The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread October 2008

[GAP]

The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread October 2008              

News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
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Articles found September 1, 2008

US drone suspected of deadly attack on Pakistan border with Afghanistan
Pakistani intelligence officials say missiles struck the home of a local Taliban commander in North WaziristanRandeep Ramesh, south Asia correspondent, and Giles Tremlett in Madrid guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 01 2008 10:03 BST
Article Link

A suspected US drone killed at least six people in a missile strike in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan near the Afghan border, officials said today.

The strike came amid reports that Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, had died after illness. Pakistani officials have accused Mehsud over the assassinated of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after her return from exile.

Two missiles were fired at a house in the Khushali Torikhel area near Mir Ali town at about midnight, according to local media reports. Pakistani intelligence officials said the missiles struck the home of a local Taliban commander.

The officials said a US drone aircraft — not Pakistani forces — fired the missiles. Pakistani media reported that among the dead were foreign militants.

It was reported that the drone returned fire as it was attacked while hovering over a village. In recent weeks American forces have crossed the border in missions aimed at destroying Taliban and al-Qaida bases in Pakistan.
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Pakistan attacks 'central hub' of militants' border bases
Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun Published: Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Article Link

Clearly there has been a dramatic upheaval when local people think Afghanistan is a safer haven than Pakistan.

That's just what happened on Monday when United Nations officials reported 20,000 people fleeing across the border into Afghanistan's Kunar province from Pakistan's semi-autonomous Bajaur Agency tribal territory.

And within Bajaur, the most northerly of Pakistan's seven tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan, about 200,000 people -- close to half the population -- are reported to have fled their homes.
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Kandahar dispatch
Eid aid: Ticket required
Canadian end-of-Eid food gifts please some, disappoint others
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Article Link

The crowd outside the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar city had gathered early. Afghanistan's poor. Dozens upon dozens of Afghans - wearing their poverty on their faces - arrived early at the barbed wire gates of the Canadian compound in the morning after they heard that food was being given out for Eid al-Fitr, the three-day celebration that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Women in burkas stood at the entrance with their children, bright-eyed and barefoot, running around them, all hoping to be let in.

"My son is sick and in the hospital," said one woman through her blue burka, "and there are no other men in my home who can help me. Please, can you help me get through the gate?"

Tickets, please
A man in a wheelchair was being pushed by his younger sister, a beautiful young girl in a pink headscarf. They had come to the gate with their parents, hoping for food.

"Please help us," their father said. "We don't have a ticket, but we need the help."

The "ticket" was actually an invitation to go behind the wire. Only 200 needy families were chosen by the Canadian military through the district manager and the local mullahs. They would each receive bags of sugar, rice, three litres of cooking oil, a 25 kg bag of flour and a box of tea. Total cost to the military: $12,000.

"We recognize there's a great need out there, and we can't help everyone, but we're just trying to help those we can in our district," said Lt. Jon Baker, who was in charge of the Eid handout.
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Afghan mission raises only minor campaign debate
Mike Blanchfield, Canwest News Service Published: Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Article Link

The Canadian Forces mission in Afghanistan is to either end, or change dramatically, by 2011.

That is the deadline Parliament has authorized for Canada's 2,500 troops to remain in Kandahar, the heart of the southern Afghanistan insurgency, and where the Canadian Forces have been involved in some of the heaviest combat NATO allies have seen in the country.

Yet, Canada's efforts to stamp out the Taliban insurgency and the slow pace of rebuilding Afghanistan have not emerged as a hot issue in the federal election campaign.
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[The Bread Guy]

2011 pullout not cutting and running: MacKay
CTV.ca, 30 Sept 08
Article link

Defence Minister Peter MacKay dismissed the suggestion that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan by 2011 is akin to cutting and running.  His comments followed a statement by military mom Connie Perchaluk who said Canada must not abandon its work in Afghanistan until the job is complete.  "We started a mission, we're part of NATO, let's finish the mission," Perchaluk told CTV's Canada AM.  "(Conservative Leader Stephen Harper) needs to take a firm stance on it whether Canadians like it or not. He's letting down our military, he's letting down NATO forces and military parents if he doesn't stay there past 2011."....


Defiant military watchdog widens detainee hearings
Canadian Press, 30 Sept 08
Article link - Order of Military Police Complaints Commission (.pdf)

A defiant military police watchdog agency has decided, despite government objections, to widen public hearings into the way Canadian soldiers handled detainees in Afghanistan.  The Military Police Complaints Commission will expand its hearings into allegations by Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Union that the Canadians handed detainees over to torture by Afghan authorities.  In the complaint filed in 2007, it was alleged that military police handed over prisoners on at least 18 occasions even though there was evidence of torture in Afghan jails.  The commission now will widen the time frame of its investigation by a year. It will also go beyond the issue of whether the transfers of detainees were appropriate, looking as well at whether senior officers failed to investigate allegations of torture by Afghan authorities ....


3 warlords lead Afghan uprising
The escalating insurgency in Afghanistan is being spearheaded by a trio of warlords who came to prominence in the CIA-backed war to oust
Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, 1 Oct 08
Article link

The escalating insurgency in Afghanistan is being spearheaded by a trio of warlords who came to prominence in the CIA-backed war to oust the Soviets but who now direct attacks against U.S. forces from safe havens in Pakistan, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.  Groups led by the three veteran mujahedeen are behind a sharp increase in the number and sophistication of attacks in Afghanistan this year.  And despite a flurry of U.S. airstrikes and million-dollar bounties on their heads, the Pashtun chieftains have been able to expand their networks, largely unmolested, from bases along the border of Pakistan.  The trio of warlords include Mullah Mohammed Omar, the former leader of the Taliban government in Afghanistan; Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamic hard-liner who briefly served as prime minister in the 1990s; and Jalaluddin Haqqani, a one-time Taliban Cabinet minister whose tribal group was behind some of this year's most brazen attacks in Afghanistan....


Military sees window to adjust Afghanistan plan
Reviews under way, to be ready for the next president, are intended to accelerate a new strategy.
Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor, 1 Oct 08
Article link

The US military is working to put a new strategy in place for Afghanistan and Pakistan that could allow it to expand airfields, preposition military forces and equipment, and prepare for a more robust effort soon against Islamist extremists in the region.  Frustrated for years by a lack of direction from the White House on Afghanistan, many defense officials say time is of the essence in developing a new way forward and having it ready to implement as soon as a new president is seated and can agree to it.  The military sees this period – as one administration is ending and another is set to begin – as an opportunity to offer the next president an Afghanistan strategy less shaped by lofty democratic ideals and more by what Pentagon strategists believe can actually be achieved there ....


British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo
Charles Bremner, Times Online, 1 Oct 08
Article link

The official version of the US-led campaign in Afghanistan received a blow today with a leaked report that the British Ambassador in Kabul believes that US strategy is wrong and the war is as good as lost.  The potentially explosive views were published by Le Canard Enchaîné, a respected French weekly, which said that they were direct quotations from a diplomatic cable written by François Fitou, the French Deputy Ambassador in Kabul.  Mr Fitou reported to President Sarkozy's office and his own Foreign Ministry that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador, believed that "American strategy is destined to fail" in Afghanistan, according to the newspaper ....


US losing war in Afghanistan, Pak tribal region: former army chief
Mathaba.net, 1 Oct 08
Article link

Former Pakistani Army chief General `Retd` Mirza Aslam Beg on Tuesday said that US has almost lost its war in Afghanistan and Pakistani tribal region and soon will leave with empty hands.  Talking exclusively he said that it has become very difficult for US to sustain the pressure of local armed groups who have been giving tough time to the US-led forces in Afghanistan and Pakistani tribal area.  Beg was Pakistan's Army chief of staff between 1988 and 1991 and now heads a research center....


Italy to supply 18 planes to Afghanistan
Daily Times (PAK), 1 Oct 08
Article link - Wikipedia G-222/C27-A Spartan

An Italian company has won a 287 million dollar contract to supply 18 transport planes to the Afghan armed forces through the US air force, the Italian group Finmeccanica said Tuesday.  Alenia Aeronautica, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, signed the contract with the US Air Force, the group said. The G-222 planes, which were used by the Italian army up to 2005, will be refitted and bought by the US air force before being supplied to its Afghan counterpart, Finmeccanica said in a statement....


Unlawful killing verdict on mine-blast soldier
Paul Jeeves, Yorkshire Post, 30 Sept 08
Article link

A SOLDIER who died while serving in Afghanistan may have infringed military procedures moments before he suffered fatal injuries in an explosion, an inquest heard yesterday.  Corporal Damian Lawrence was taking part in a joint UK-Afghan army night patrol clearing compounds in Kajaki in Helmand Province when he was caught in a mine blast.  The hearing in Scarborough was told yesterday that Cpl Lawrence, 25, of Whitby, had taken "a calculated decision" to enter a "mousehole" in the compound which he and his platoon were attempting to clear ....


Pakistani Taliban Meet Amid Reports Leader Died, Reporter Says
James Rupert and Khalid Qayum, Bloomberg wire service, 1 Oct 08
Article link

Pakistan's Taliban movement has called a leadership meeting amid reports its head, Baitullah Mehsud, has died, said a journalist who has spoken with several leaders.  The meeting is in Makin, a village in the isolated region of South Waziristan where Mehsud is based, said Sailab Mahsud, who publishes a newspaper on tribal affairs. Mahsud said the Taliban leaders, whom he didn't identify, denied that Mehsud is dead.  Mehsud, who suffered kidney problems and high blood pressure, died after an illness, Pakistan's GEO Television said earlier. Dawn News and ARY also reported his death, saying they had received denials from unidentified Taliban spokesman ....


