated Pakistan’s constitution by sending 80,000 federal troops to fight the region’s tribes, killing 3,000 of them. In best British imperial tradition, Washington pays Musharraf $100 million monthly to rent his sepoys (native soldiers) to fight Pashtun tribesmen. As a result, Pakistan is fast edging towards civil war, as the bloody siege of Islamabad’s Red Mosque and a current wave of bombings across the nation show.

The anti-Communist Taliban movement is part of the Pashtun people. Taliban fighters move across the artificial Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to borrow a Maoism, like fish through the sea. Osama bin Laden is a hero in the region, and likely shelters there.

The US just increased its reward for bin Laden to $50 million and plans to shower $750 million on the tribal region in an effort to buy loyalty. Bush/Cheney & Co. do not understand that while they can rent President Musharraf’s government in Islamabad, many Pashtun value personal honor far more than money, and cannot be bought. That is likely why bin Laden has not yet been betrayed.

Any US attack on Pakistan would be a catastrophic mistake. First, air and ground assaults will succeed only in widening the anti-US war and merging it with Afghanistan’s resistance to western occupation. US forces are already too over-stretched to get involved in yet another little war.

Second, Pakistan’s army officers who refuse to be bought may resist a US attack on their homeland, and overthrow the man who allowed it, Gen. Musharraf. A US attack would sharply raise the threat of anti-US extremists seizing control of strategic Pakistan and marginalize those seeking return to democratic government.

Third, a US attack on the tribal areas could re-ignite the old irredentist movement to reunite Pashtun parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan into an independent state, "Pashtunistan." That could begin unraveling fragile Pakistan, leaving its nuclear arsenal up for grabs, and India tempted to intervene.

The US military has grown used to attacking small, weak nations like Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Pakistan, with 163 million people, and a poorly equipped but very tough 550,000-man army, will offer no easy victories. Those Bush Administration officials who foolishly advocate attacking Pakistan are playing with fire.

July 24, 2007

Eric Margolis [send him mail], contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada, is the author of War at the Top of the World. See his website.

From The Times
July 16, 2008
US troops poised to cross Afghan border for raid on bases
Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

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”.

President Bush said yesterday that the US would investigate the Afghan claims to “get to the bottom of the allegation”. He said that he was troubled by the movement of extremists from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

“I certainly hope that the [Pakistani] Government understands the dangers of extremists moving in their country,” Mr Bush said.Tensions have been heightened since the deaths of nine soldiers on Sunday when insurgents overran a US base in Kunar province, close to the Pakistani border.

Western commanders say there has been a marked increase in cross-border infiltration in the past few months, fuelling the insurgency in Afghanistan. Nato troops have clashed with Pakistani units along the South Waziristan border.

US Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an announced visit to Islamabad at the weekend and held a series of meetings with Pakistan's top civil and military leadership.

According to well-placed sources, Admiral Mullen warned Pakistan that the US could take unilateral military action if the cross-border attacks in Afghanistan were not stopped. The US official said that some elements within Pakistani security agencies could be helping the insurgents operate from their bases in the border region.

An influential Pakistani army official said there were strong indications that the US was ready to launch bombing raids against suspected al-Qaeda and Taleban camps inside Pakistan.

The official said that any unilateral American military action could have serious repercussions and create difficulties for Pakistani counter-terrorism efforts.

Washington is concerned by the new Government's move to strike peace deals with militant groups, pacts that American critics say will simply give insurgents time to regroup and gain strength.

Analysts say that the failure of the new coalition Government led by the Pakistan People's Party to formulate a clear counter-insurgency policy has affected the military's efforts to curb cross-border infiltration and the rising influence of militants in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4340239.ece

I'm waiting to see if the US has the nerve to go in. They can fly all the planes and helicopters they want. Its called mission creep. The Bush Administration hasn't had the guts to take on Pakistan since they've been in office.

JOhn McCain must be very angry....

February 19, 2008

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000944.htm

McCain Blasts Obama for Bush's Attacks in Pakistan

In his Wisconsin victory speech this evening, John McCain wasted no time in firing shots across Barack Obama's bow. Hoping to highlight the Democratic frontrunner's inexperience, McCain to partisan cheers ridiculed Obama's promises as "eloquent but empty." But in a preview of Republican duplicity to come, McCain blasted Obama's past advocacy of unilateral American attacks against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, attacks the Bush administration itself is now finally carrying out.

In August, as you'll recall, Barack received a hellstorm of criticism for his statements regarding attacking Al Qaeda bases in Pakistan. As part of broad - and forceful - foreign policy speech on August 1, Obama rightly took the Bush administration to task for the failure of its "no safe havens" doctrine in Pakistan. Regarding the Al Qaeda sanctuary safely nestled along the Afghan border, Obama declared, "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

The White House and some of his Democratic rivals were quick to condemn Obama's comments. Despite the renewed Al Qaeda threat documented in a recent National Intelligence Estimate, then Bush press secretary Tony Snow rejected unilateral American strikes inside Pakistan without the blessing of President Pervez Musharraf:

"We think that our approach to Pakistan is not only one that respects the sovereignty of Pakistan, but also is designed so that we are working in cooperation."
As it turns out, not so much. At least, not any more.