Afghanistan-Pakistan: Italy takes initiative to stabilise region
ADN Kronos International (ITA), 30 Sept 08
Article link

Italy is planning to organise an international conference that will look at ways of stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, announced the initiative on Tuesday.  Speaking on Italy's Rai 1 public television, Frattini said Italy would stage the conference in 2009, when it holds the presidency of the G8 group of the world's leading industrialised nations and Russia.  Frattini (photo) called for "solidarity" among NATO countries in Afghanistan, as shown by the Italian government's decision to send three Tornado jets to the strife-torn country.  The Italian Tornado aircraft "will carry out surveillance flights over the country's troublespots ", Frattini said ....

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[MarkOttawa]

Bush says extremists can't stand Afghan progress
AP, Oct. 1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081001/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_afghanistan

President Bush, facing demands for more troops in Afghanistan, said the war-ravaged country had made progress despite difficult fighting against determined killers.

The president received an Oval Office briefing from the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, who said before the meeting that he needs more troops and aid quickly. The counterinsurgency, McKiernan said, could worsen before it gets better...

McKiernan said at the Pentagon earlier that stabilizing Afghanistan will require more than additional troops. It also will take strengthening the Afghan government, economy and its military and police forces, he said...

Bush thanked McKiernan for "your candid briefing" and said the general was assessing his troop needs.

At the Pentagon, McKiernan said he was encouraged by recent Pakistani military operations against insurgents waging cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. But he also said that it is too soon to tell how effective they have been.

He endorsed the suggestion by Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak to try to create a joint force of Afghan, Pakistani and U.S. forces to secure what is a porous, mountainous, ungoverned border region.

"I think in the future I would certainly support the idea of combined patrolling along that border," said McKiernan. If it's handled the right way, he said he believes the Pakistanis would go along with the plan.

"There are mutual border security concerns that both the Afghans and the Pakistanis have," he said. "So the more we can work together to approach those concerns, the better off we all are."..

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

COUNSELLING THE WARRIORS
Chaplains are there when Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan need someone to talk to
Tom Blackwell ,  Canwest News Service Published: Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Article Link

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - They come to his tiny office - some of them "big, tough, strapping strong guys" - all sharing the same basic fear as they head out to do combat in the Kandahar countryside.

"They're afraid of dying, they're afraid of their friends dying, they're afraid their legs are going to be blown off," says Padre Doug Friesen, one of the Canadian Forces' chaplains here. "I think some of the guys are a bit sheepish that they're afraid."

Friesen, an Anglican priest and army major, tries to reassure the soldiers that their anxieties are perfectly normal and that they are "not cowards." Most seem to leave comforted.

At other times, he talks to troops about marriages strained by prolonged separation, incompetent superiors - or difficulty dealing with the fact they have killed another human being.

In an age when the military also brings psychiatrists, mental-health nurses and sociologists to the war zone, many soldiers still seem to gravitate to the spiritual counsellors who have marched alongside Canadian troops since the Boer War.

As defence minister in 1993, Kim Campbell proposed doing away with the full-time chaplaincy, although the military brass argued her out of it, says Duff Crerar, a historian who has written extensively about the soldier clerics.

"Every time a war breaks out somebody in Ottawa tries to get rid of this 'outdated' position in the CF," he says. "Every time they are overruled by those who will be in danger."

The Canadian Forces now have 150 chaplains, including Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims.
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[GAP]

British soldiers unshaken by Taliban rocket attacks in Afghanistan
Tom Blackwell ,  Canwest News Service Published: Thursday, October 02, 2008
Article Link

KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan - For six days in a row, sometimes twice a day, the sirens blared and the Cockney-accented voice echoed through Kandahar Air Field: "Rocket attack, rocket attack, rocket attack."

The main NATO base in southern Afghanistan has been subjected to an unusual spate of the Taliban's haphazard barrages recently, resulting in a handful of casualties, and a rare order one night for the camp's thousands of residents to all don their body armour.

But the British officer in charge of guarding the base says the attacks remain little more than a minor irritant. Meanwhile, new-found co-operation from neighbouring Afghans is helping the British go after the Taliban teams that launch the antiquated weapons, Air Commodore Andy Fryer of the Royal Air Force said.

"They're trying to disrupt our operations and frighten us," he said, a smashed rocket - mounted and framed - propped against his desk.

"But they're doing neither . . . It has no significant effect on us whatsoever."

The attacks have long been a tradition of life at the airfield, with one forcing a Canadian stage show to be halted for an hour in May.

Based on an outdated Soviet-era design, the 107-millimetre missiles land throughout the huge facility, which has a 30-kilometre-long perimeter, though hardly ever do any significant damage. Blast walls surround most buildings and tents, and many of the crude weapons fail to explode on impact, Fryer said.

Previous reports suggest insurgents prop them against rocks, attach a timer, then scurry away long before they take off.

Though two of the recent sirens were false alarms, the base recorded six attacks in September - most with two rockets each - almost all in the last week. Each time, soldiers and civilian workers, including about 1,800 Canadians, crowded into bunkers, where the mood tends to be more festive than frightened.

Tuesday saw no attacks, but then Wednesday night the "voice" announced the threat level had risen to "dress cat. three," meaning everyone was supposed to put on his or her flak jacket and helmet.
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[GAP]

Articles found September 3, 2008

Taliban leader rejects call for peace talks with Afghan government
Last Updated: Friday, October 3, 2008 CBC News
Article Link

A senior Taliban officer is spurning calls for negotiation from Afghanistan's government, calling President Hamid Karzai a U.S. "puppet" amid rumblings that peace talks could be in the offing.

"We reject an offer for negotiation by the Afghan's puppet and slave President Hamid Karzai," Mullah Brother told Reuters by satellite telephone Friday from an undisclosed location.

Karzai, delivering a message to commemorate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr on Tuesday, had called for Saudi Arabian head of state King Abdullah to help moderate peace talks between insurgents and the government.

But Karzai had no right to negotiate, said Brother.

"He only says and does what he is told by America," he said.

His comments appear to contradict remarks he made in March, when he suggested the Taliban could co-operate with the Afghan government and called for a negotiated ending to the fighting.

Brother served as a top military commander
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AFGHANISTAN: CANADIAN PM, NATO CAN'T STAY FOREVER
Article Link

NATO can’t say in Afghanistan for ever and Western leaders that think otherwise are very much mistaken, according to Stephen Harper, the Conservative Prime Minister of Canada. During a debate with political opponents ahead of the forthcoming elections (14 October), Mr. Harper distanced himself from his previous position, in which he originally said that he did not want to pull Canadian troops from Afghanistan until the local authorities were able to guarantee security by themselves; he now says that he wants Canadian troops home by 2011. “I think it is a wise move”, observed the Prime Minister. “One of the things over which I do not agree with certain other Western leaders is that our plan to remain a military force in Afghanistan is indefinite. If we really want to bring peace to the country, and see it evolve, we must train the army and the police so that that they can credibly take the responsibility for their own security”. He continued to warn: “we will not reach that objective if we do not fix a date for the withdrawal of troops and don’t make an effort to meet it”. The Prime Minister then said that he had expressed this point of view to George W. Bush and to the two candidates to succeed him, Barack Obama and John McCain. He continued, ending on a note of controversy: “there are still three years to go until 2011. By then Canada will have been in Afghanistan for almost a decade. If we never leave, will we ever be able to complete our task?”.
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And on to Afghanistan
Article Link

By this time last evening, there had been hard knocks against Harper that seemed to stick. Tonight no, and the difference is Harper's professorial attitude. His students may disagree, they may even get nasty, but he chuckles and understands.

Dion admires Canadian troops in uniform. He says Liberals would try and help secure peace and security in 2011.

Paikin asks how job can get done if Canadians leave.

Harper turns it around: "If we never leave, how will it ever get done?"

"Mr. Harper, I don't think you can be trusted on this," says Layton. "And I don't think this reflects the values of Canadians." And he fires at Dion that NDP can’t trust Liberals either.

Good moment for Dion.

"Mr. Layton, I never broke my word."

The problems for Dion is the camera too often gets the back of his head as he's talking.

Duceppe tries to bring the attack back on Harper. This is the difference too with last night: then it was a four-person attack on Harper. Tonight, Layton splits his attack between Dion and Harper.

Duceppe is trying to get Harper to say he made an error by pushing to go into Iraq in 2003. Harper won't say whether he would have taken the country to war in Iraq in 2003.

BTW, the NDP media room is really on top of this debate tonight, sending out releases to journalists every two minutes. The LIBS have gone quiet.

Once again, we stare into Dion's bald spot as he condemns Harper on Afghanistan. They couldn't be doing this to him on purpose, could they?

Harper is scathing. He says he appreciates Dion's position on Afghanistan but that he's changed it three times.

Dion is saying he wants his Canada back, not the Canada of George Bush. His lack of language skills is a handicap.
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[GAP]

Valuable lessons from the republic of Skateistan
An Australian flouts the rules of the foreign-aid community to create an oasis of fun on the tough streets of Kabul
GRAEME SMITH From Saturday's Globe and Mail September 27, 2008 at 3:52 PM EDT
Article Link

KABUL — The concrete walls grow higher every year in Kabul, the heaps of sandbags get bigger and fewer foreigners walk the streets - except, strangely, two cheerful young Australians who come striding into a park carrying skateboards.

Children swarm them as they open up backpacks to reveal knee pads, wrist guards and helmets. Small hands grab the equipment and within moments a dry fountain overflows with youngsters zooming around the smooth surface, laughing as they fall down and scramble back up.

Oliver Percovich, 34, emerges from the frolic and sits on the sidelines, keeping his eyes on the children like a worried father. He introduces himself as the project director of Skateistan, the only skateboarding school in Afghanistan, but as he talks it becomes clear that the lessons he hopes to teach go beyond showing kids how to balance on wheeled boards.

"We're pushing some boundaries," he says.
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[MarkOttawa]

Afghanistan: expansion of conflict
Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up, Oct. 3
http://www.cdaforumcad.ca/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1223050214

In Afghanistan, waging battles of attrition
Stars and Stripes, Mideast edition, Oct. 3
http://www.stripes.com/articleprint.asp?section=104&article=57863

ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan — The first firefight erupted to the south, hitting a Canadian patrol somewhere along the Arghandab River.

Then a few scattered shots hit a group of Canadian and U.S. soldiers on patrol with Afghan police about 300 meters away.

The third attack occurred when Taliban gunmen opened fire on two dozen Afghans and Canadian soldiers with Operational Mentor Liaison Team 73 Alpha.

As far as security incidents go in Afghanistan, the firefights were fairly unremarkable. No coalition soldiers or Afghan troops were killed or wounded, and it was unclear how many, if any, Taliban fighters were hit.

But the three engagements were typical of the daily skirmishes that Canadian troops, along with a handful of Americans, are fighting alongside Afghan troops here in Zhari district, about 25 kilometers west of Kandahar city.

Taking place in the heartland of the fundamentalist Taliban movement, they are short, sharp, chaotic affairs and often inconclusive.

Yet the gunbattles illustrate the kind of grinding attrition that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the Taliban are waging against each other in southern Afghanistan, where frequent combat appears to be less about taking and holding territory than it is about weakening the other side’s will to fight.

"What the Taliban is trying to achieve is for us to leave the outposts," said Maj. Rob McBride, commander of November Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment. "It would be a victory for them if we were to close them down. On the flip side of that, the message from us is that we’re here to stay, and we’re not going to leave just because you’re shooting at us every day."..

The outposts are manned by teams of Canadian troops who serve as advisers and mentors to Afghan army and police units. They receive fire almost daily.

The fighting that occurred near Pashmul was among a number of incidents in Zhari district that day, enough, that "I lost count," McBride said.

Canada has lost 97 soldiers since the war began nearly seven years ago. Twenty-three of its soldiers have been killed so far this year...

"Certainly, this is one of the most violent summers we’ve encountered," Col. Jamie Cade, deputy commander for the Canada-led Task Force Kandahar, said in a recent interview. "But again, part of that is because we are imposing ourselves on the insurgents, going into areas and taking control of areas that they want."

In August, soldiers with the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment moved into Maiwand district, an area that ISAF has identified as an important logistics hub for Taliban fighters moving between Kandahar province and neighboring Helmand, where some of the worst fighting has occurred.

Coalition strategy in southern Afghanistan is based on building up the Afghan army and police and slowly expanding their presence into areas held by the Taliban. For now, the strategy means that coalition and Afghan government forces control the roads. But out in the countryside, the Taliban still hold sway [emphasis added]...

Petraeus's next war
After success in Iraq, can America’s favourite general win in Afghanistan?
The Economist, Oct. 2http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12342136

...
As security has improved in Iraq, it has worsened in Afghanistan. And as the surge of forces comes to an end in Iraq, there are calls for a similar one in Afghanistan. In its dying days, the Bush administration has ordered a full review of policy in Afghanistan. General Petraeus took part in lengthy high-level meetings in London and Paris last month, and in August he brain-stormed with Pakistan’s top brass on an American aircraft-carrier in the Indian Ocean.

He says his tactics in Iraq cannot simply be transposed to Afghanistan. Indeed, there are big differences: Iraq is far richer, has a greater density of both American and local forces, its command is more unified, and insurgents enjoy nothing like the cross-border safe havens that the Taliban has in Pakistan’s tribal belt.

The scale of any surge in Afghanistan will depend on the speed of withdrawal from Iraq. A brigade originally destined for Iraq early next year will be diverted to Afghanistan. But commanders in Afghanistan have asked for three more brigades on top of that. Having built his reputation in Iraq, General Petraeus will resist a big withdrawal from the country that risks endangering his hard-won achievements. The progress in Iraq, he says, is still fragile and reversible; he will probably want to keep a substantial American presence there at least until late 2010.

In Afghanistan, for now, the Americans are trying to make better use of the troops they have. General David McKiernan, the NATO commander, is in the process of being “double-hatted” as commander of America’s separate and more muscular “Operation Enduring Freedom” [emphasis added]. He will also oversee the training of Afghan forces. This should ensure greater unity of command, though some American special forces, whose actions have at times caused controversy over the death of civilians, will continue to operate separately.

NATO is still plagued by the reluctance of many allies to join the fight and the inability of others to bring more resources. The Dutch and Canadians are expected to stop fighting in the next two years. America has belatedly decided to support the expansion of the Afghan army from 80,000 to 130,000 (still far smaller than Iraq’s). Allies that do not supply troops or equipment will be asked for money, trainers and advisers for the Afghan army.

In Iraq, the surge’s success was not just due to extra forces. Political changes were crucial, especially the decision by Sunni tribes to switch sides and the ceasefire declared by the biggest Shia militia, the Mahdi Army. For General Petraeus, this virtuous circle was not a matter of luck but sustained by a transformation in military doctrine that he developed when he ran the army’s think-tank at Fort Leavenworth, published in a new counter-insurgency manual in December 2006 and implemented when he took command in Iraq soon after. Soldiers were told their priority was not just to find and kill terrorists but to protect and win over the civilians...

Much of this thinking has been tried by American forces in Afghanistan, but a shortage of resources, poor co-ordination and unrest in Pakistan have helped send Afghanistan on a downward spiral. Noting the recent fighting by Pakistan’s army in the Bajaur tribal region, General Petraeus has expressed his belief—perhaps just a hope—that the country’s leaders are ready to deal with violent militants as a mortal threat to Pakistan itself, not just to Afghanistan. He has also let it be known that he sees promise in trying to woo “reconcilable” Afghan tribes, as he did with the “awakening” of Sunni tribes in Iraq.

But success in Afghanistan is uncertain and could take many years. The general has probably yet to work out a strategy for his new area. But his own principles conclude with a warning. “Never forget that what works in an area today may not work there tomorrow, and that what works in one area may not work in another.”

Confronting Taliban, Pakistan Finds Itself at War
NY Times, Oct. 2
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/world/asia/03pstan.html?ref=todayspaper

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — War has come to Pakistan, not just as terrorist bombings, but as full-scale battles, leaving Pakistanis angry and dismayed as the dead, wounded and displaced turn up right on their doorstep.

An estimated 250,000 people have now fled the helicopters, jets, artillery and mortar fire of the Pakistani Army, and the assaults, intimidation and rough justice of the Taliban who have dug into Pakistan’s tribal areas.

About 20,000 people are so desperate that they have flooded over the border from the Bajaur tribal area to seek safety in Afghanistan...

Not since Pakistan forged an alliance with the United States after 9/11 has the Pakistani Army fought its own people on such a scale and at such close quarters to a major city. After years of relative passivity, the army is now engaged in heavy fighting with the militants on at least three fronts.

The sudden engagement of the Pakistani Army comes after months in which the United States has heaped criticism, behind the scenes and in public, on Pakistan for not doing enough to take on the militants, and increasingly took action into its own hands with drone strikes and even a raid by Special Operations forces in Pakistan’s tribal areas...

In early August, goaded by the American complaints and faced with a nexus of the Taliban and Al Qaeda that had become too powerful to ignore, the chief of the Pakistan military, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, opened the front in Bajaur, a Taliban and Qaeda stronghold along the Afghan border.

Earlier this summer, the military became locked in an uphill fight against the militants in Swat, a more settled area of North-West Frontier Province that was once a middle-class ski resort. Today it is a maelstrom of killing...

At a third front, south of Peshawar, around the town of Dera Adam Khel, the army recently recaptured from Taliban control the strategic Kohat tunnel, a road more than a mile long that carries NATO supplies from the port of Karachi to the American and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The new president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, spoke in New York during a visit to the United Nations General Assembly, about how the fight against terrorism was Pakistan’s war, not America’s.

But even as the gruesome effects of the battles slam the national consciousness, there has been scant effort to prepare the public for the impact of the fighting. Public opinion has soured on Pakistan’s alliance with the United States and has strongly opposed military campaigns that inflict heavy civilian casualties...

Marines reassess equipment needs for Afghanistan
AP, Oct. 2
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/02/business/NA-US-Marines-Future-Weapons.php

QUANTICO, Virginia: With plans to redeploy more Marines to Afghanistan later this fall, companies like General Dynamics Corp. and Force Protection Inc. are being asked to re-engineer mine-resistant vehicles that can traverse the war-ravaged country's mountainous terrain while offering even greater protection.

High altitudes, dispersed battalions and restricted travel zones are among the serious challenges facing the service as it weighs the resources needed to perform its missions in Afghanistan where violence has escalated, senior Marine Corps officials told defense industry executives at the service's annual expo Thursday.

"The Marines Corps is in good shape, but we've got more to do," said Barry Dillon, executive director of Marine Corps Systems Command. "We've got our challenges."

Already, the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, has made urgent requests for weapons and equipment, including more unmanned aerial surveillance drones and mine-resistant vehicles for operations. The service currently uses Shadow drones made by AAI Corp., as well as the ScanEagle from Insitu Inc. and Boeing Co.

Besides General Dynamics and Force Protection, other makers of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs, include Navistar International Inc. and the U.S. subsidiary of British defense conglomerate BAE Systems PLC...

...senior Marine Corps officials are concerned the current MRAPS are ill-equipped to handle the rocky terrain in Afghanistan, and are too heavy to easily transport to areas where they are needed.

"It's OK in Iraq, but it's not OK in Afghanistan," said Dillon. "It's got to have off-road capability and all the survivability."

Blasts from roadside bombs are the leading cause of combat deaths and injuries in Iraq and have become a growing threat in Afghanistan, but it's unclear whether the Marine Corps will buy more of the same vehicles, said Dillon. Currently, there are more than 900 MRAPs in Afghanistan, and close to 8,000 in Iraq. To date, the Pentagon has spent $22.4 billion on the program.