On the very day John McCain assailed Barack Obama, the Washington Post detailed that the U.S. is now carrying out covert strikes within Pakistan without prior authorization from the Musharraf government. In an article titled, "Unilateral Strike Called a Model for U.S. Operations in Pakistan," the Post described the January 29 Predator drone attack that killed Al Qaeda leader Abu Laith Al-Libi:

The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA's dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda's core leadership in two years, and it involved, U.S. officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan.
Having requested the Pakistani government's official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval. The government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was notified only as the operation was underway, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

As the Post also detailed, this long overdue shift represents the Bush administration's grudging acceptance of the reality on the ground across the border from Afghanistan. The recommended approach of the Pentagon, as well as Barack Obama, is becoming the policy of President Bush:

Top Bush administration policy officials - who are increasingly worried about al-Qaeda's use of its sanctuary in remote, tribally ruled areas in northern Pakistan to dispatch trained terrorists to the West - have quietly begun to accept the military's point of view, according to several sources familiar with the context of the Libi strike.
But you won't hear that from John McCain. The presumptive Republican nominee will play the inexperience card against Barack Obama. And McCain's deceptive attacks will include criticizing Barack Obama for a strategy that is now the policy of the current occupant of the Oval Office.

UPDATE: CNN re-aired a 2006 interview in which President Bush told Wolf Blizter he would "absolutely" give the order to kill or capture Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, even if the government in Islamabad objected. That, of course, didn't stop Bush from telling Fox News just 10 days ago that Obama is "going to attack Pakistan." Meanwhile, the major media remains silent on John McCain's Beach Boys parody, "Bomb Bomb Iran."

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS (a respected military blog)

7/16/08

Pakistan border situation

FB Ali

The attack on the Kunar post, because of the sad loss of life, has garnered a lot of attention and comment. But this was, after all, just a minor tactical setback. What should really worry people in the US are the gathering storm clouds that are threatening to jeopardise the entire US-NATO enterprise in Afghanistan. The adjoining tribal territories in Pakistan are rapidly slipping out of control of the country's government.

Pakistan's civilian government is in complete disarray. The nominal cabinet has no power; decisions are made by a couple of unelected former fugitives from justice (accused of massive corruption) for whom the US obtained immunity from Musharraf. The political parties and factions are busy undermining each other, the country's administration is in turmoil, its finances are in a mess, inflation is surging, ordinary people are daily facing shortages of food, water and electricity. The government is trying to negotiate agreements with the tribes, offering them money and autonomy in return for peace – the old policy the British used with considerable success. Unfortunately, when the US used these tribal areas in the 70s as the base from which to launch the jihad to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan (remember the mujahedins, darlings of the West?) they also destroyed the old tribal hierarchies, with radicals and militants taking control. To them, "peace" now means a free hand to support their Pakhtun brethren in Afghanistan in their fight to oust the new invaders. The US will not accept such an agreement. It is not surprising these negotiations are not making much progress.

The Pakistan army, having had its nose bloodied in Musharraf's earlier attempt to militarily control the tribes, and with its standing in the country badly dented by his political shenanigans, is quite content to use the civilian government's dithering as an excuse for its inaction; it has no intention of fighting a US proxy war in the tribal territories. It also knows that the US will still continue to pay it large subsidies to ensure the safeguarding of the US supply lines to Afghanistan (and the country's nuclear weapons).

The US is in a bind. It has to deny the Pakhtun insurgency (the Taliban are only one part of it) the use of the tribal areas as a base. With Pakistan showing no will to control these areas, it is threatening to take unilateral military action there. This will obviously be through air strikes and Special Forces raids, both notorious for their inevitable "collateral damage". This will add fuel to the fire of militancy, pushing more recruits into the ranks of the jihad, especially the deadly suicide bombers. An insurgency cannot be defeated by a few successful decapitation strikes, or even by turning a rugged mountainous base area into a free-fire zone. The more perceptive US commanders probably know this, but they have to be seen to do something about the continuous guerrilla attacks. How long will the NATO allies stick around fighting an unwinnable war? How long will the US public put up with it?

But that is not the worst of it. Believing Pakistan to be complicit in the US strikes on their people, the tribal militants will turn on it; they have already seen the deadly effect of their suicide bombs in the teeming cities. An already fragile governmental and societal structure will face severe stress; anything could happen. One thing is certain : the religious fundamentalists in the country will take full advantage of this turmoil. For the US, the first impact will be on their supply line through Pakistan. Then, Pakistan itself, as an ally, will be at risk.

One of the most difficult things for both statesman and soldier is to recognize a war as unwinnable before it is proven in the field.

That ought to put us in solid with the tribal elders.

So now we're in for a series of invasions of and wars with Pakistan that nobody besides a few writers notice just like we've had with Iran? Is anyone going to tell the Pakistanis or will they be kept in the dark like the Iranians and never find out it happened?

You mean the fellows helping hide out Osama bin Laden? I bet they love us even more.

Killing women and children has never in history made things better.

Not ever.

This is deeply regrettable.

WE had been making substantial improvements on avoiding this type of result...

It seems with every step forward there is a step back.