Instead, the service hopes to approve a hybrid armored vehicle that would provide the same type of protection as an MRAP, but would be more agile and provide improved maneuverability [emphasis added], Marine Corps officials said.

The service this summer asked companies to submit information for a so-called "MRAP Light" to see how the current vehicle could be changed to meet the latest needs of the Marine Corps...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found Oct 4, 2008

Death of a warrior blow to Australian Afghan war strategy
Tom Hyland  October 5, 2008
Article Link

Rozi Khan's death may be the biggest setback yet for Australia's war in Afghanistan.

THERE were two, three, maybe four groups of armed men, including elite Australian soldiers. It was the middle of the night, in a chaotic, complicated war. Something could easily go wrong, and it did.

When the shooting stopped, three men lay dead — and Australia's strategy in Afghanistan was left with a gaping wound.

One of the dead was a man called Rozi Khan, a warrior, former police chief, hereditary tribal leader and elected district governor.

Violent death is routine in Afghanistan, and Rozi Khan, an ally of President Hamid Karzai in the fight against the Taliban, knew this better than most.

Two days before he was killed he received another death threat, warning him to stop helping foreign troops, like the Australians.

His killing — apparently as a result of Australian "friendly fire" — prompted an uncharacteristic flurry of high-level international political activity that went beyond normal diplomatic expressions of concern and regret.
More on link

Dictator 'solution to Afghanistan'
Elaine Sciolino October 5, 2008
Article Link

A CODED French diplomatic cable leaked to a newspaper quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban would fail.

The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be to install an "acceptable dictator", the weekly Le Canard enchaine reported.

"The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the Government has lost all trust," the British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as saying by the author of the cable, Francois Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to Kabul.

British officials have retreated from the two-page cable - sent to the Elysee Palace and the French Foreign Ministry on September 2. It states that the NATO-led presence was hindering stability.

"The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution," Mr Cowper-Coles was quoted as saying. "Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis."

Within five to 10 years, the only "realistic" way to unite Afghanistan would be for it to be "governed by an acceptable dictator", the cable stated and "we should think of preparing our public opinion" for such an outcome.
More on link

Forces investigate claims military leaders ignored child abuse by Afghan troops, police
David ******** , The Ottawa Citizen Published: Friday, October 03, 2008
Article Link

OTTAWA - The Canadian Forces will launch a board of inquiry to look into allegations that soldiers' complaints about Afghan troops and police raping boys were ignored by the military leadership.

Military police have also launched an investigation into the same incidents.
The issue surfaced in the summer after media reports detailed soldiers' concerns about sexual abuse of boys at the hands of Afghan personnel.

In June the Toronto Star reported that in late 2006 a Canadian soldier had heard an Afghan soldier raping a young boy at one of the outposts near Kandahar. The soldier later saw the injuries the boy sustained, including seeing his lower intestines falling out of his body, a sign of trauma from anal rape.
More on link

Expect slash and burn in tough times
TheStar.com - Opinion - October 04, 2008 James Travers OTTAWA
Article Link

Not even the most ambitious TV anchor would declare a winner before the first ballot is counted. Even so, it's not too early to look hard at a future unfolding with metronome predictability.

Start with this assumption: Liberals will not form the next government. That was essentially decided in Montreal nearly two years ago when the party picked Stéphane Dion as leader. In choosing him over Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, Liberals hitched themselves to a political apprentice and positioned the party too far left of the political sweet spot where Jean Chrétien found three consecutive majorities.

Binding their fate to Dion was Liberal arrogance swaddled in optimism. Figuring Canadians would quickly come to their senses and chase Conservatives from power, Liberals chose to see Dion as an environmental champion, not an ideologue whose rigidity and lack of political instincts alienated those who worked most closely with him in caucus and cabinet.

But that was then. Now, the conundrum for Canadians is what will Stephen Harper do with a second, almost certainly stronger, mandate. Never feathery, the question gains obese weight from current events. A U.S. recession roiling north and an Afghanistan mission stumbling toward disaster are about to confront Ottawa with decisions that will recalibrate domestic and foreign policy for years, if not decades.

At home, the catalytic issue is federal deficits. To avoid slipping into the red – and party leaders unanimously declared against backsliding at this week's debates – taxes will rise or spending must fall. It's an easy choice for Conservatives who don't much like government but do enjoy euthanizing philosophically irritating programs.

Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is always irresponsible – unless, of course, something is smoking. Conservatives have already torched funding for signature small-l liberal favourites – the arts and the court challenges programs are examples – and much, much more slashing and burning will follow if, as expected, tough times provide welcome cover for tough decisions. A quick run through Harper's National Citizens Coalition resumé suggests some targets close to Canadian hearts.

Balancing the books by deciding what to savage or save wouldn't be so challenging if Conservatives hadn't high-rolled through an inherited $12 billion surplus. If they hadn't trimmed the GST or weren't writing so many vote-getting cheques, the next government would now have ample reserves – some say $60 billion annually – to cope with the coming crisis.

It would have been comforting to have some of that cash to pay for an Afghanistan mission projected to cost $22 billion – if it ends in 2011 as the Prime Minister now promises.

But cost isn't the sharpest Kandahar nettle. A diplomatic memo leaked in France this week makes clear what NATO partners prefer to keep opaque. Washington's strategy isn't working, infusing more troops will now only exacerbate a losing proposition and the final outcome is more likely to be one more dictatorship, not a model democracy.
More on link

Comment: Restructuring the ISI
— I —Shaukat Qadir
Article Link

There is little doubt that the entire intelligence and security system in Pakistan needs revamping, but not the way the Americans want it

After a series of accusations against Pakistan’s premier intelligence organisation, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), we recently had another demand from the US, that it be restructured. Before addressing this issue, it is necessary to briefly review the recent history of the ISI to understand the reasons for the accusations and the demands that followed.

During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the CIA worked hand in glove with the ISI, funnelling billions of dollars in cash and munitions of war. After the Soviet withdrawal, followed by the US abandonment of Afghanistan, the ISI had no control over the anarchical events that ensued, until the Taliban entered the affray in 1994, bringing some sort of peace in their wake. At least until 1996, when they fell under the influence of Osama bin Laden. However, the ISI’s influence on the Taliban continued till 9/11.

Throughout this period, including that of the Taliban, the CIA continued close collaboration with the ISI, often referring to the ISI as ‘among the most efficient and well organised intelligence organisations in the world’ and as ‘our closest and most reliable partner’. In private, it went so far as to acknowledge that it (CIA) received greater cooperation from the ISI than it did from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.

During this period, the ISI was the sole actor supporting and, whenever necessary, participating in the Afghan jihad, and the principal one involved in the originally indigenous uprising in Indian administered Kashmir.

Consequently, apart from senior officers, a large percentage of middle and even junior ranking officers became infused with admiration for the courage and conviction of the mujahideen. Some became ardent, even stringent, Muslims, even though they had moderate backgrounds; others were religiously inclined to start with and only became more so; all were ardent believers in the concept of and necessity for jihad, whether in Afghanistan or Kashmir, or elsewhere in the world. Many of them were intended to serve out their military careers in the ISI. Some were even re-employed post retirement till superannuation at the age of sixty.
More on link

'We are at a critical juncture'
Military leaders, diplomats say more resources are needed in Afghanistan
Peter Goodspeed, National Post  Published: Saturday, October 04, 2008
Article Link

Is Afghanistan in peril?

This week, the top U. S. military commander in the country said he needs more troops and equipment, such as helicopters, predator drones and intelligence resources, to fight the Taliban in a battle that will get worse before it gets better.

A day before the seventh anniversary of 9/11, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee the U. S. military needs to adopt a new strategy in Afghanistan.

"I'm not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan," he said. "[But] I'm convinced we can ."

After seven years of unsuccessfully trying to stabilize the country, George W. Bush, the U. S. President, has ordered a wholesale review of U. S. and NATO policies there.

The flurry of introspective studies, conducted by 17 agencies -- including the Defence, State, Treasury and Agriculture departments and all U. S. intelligence agencies, the National Security Council and the White House "war czar" Lieutenant-General Douglas Lute -- comes as NATO troops are struggling to wage a counter-insurgency campaign against the Taliban.

They are hamstrung by troop and equipment shortages, a fragmented command structure, an explosion of the war in Pakistan's troubled tribal areas and the decline in popular support for the government of Hamid Karzai. the Afghan President.

The Taliban is steadily expanding its presence and influence in the countryside, and U. S. military officials report violence has surged by 30% over last year.

Areas of "extreme risk," where the Taliban exert considerable pressure, now make up about a third of the surface area of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, U. S. intelligence reports the country is being flooded with foreign fighters. Chechens, Uzbeks, Saudis, Iraqis and Europeans are all rushing to fight in Afghanistan via Pakistan. According to intelligence estimates, there are more foreign fighters in Afghanistan now than in Iraq.
More on link

 

[The Bread Guy]

Far from Canada, soldiers turn out en masse at remote Afghan advance poll
Canadian Press, 4 Oct 08
Article link

As rifle fire echoed from the nearby practice range, soldiers lined up Saturday night at a remote operating base in Afghanistan to cast ballots in advance polling for the Oct. 14 federal election.  Despite being far from home, Canadian soldiers stationed here are taking a keen interest in the federal election. About 75 per cent of those stationed at this forward operating base voted over the course of the last week, some only hours after trading shots with Taliban insurgents.  "It's my choice," said Bombardier Ian Scott of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment.  "I'm a soldier, but I'm also a citizen. I need to have that choice."....

Advance polls open for soldiers in Kandahar
CTV.ca News, 4 Oct 08
Article link

Election day for most voters is Oct. 14, but Canadians soldiers in Afghanistan have already started to cast their ballots.  Advance voting is now underway way at Kandahar Air Field and at forwarding operating bases in the country.  A military elections officer said there have been some challenges in getting ballots to soldiers in some of Afghanistan's more remote locations. But he noted that no Canadian soldier will be denied the right to vote.  Soldiers and Canadian civilians attached to military operations in Afghanistan will be able to cast their ballots -- for a candidate in his or her home riding -- until Oct. 8.  One soldier said the political parties' positions on Afghanistan were paramount in his voting process.  "The party that's going to support me the most while I'm over here is a big concern for me ... that's kind of the way I voted this year," Cpl. Dave MacDonald said ....


ISAF captures senior Taliban commander
NATO news release PR# 2008-513, 5 Oct 08
News release link

Without firing a shot, ISAF soldiers captured a suspected senior Taliban commander in Uruzgan during the very early morning of 1 October.  Mullah Sakhi Dad and one other insurgent were captured at a compound in Tarin Kowt district.  Reports have linked Sakhi Dad with the ordering and coordination of suicide bombers in Uruzgan province. Suicide bombers are alleged to have often reported directly to him and would not conduct their attacks without his permission.  In addition to leading a significant number of Taliban fighters, information received by ISAF has implicated Sakhi Dad in the distribution of mines, gunpowder and IED components throughout the province and the kidnappings of Afghan civilians. Sakhi Dad is also understood to be connected to Taliban leadership, especially Mullah Berader Akhund, the Taliban’s second in command ....


ANSF and ISAF join forces to help wounded Afghans following insurgent attack in Kandahar Province
NATO news release PR# 2008-512, 5 Oct 08
News release link

An ANA Air Corps medical and re-enforcement mission reached GHORAK DC on October 3 after the location had been attacked October 2 by insurgent forces. The two helicopters, crewed by ANA pilots, delivered a force of ANP to strengthen the manpower already on the ground.  The helicopters returned to their base at Kandahar International Airport carrying 9 injured, including ANP and local national civilians.  On arrival these personnel were admitted to the ISAF Role 3 hospital where they are currently receiving medical care.  Also on board the helicopters were more than 30 women and children who had requested evacuation.  Upon their arrival at Kandahar Airfield, the Provincial Chief of Police directed local ANP to take the women and children into their care ....


Relentless Taliban just keep coming
As their gruelling tour of duty in Afghanistan ends, men of 2 Para tell of relentless battles with an enemy that simply doesn’t know when he is outgunned
The Sunday Times (UK), 5 Oct 08
Article link

....  (Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith) insists that time is on the side of the Afghan government. “The young people want betterment of their lives. What the Taliban can’t do is deliver progress and development. As long as the international community can stay the course, over time the Afghan government capacity will grow.”  He argues that the international community should aim not for victory over the Taliban but to reduce the insurgency to a level that can be contained by the new Afghan army.  “If we reduce our expectations then I think realistically in the next three to five years we will be handing over tactical military responsibility to the Afghan army and in the next 10 years the bulk of responsibility for combating insurgency will be with them.” ....


Ismail Khan: foreign troops must not stay long
Energy Minister says foreign troops are not Afghanistan's permanent guests
Reza Sher Mohammadi, Quqnoos.com (AFG), 5 Oct 08
Article link

ENERGY Minister Ismail Khan says foreign forces must not remain long in Afghanistan and must not consider themselves permanent guests in the country.  Speaking to hundreds of people in the western province of Herat on Friday, the Energy and Water Minister said the long-term presence of international troops in the country would not benefit ordinary Afghans.  "Foreign forces must not remain for long in Afghanistan, and they must not think they are the permanent guests in our country," said Khan in the town of Rabat Sangi, where he announced plans to build a new substation to feed the are with Turkmen electricity.  He urged the people to co-operate with the government in restoring peace and security to the country by maintaining law and order in their own districts, towns and villages.  Only then could the government draw up a timeframe for the withdrawal of foreign troops, he said ....


French troops: We won't go to Afghanistan
Press TV (IRN), 4 Oct 20
Article link

Troops in a military base in France have opposed their deployment to Afghanistan amid dwindling support of French forces being there.  According to French media, troops in the 27th battalion stationed in a southern France military base said on Friday that they were unwilling to go to Afghanistan as part of France's mission in the central Asian country ....

French troops oppose deployment
United Press International, 4 Oct 08
Article link

A group of French troops are opposing their deployment to Afghanistan, French media report.  French forces in the 27th battalion stationed in a southern France military base said Friday they were not willing to go to Afghanistan, Iran's Press TV reported Saturday.  There were 10 French soldiers killed in Afghanistan in August, in what was the deadliest ground attack on international forces since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.  Press TV also reported that 50 percent of French people oppose the deployment of thousands of troops to Afghanistan ....


Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Heroin Trade
James Risen, New York Times, 4 Oct 08
Article link

When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.  Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck ....

 

[MarkOttawa]

War on Taliban cannot be won, says army chief
Sunday Times, Oct. 5
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4882597.ece

Britain's most senior military commander in Afghanistan has warned that the war against the Taliban cannot be won. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the British public should not expect a “decisive military victory” but should be prepared for a possible deal with the Taliban.

His assessment followed the leaking of a memo from a French diplomat who claimed that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador in Kabul, had told him the current strategy was “doomed to fail” [see first link in first para of post].

Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan, said it was necessary to “lower our expectations”. He said: “We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.”

The brigadier added: “We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency . . . I don’t think we should expect that when we go there won’t be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world. That would be unrealistic and probably incredible.”

Carleton-Smith insisted that his forces had “taken the sting out of the Taliban for 2008”. But his brigade has sustained heavy losses in the southern province of Helmand in the past six months, with 32 killed and 170 injured. In an interview with The Sunday Times, he added his voice to a growing number of people arguing that the conflict in Afghanistan could be resolved only through a political settlement that could include the Taliban.

“We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of the gun to one where it is done through negotiations,” Carleton-Smith said.

“If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this. That shouldn’t make people uncomfortable.”

Afghan victory impossible to achieve, British commander says
Globe and Mail (via AP), Oct. 4
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081004.wafghan1004/BNStory/International/

Victory impossible in Afghanistan: senior British commander
CBC (via AP), Oct. 4
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/10/04/afghan-war.html

British general says Afghan victory not possible
CTV (via AP), Oct. 4
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081004/british_victory_081004/20081004?hub=TopStories

British Commander Calls Defeat of Taliban Unlikely
Washington Post (via AP), Oct. 4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/04/AR2008100402479.html

Grim reality of life beyond Helmand
British officials are pleased with their reconstruction. Our correspondent finds little for them to crow about
Sunday Times, Oct. 5
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4882416.ece

THE glossy photographs on the wall show smiling children and projects with names like “Avenue of Hope” and “Eid Park”, after the Islamic festival. A glass cabinet displays pomegranates, chilli peppers and wheat that the happy population of Helmand is supposed to grow instead of the opium poppy from which most of them make their money.

A press room is dominated by a poster of the proposed Lashkar Gah Industrial Park, complete with grassy lawns, a pet cat and a passenger jet flying overhead.

Known as Helmandshire, the concrete building inside the heavily guarded British headquarters in Lashkar Gah houses what is surely the most bizarre outpost of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and one of the costliest. By December it will employ 140 people - the size of one of Britain’s larger embassies - for a population of fewer than 2m, smaller than that of Wales.

Most never venture beyond the compound walls. Those who occasionally brave the five-minute drive to the governor’s office do so in armed convoys, surrounded by bodyguards and travelling at high speed. The cracks on the vehicles’ windows from rocks thrown almost every time they go out are a measure of the locals’ appreciation.

The Taliban might be in control just seven miles down the road in Nad Ali, but earnest civil servants boast of British success in winning over the population and creating five zones of development in Lashkar Gah, Sangin, Musa Qala, Gereshk and Garmser.

A day spent in this Foreign Office fantasy land was reminiscent of a propaganda tour I was taken on by the Russians in the dying days of their occupation in the late 1980s. They too controlled the cities and towns but not the roads or countryside...

Tribes take on Taliban

A powerful group of tribal militias formed in the past few weeks to challenge the Taliban may hold the key to defeating insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal badlands along the border with Afghanistan, write Dean Nelson and Daud Khattak.

The emergence of the militias, known as lashkars, has raised hopes that many militants may be driven from their mountainous havens.

Just over a fortnight ago, Haji Gul Faraz, a grizzled 80-year-old warrior, raised a 20,000-strong volunteer army in the Dir district, 25 miles from the Afghan border, in a backlash against Taliban who were intruding into his territory.

Their activities brought the threat of an attack by the Pakistani army, so Faraz’s men surrounded the Taliban unit and killed two of the militants.

Tribal leaders in other areas have also raised lashkars, usually named after the local clan. Last week in Bajaur, heads of the Salarzai lashkar ordered their fighters to burn down the homes of any known militants or anyone sheltering them; in the Khyber agency area, Mullahgori tribesmen have already driven out fighters from a Taliban faction.

The lashkar revival comes at a crucial moment for Pakistan’s army, which many feared was losing the war against the militants.

Faraz praised the experience of his own volunteers. “They do not have regular military training but they know how to fight,” he said. They were well armed and could call on the Pakistani army for air support if necessary.

The irony is that the tribesmen do not support the war on terror. They simply want to keep all outsiders - the Americans, the Pakistanis and the Taliban - out of their remote and lawless land.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[geo]

French troops: We won't go to Afghanistan

Press TV
Sat, 04 Oct 2008
Iran

Troops in a military base in France have opposed their deployment to Afghanistan amid dwindling support of French forces being there.

According to French media, troops in the 27th battalion stationed in a southern France military base said on Friday that they were unwilling to go to Afghanistan as part of France's mission in the central Asian country.

The troops' refusal to go to the war-ravaged country comes as 10 French soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in August.

The August ambush is the deadliest ground attack on international forces since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the heaviest single death toll for the French military since the 1983 bombing of a barracks in Beirut killed 58 French paratroopers.

The Taliban and Former PM Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who leads Hezb-i-Islami group, separately claimed responsibility for the attack on the French troops amid speculation that they were killed by 'friendly-fire' from NATO planes that had come to help them escape the ambush.

The attack shocked France and sparked fierce debate about the country's presence in Afghanistan. Despite calls to withdraw, French lawmakers have recently approved an extension of the country's involvement in the Afghan conflict.

Despite the fact that 50 percent of the French people oppose the deployment of thousands of troops to Afghanistan, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced at the last NATO summit in April that he would send an additional 700 French soldiers to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, bringing the total to about 3,000.

Criticism of Sarkozy's policies increased following the death of the 10 French soldiers. He has also faced severe criticism for being too close to US President George W. Bush's administration.


Antiques stolen from Afghan museum

Dawn
Oct 4, 2008
KABUL

Antiques dating back 1,300 years have been stolen from a museum in western Afghanistan, officials said on Saturday, blaming a ‘powerful gang’ for the theft after a suspect was found dead.

The national museum in Herat, the second largest city in Afghanistan, was raided last week, deputy culture minister Mohammad Zia Afshar told a news conference in Kabul.

The authorities said two suspects had been taken into custody for interrogation and one of them had died in prison under unclear circumstances.

“We’re investigating whether he was killed. If we find out that he was murdered in prison this will confirm our suspicions that that we are dealing with a very dangerous gang,” Najibullah Manali, another ministry official, told the same news conference.

He said police were hunting 22 missing artefacts, including clay, metal and stone-made items, some from pre-Islamic Buddhist-era Afghanistan, which dates back about 13 centuries.

Antiques from the 11th century Ghaznavides and 15th century Timurid empire era were also missing, Manali said.Afghanistan has lost scores of priceless archaeological artefacts through thefts from museums during decades of conflict. Most of the items are alleged to have been smuggled to Pakistan before reaching private collectors in rich Gulf or western countries.

The Kabul-based National Museum, which is said to be one of the richest in the region, was levelled during the 1992-96 civil war.

The country suffered its biggest cultural loss after the Taliban, who ruled between 1996 and 2001, destroyed the giant Buddha statues in central Bamiyan.—AFP



Officials say Taliban mad over alleged US strike

ASSOCIATED PRESS
By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD
October 5, 2008
PAKISTAN

The Taliban are unusually angry about the latest suspected U.S. missile strike in Pakistan, a sign a top militant may have died in the attack, officials and residents said Sunday amid reports the death toll rose by two to 24.

Elsewhere in Pakistan's northwest, an official said some 15,000 Afghans had left a tribal region the military is trying to wrest from insurgents, but that tens of thousands more had yet to meet a government ultimatum to get out by Sunday.

The U.S. has ramped up cross-border strikes on alleged al-Qaida and Taliban targets along Pakistan's side of the border with Afghanistan, straining the two nations' anti-terror alliance.

The U.S. says pockets of Pakistan's border region, especially in its semi-autonomous tribal areas, are bases for militants attacking American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. It has pushed nuclear-armed Pakistan to eliminate the safe havens.

The frontier region is believed to be a possible hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, and several Arab militants were said to be among the dead in Friday's strike in North Waziristan tribal region.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials said that over the weekend two people wounded in the attack died at a hospital in Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. The officials sought anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Based on information from informants and agents in the field, the intelligence officials said the Taliban appeared extra-perturbed over the latest strike. The anger was a signal that a senior militant may have been killed, but that has yet to be confirmed, the officials said.

The insurgents were moving aggressively in the area while using harsh language against locals, including calling them "saleable commodities" _ a reference to people serving as government spies, the officials said.

Two local residents said Taliban fighters had warned people not to discuss the strike, including with the media, or to try inspecting the rubble at the site. The residents asked not to be named for fear of Taliban retaliation.

The strike in Mohammadkhel appeared to be the deadliest of 11 reported cross-border operations by U.S.-led forces since Aug. 20. The area is a stronghold of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran Taliban commander regarded by the U.S. as one of its most dangerous foes.

The U.S. rarely acknowledges such attacks. 1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said he had "no information to give" about the reported attacks. He did not deny U.S. involvement.

The information is nearly impossible to verify independently because of the remote, dangerous nature of the areas.

Taliban spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday. Neither could Pakistani government and military spokesmen.

Earlier, however, Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said initial reports indicated that 20 or more people were killed. He said there was "speculation" that many were foreign militants, but cautioned that the army was still awaiting a detailed report.

Pakistan's military and civilian leaders have complained that the attacks violate the country's sovereignty, kill civilians and anger the local population, making it harder to crack down on the militants.

Extremists based in the border region are blamed for rising attacks in Pakistan, including the Sept. 20 truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed more than 50 people.

The prime minister's office announced Saturday that a special joint session of parliament would be held Wednesday so intelligence agencies could privately brief lawmakers about the militant threat facing the country.

The Pakistani military has been carrying out its own operations against insurgents in the northwest, most notably in Bajur, a tribal region Abbas called a "mega-sanctuary" for militants.

The U.S. has praised the military offensive in Bajur, but it has also led to a major humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the fighting.

Many are in refugee camps in Pakistan, but some 20,000 Pakistanis have sought crossed the border into eastern Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, a three-day ultimatum from the government for Afghans living illegally in Bajur to leave was due to expire later Sunday. But of an estimated 80,000 Afghans, only about 15,000 had left, said Abdul Haseeb, a local government official.

He said the exodus appeared to be continuing, and that "the administration may be lenient and give them another couple of days."

"They are leaving with all their belongings and cattles and hopefully most of them will leave in another two days, but if they don't there would be a massive crackdown," Haseeb said.

It was unclear, however, whether the Afghans were all heading back across the porous, disputed border to Afghanistan or simply going to other parts of Pakistan.

Ghulam Jan, an Afghan who said he came to Pakistan years before as a child with his parents, was preparing to head across the border to Afghanistan's Kunar province with 13 members of his family, a cow and two calves.

"My parents are buried here. I consider this my homeland, but suddenly we are being uprooted to build our home anew in a hostile situation," he said.

 

[The Bread Guy]

French troops: We won't go to Afghanistan

Press TV
Sat, 04 Oct 2008
Iran

Troops in a military base in France have opposed their deployment to Afghanistan amid dwindling support of French forces being there.

According to French media, troops in the 27th battalion stationed in a southern France military base said on Friday that they were unwilling to go to Afghanistan as part of France's mission in the central Asian country ....

Caveat:  I haven't been able to find any French media corroboration yet for this one (been looking since the weekend) - will share if I find any, or if I find source where IRN TV got the story.  I did find this web log posting (French) about a 27th Alpine infantry unit which appears to be frustrated because another unit is deploying instead of them (Google English version of web post) - there's also other postings discussing desertion/not showing up to deploy rates, but my French is even worse than Google's. 

- edited to add a bit of BLOGINT -

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 6, 2008

Afghan mission needs big rethink
By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target Mon. Oct 6 - 5:23 AM
Article Link

THROUGHOUT the election campaign, the mission in Afghanistan has rarely been a topic of discussion, and whenever the subject was broached, it was reduced to a simplistic debate over the Conservative party’s pledge to terminate our military commitment by December 2011.

The pro-war tub-thumpers claimed that setting a timetable for withdrawal was tantamount to cutting and running and therefore, a complete reversal of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s previous promises to stay the course. However, both Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay denounced their critics and began singing a new tune about how there has to be a limit on how much blood and gold Canada should be willing to contribute towards the reconstruction of Afghanistan. MacKay reread his same, well-worn talking points about switching the emphasis from a combat role to training the Afghan National Army.

In one clever little bit of political gymnastics, MacKay claimed that by adhering to the stipulated pullout deadline, the Conservatives were, in fact, respecting Parliament and honouring our soldiers’ sacrifice to uphold Canada’s democratic principles. The only things missing from his touching soliloquy were a fluttering flag and the national anthem.

For those who may have forgotten the sequence of events, a little recap may be in order. First, the Conservative government commissioned an independent panel under the leadership of former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley. When Manley’s report was tabled last March, it listed a number of criteria that should be met before Canada agreed to extend the mission beyond February 2009. That list included having a NATO ally commit an additional 1,000 troops and acquiring heavy-lift helicopters to reduce the casualties from roadside bomb attacks.

Despite a great deal of backroom browbeating and public berating of our NATO allies, Manley’s conditions were met with casual indifference.

Ultimately, it took some slick number crunching by the Harper government to twist a deployment of 750 additional French troops to eastern Afghanistan into the 1,000 NATO soldiers we said were necessary to reinforce Kandahar.

The acquisition of helicopters also required some fancy dancing by MacKay and Harper. Unable to speed up the delivery of the new Chinook choppers we have on order, the Canadian military arranged to lease some used U.S. Air Force Chinooks already deployed in Afghanistan. Those helicopters will unfortunately not be available in time to meet Manley’s deadline of February 2009, so to fill in the gap, Canada is borrowing Polish helicopters and renting old Soviet choppers from a private company.

When it came to Manley’s primary recommendation, however, the Conservatives never even put up a pretence of compliance. The Manley report stated that any future pullout from the mission should be objective-driven, rather than based on an arbitrary deadline. Harper wanted the extension approved, and the Liberals were opposed in principal, but unwilling to head to the polls. As a face-saving gesture, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion insisted that his party would vote in favour of the extension, but only if the termination date of December 2011 was included. Harper was thereby able to get the Afghan mission extended with bipartisan approval, then promptly dragged Dion’s disorganized Liberals into an election anyway.

It was a clever bit of politicking on the part of Harper whereby he not only took the controversial mission out of the election debate, but also made Dion appear weak and indecisive.

That being said, December 2011 is still three years and three months away. If we maintain our current troop levels in Kandahar, that means another 17,500 Canadian soldiers will be dispatched to southern Afghanistan. If the level of security does not change, and our casualties continue at the same rate, our army will suffer another 100 fatalities and an additional 700 injured or wounded.
More on link

Troops get fix for free
Fundraisers treat soldiers in Afghanistan to Tim Hortons
Article Link

HALIFAX -- Canadian soldiers arriving in Kandahar have at least one thing in their personal arsenal that other forces don't - a stack of certificates to buy as many double-doubles or Boston creams as they can stomach.

"Those guys never have to buy a coffee," boasts Calgarian Dave Murphy, one of the people behind an effort to give soldiers serving in Afghanistan their Tim Hortons fix.

Members of the Royal Canadian Legion and a website with a similar theme have raised at least $223,000 for the cause.

Legion branches across the country have placed cans on their counters labelled Troop Morale Fund.

"People throw in their spare change," said Brad White, a spokesman for the legion's national head office.

That change adds up. Since the campaign started in March 2007, more than $200,000 has been raised, White said.

On a smaller scale, a Facebook page called Tim Hortons for Our Troops has raised at least $23,000 in two years.

Murphy, a technical support rep for a communications firm, got the idea after a friend was injured in Afghanistan.

One of the first things his friend asked for in hospital was a cup of Tim Hortons coffee.
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Afghanistan begins registering voters for 2009 election
Mon Oct 6, 2008 7:26am EDT By Jon Hemming
Article Link

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan began registering voters on Monday for elections due next year that will test support for President Hamid Karzai and democracy itself which is threatened by a virulent Taliban insurgency in which thousands have died.

The lack of security could well derail the election process depending on how much the Taliban decide or are able to intimidate the people against participating, but early signs were the militants have already begun campaigning against the polls.

"Just now we have received some information that in some areas anti-government elements were trying to stop people from registering themselves as voters already," Zekria Barakzai, deputy head of the Independent Election Commission, told Reuters.

"They are preaching at the mosques asking people not to vote or register themselves," he said.

One truck carrying registration forms has already been torched in the northeast, but that may have been due to criminal activity, a security expert said.

Some 3,800 people, a third of them civilians, were killed in Afghanistan by the end of July this year, according to the United Nations, which says 40 to 50 percent of the country is now inaccessible to its aid activities.

For security reasons, registration is taking place in four phases, starting with 14 provinces in central and northeastern Afghanistan, then a month later in the north, then the more troublesome east and finally in the southern hotbed of the insurgency in January.

The recognition of old voter registration cards could also somewhat ease security problems as only new voters or those who have lost their old cards have to register themselves.
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Taleban fury as US strike kills 20
06 October 2008 By Shtiaq Mahsud
Article Link

THE Taleban response to an apparent US missile strike in Pakistan indicates a senior militant may be among 20 people killed.
The US has ramped up cross-border strikes that target alleged al-Qaeda and Taleban hideouts in Pakistan's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

In the case of Friday's alleged US strike in North Waziristan tribal region, which was believed to hADVERTISEMENTave killed several Arab fighters, government officials have been notably quiet.

The Taleban, however, were reportedly responding with fury.

Pakistani intelligence officials said insurgents are moving aggressively in the militant-plagued area and threatening local residents, calling them "saleable commodities" – a reference to people serving as spies.

The intelligence officials, whose information came from informants and field agents, said the anger was a sign that a senior militant may have died.

Two area residents said Taleban fighters warned people not to discuss the missile strike or inspect the rubble at the site.

Taleban and top Pakistani government spokesmen either could not be reached, did not return calls or declined to comment on the strike yesterday.

Pakistan's chief army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said yesterday that at least 20 people died, eight of them foreign militants.
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Crime up in Afghanistan, as is nostalgia for Taliban
Mirza Kunduzai, 58, a slight man with a short white goatee, had almost reached his house after a day of trading in the capital's open-air...
By Pamela Constable The Washington Post
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan — Mirza Kunduzai, 58, a slight man with a short white goatee, had almost reached his house after a day of trading in the capital's open-air currency market when his taxi was forced to a stop by six heavily armed men dressed in Afghan National Army uniforms.

For the next week, Kunduzai recounted, he endured one horror after another — beaten unconscious, hooded and handcuffed, strung up by his wrists and ankles, dumped in a filthy latrine — while his family frantically tried to raise the kidnappers' astronomical ransom demand of $2 million.

"I was 95 percent sure I was a dead man," Kunduzai said recently. "They said if my family went to the police, they would chop off my fingers and send them to my wife. I begged them to be reasonable. I offered them my house and my farmland back home. Finally, they agreed to settle for $500,000 and released me. I am poor again, but I am thankful to be alive."

While Taliban insurgents stage increasing attacks in the Afghan countryside, equally fast-expanding violent crime — kidnappings, carjackings, drug-related killings and highway robberies — is plaguing the capital of 5 million and the vital truck and bus routes that connect major cities. It is making some Afghans nostalgic for the low-crime days before 2001, when the Taliban sternly ruled most of the country.
More on link

 

[MarkOttawa]

Can King David bring order to the mountains of Afghanistan?
The troop surge in Iraq was a great success. But General David Petraeus will find pacifying the Taleban a tougher job still
The Times, Oct. 6, by Michael Evan, defence editor
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4887371.ece

Can the Petraeus magic work in Afghanistan? is the question being asked in military circles. General David Petraeus, the architect of the surge, has left Baghdad to take over as commander of US Central Command at the end of the month. The new bailiwick of the man known affectionately as King David includes the hotspots of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan. But perhaps the greatest immediate challenge is Afghanistan; yesterday Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the British Forces commander in Afghanistan, said decisive victory against the Taleban was unrealistic.

General Petraeus, one of the most committed and experienced counter-insurgency experts after his four and a half years of top command in Iraq, will not be in a position to mastermind day-to-day operations in Afghanistan as he did so effectively in Baghdad, especially during the surge period when 30,000 extra American troops were drafted into the Iraqi capital and elsewhere to protect the people from al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents.

The lessons he learnt in Iraq, however, will play a key role in the way he addresses what has become an incoherent political and military campaign in Afghanistan; but the counter-insurgency guidance he drew up for Iraq that has become the bible for all military commanders, including the British who thought, wrongly, they knew everything about the subject after Malaya and Northern Ireland, cannot easily be transferred to deal with the Taleban because the economic, social and political conditions are so different.

Despite the ravages of the Saddam Hussein era, Iraq had infrastructure suitable for foreign military occupation, and, above all, it has vast oil and natural gas wealth and as the Land of the Two Rivers, it is blessed with water, with huge potential for agricultural development. Investment is beginning to pour in from Arab countries, now that the violence has been reduced dramatically.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, presents a far greater challenge. Its opium-dependent economy, which leaves a trail of corruption from the highest level in Kabul all the way downwards, severely undermines all attempts to convert the country into a law-abiding, stable environment. It is not even practical to order a Baghdad-style troop surge to protect the Afghan population in the south from Taleban malevolence. Unlike Iraq, there is not enough ready-made infrastructure to accommodate them.

In Helmand province where the British troops are based and where the Taleban are strong, the landscape is desert cut through by a fertile green valley where poppies are grown. There is no network of roads and the local inhabitants, including the Taleban, live in thick-walled compounds. To monitor and deter the Taleban in the north, the Royal Engineers have had to construct primitive, makeshift fortresses. The conditions are extraordinarily crude and harsh.

After three decades of war, the Afghans in the remoter regions such as Helmand and neighbouring Kandahar also have little faith either in their own leaders in Kabul or the foreign forces supposedly there to protect them. They hate the Taleban because of the brutal regime they ran before being overthrown in 2001 and would prefer to place their lives in the care of their tribal leaders; but they desperately want security and order, and the Taleban are clever at promising to protect them...

Some of the Petraeus counter- insurgency lessons from Iraq could prove effective in Afghanistan. His motto in Iraq was to “secure and serve” the population, and to live among the people, not stay hidden in fortified barracks. He liked to say: “You can't commute to this fight.” His objective was to pursue the enemy relentlessly, preventing them from enjoying sanctuary anywhere. One successful ploy was to establish what he called “crow's nests”, bullet-proof observation posts that were helicoptered on to flat rooftops overnight.

He also developed a system known as the Anaconda strategy under which every possible element of counter-insurgency was used in Iraq, including political reconciliation, engagement with Syria through which foreign suicide-bombers moved, anti-terrorist operations and a profusion of intelligence and surveillance missions; all aimed at squeezing the life out of al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents. It worked.

Could the Anaconda approach be replicated in Afghanistan, with Pakistan replacing Syria?

The insurgency is smaller scale in Afghanistan but the Taleban's malign influence and power is spreading, and if they are to be squeezed out, combat must be combined with a skilful political and diplomatic campaign, and, most importantly, a tireless information war to draw in the ordinary Afghans as well as Taleban members who fight for money, not fanatical ideology, and might be persuaded to swap sides.

This approach succeeded in Iraq. Petraeus set up a “strategic engagement cell”, partly staffed by senior British commanders, who sought out Sunni insurgents, many of whom metamorphosed into Sons of Iraq, the organisation that burgeoned into a huge neighbourhood- protection militia force. Perhaps the Sons of Afghanistan could be formed.

Even with King David in charge, this Iraqi-style approach is unlikely to bear fruit in Afghanistan for many years. There is too much to put right and too many obstacles in the way. 

THE AFGHAN MISSION: GRIM PROGNOSIS
'We're not going to win,' British commander says of bid to quash Taliban
Globe and Mail, Oct. 6, by Graeme Smith and Doug Saunders
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081006.AFGHAN06//TPStory/Front

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN; LONDON -- Britain's top commander in Afghanistan says the war will not end in victory, the latest indication of soul-searching as Canada's allies grapple with how to handle the rising power of the Taliban insurgency.

The blunt statement from Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith - "We're not going to win this war" - came just days after a leaked diplomatic cable hinted that the British ambassador in Kabul has a similarly dark forecast. The brigadier suggested that a negotiated settlement will be necessary.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Brig. Carleton-Smith said a "decisive military victory" is not feasible and that NATO should lower its expectations about the outcome of the war. "If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this."

"That shouldn't make people uncomfortable," he said.

That places Britain, with at least 3,500 troops standing alongside Canada's forces in southern Afghanistan, in direct conflict with U.S. leaders, who continue to argue strenuously that the war can only be won by substantially defeating the Taliban. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ministers have endorsed that view, although most other NATO nations have favoured negotiations.

Brig. Carleton-Smith's words are the most explicit expression yet of a view that has become dominant in many member nations of NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

That view effectively isolates the United States, the biggest donor of money and troops to the war. Starting later this month, the U.S. Afghanistan strategy will be designed by General David Petreus, who devised the "surge" of extra troops in Iraq last year and who has become the head of U.S. Central Command in order to shift the country's priorities toward the Afghan war.

Prime Minister Harper has previously sided with the Americans on such questions, refusing any suggestion of direct negotiations with the Taliban and ridiculing politicians who have suggested a political solution. Conservatives gave NDP Leader Jack Layton the nickname "Taliban Jack" for lobbying in favour of negotiations in recent years, and the moniker became popular among Canadian troops as a derisive shorthand for politicians who don't support the war.

During last week's election debate, however, Mr. Harper avoided discussing the possibility of a victory and suggested that Canada's goals now involve empowering Afghan forces rather than totally defeating the Taliban: "If we are to truly pacify that country and see its evolution, we have to train the Afghan army and police so that they are credibly able to take greater responsibility for their own security."..

Taliban, Afghan officials meet in Saudi Arabia, but deny peace talks held
CP, Oct. 6
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8v0dulttRPAD7oQIVPRJuEy60Ew

KABUL, Afghanistan — A former high-level Taliban official met last month in Saudi Arabia with representatives of the Taliban, the Afghan government and a powerful Afghan warlord, the official said Monday.

But Abdul Salam Zaeef - the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan - said the meeting could not be construed as a peace negotiation.

Zaeef said he was invited by Saudi King Abdullah to share the Iftar meal with him one night. The meal is held each night during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to break the daily fast.

"This is not new, it's a kind of a guest celebration," Zaeef told The Associated Press.

"They invited some people for this. The list included me, (former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad) Mutawakil, some from the Taliban, some from (warlord Gulbuddin) Hekmatyar, some from the government."

"We didn't discuss any issue of Afghanistan with" Abdullah, Zaeef said.

Zaeef, who spent almost four years at the U.S. military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said there were no "official" representatives from the Taliban or Hekmatyar's group, meaning that no one was authorized to carry out peace talks.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government has long encouraged the insurgents to lay down their arms and accept the country's constitution. But the Taliban leadership has largely rebuffed repeated overtures from Afghan officials aimed at ending the country's six-year-old conflict.

U.S. officials have not indicated they are ready for any contacts with high-level Taliban leaders, though U.S. officials do encourage fighters to lay down arms and join the government's reconciliation program.

Last week, Karzai said he has repeatedly asked Saudi Arabia's king to facilitate peace talks with the Taliban. Karzai said Afghan officials have travelled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to that end but there have not been any negotiations so far.

Former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, now an opposition leader, told The Associated Press earlier this year that Afghan political leaders have been meeting with Taliban and other anti-government groups in hopes of negotiating peace.

Rabbani said some Taliban are willing to negotiate, but others are opposed.

One of the Afghan officials at the meal in Saudi Arabia was the country's former Supreme Court chief justice, Fazel Hadi Shinwari, Zaeef said.

He said Bismillah Khan, the army chief of general staff, also was in Saudi Arabia, though it wasn't clear if he was part of the group that met with Abdullah.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi denied Monday that any peace talks had taken place, while a Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan said the issue was raised recently during a Taliban meeting.

"We have been hearing of such talks in Saudi Arabia from our different sources for some days. A representative of (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar also present at the meeting denied it categorically," Mullah Abdul Rahim said.

Rahim said the Taliban would continue the insurgency until U.S. and other foreign forces leave Afghanistan...

Afghanistan needs more than military action: defence minister
AFP, Oct. 5
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jrSSStzNCwOkCNJVkXyp_F2_hucA

KABUL (AFP) — Military action alone will not solve Afghanistan's conflict, which must also be tackled on the political front, the defence minister said Sunday amid fresh talk about negotiations with Taliban.

"The war that we are fighting now does not have only a military solution," Defence Minister Mohammad Rahim Wardak told reporters.

"We have to fight it on different fronts, political, military and financial fronts," he said.

Karzai last week called on fugitive militant leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who is on a US "most wanted" list, to step forward for negotiations to end a seven-year-long insurgency that has paralysed post-Taliban reconstruction.

He said he had been asking Saudi Arabia for two years to help engage the Taliban militia in peace talks.

Wardak reiterated the Afghan government position that negotiations with Taliban were with the condition that the militants accept the post-Taliban constitution.

"Anyone who wants to get to power should try political means and elections," he said.

In September 2007, the Afghan president said for the first time that he was ready to talk to Mullah Omar after earlier saying that he wanted negotiations with lower-level militant leaders...

Afghans must decide on Taliban talks: Harper
Globe and Mail/CP, Oct. 6

HALIFAX — Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said it's up to the Afghan government to decide if it wants to negotiate peace with Taliban insurgents there.

“Ultimately, how to bring about political reconciliation and who to talk to -- these are decisions the Afghan government has to take,” he said during a campaign stop in Ottawa today.

Mr. Harper was commenting on a recent statement from Britain's top commander in Afghanistan, who said the war there will not end in victory and suggested that a negotiated settlement will be necessary.

The Conservatives have often shot down the idea of direct negotiations between Canada and the Taliban, and Mr. Harper's party made fun of parties who suggested a political solution.

Tories gave NDP Leader Jack Layton the nickname “Taliban Jack” for advocating negotiations with the insurgents in recent years.

The Tories have previously said that any reconciliation with the Taliban must be led by the Afghan government.

Mr. Harper repeated a message that the Tories have been using for months: that the Canadian government now believes that there's no way that North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies can end the fight there.

He said the best course is to build up Afghan's own army so they can fight the insurgents themselves. “The idea that we would just eradicate it in a few short years is just unrealistic,” he said.

Mr. Harper noted that the Afghan government has long been open to Taliban talks under certain conditions.

“President [Hamid] Karzai has always been open to talk to the Taliban at various levels provide those people are willing to participate in the democratic and constitutional process.”

This is not the same as simply giving up, he said. “That's very different than simply throwing down arms and letting the Taliban take over the country.”

Earlier Monday morning, Liberal candidate and former Ontario premier Bob Rae went after Mr. Layton, saying the NDP leader's position on Afghanistan would damage Canada's military alliances...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

Ontario soldier on the mend
Canwest News Service, 06 Oct 08
Article link

A Windsor, Ont. soldier injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Sunday is out of intensive care and has been walking and talking.  "He's doing very well. His words are still slurred a little bit, but they've completely fixed the skull fracture," said a grateful Dana Gobbato, eldest sister of 23-year-old Cpl. Michael Farrah.  "The doctors are very excited about the improvement that he's had so far."  Farrah was on a routine mission in southern Afghanistan near Kandahar City when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle, leaving him with a head wound.  Gobbato said her brother has been calling the family from hospital to give them updates on his situation ....


Afghanistan - Martin explains the mission in Kandahar
Le Devoir, 6 Oct 08
Google English - Original in French

....In this autobiography to be published by Fides in a few weeks (including Le Devoir obtained a draft copy) Paul Martin is going after his predecessor for having suggested that it was because of his chronic indecision that Canada 's is found in the region so dangerous Kandahar, Afghanistan.  Mr. Martin said that Canadian troops returning from Kabul.  "It would have been impossible to deploy our troops earlier, because our exhausted soldiers needed an" operational pause "to recover and recycle. In addition, there were logistical advantages in Kandahar because of its proximity to Kabul, which allowed us to benefit from the supply chain that we had already installed on the premises, "he says.  In short, if there was delay, it's not his fault ....


Harper says talks with Taliban up to Afghanistan
Canadian Press via CTV.ca, 6 Oct 08
Article link

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says it's up to the government of Afghanistan to decide if it wants to embark on a negotiated peace with the Taliban.  The Conservative leader says Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government has been willing to talk to the Taliban, but under certain conditions.  "President (Hamid) Karzai has always been open to talking to the Taliban at various levels, provided these people are willing to participate in the democratic and constitutional process," he said Monday while campaigning for the Oct. 14 federal election.  "That's very different than simply throwing down arms and letting the Taliban take over the country -- which is certainly not what we're proposing." ....


West messed up Afghan mission: US Marine Corps expert
Jessica Smith, "The Hook" Tyee.ca web log, 6 Oct 08
Blog entry link

If you thought the director of Middle Eastern studies for the U.S. Marine Corps University would have nothing bad to say about how and why the war in Afghanistan is being waged, think again. Dr. Amin Tarzi, speaking to UBC journalism students last Friday, said NATO nations stumbled into war with “no idea what they were doing” and now risk failure without better focus and coordination. Canada, he said, has some lessons to teach American strategists.  “NATO needs to change its tactics or go out of business,” Tarzi said. “Our politicians have no idea what is going on in Afghanistan, they have no clue – they go there for photo-ops.”  There is a “disconnect” in the communication between political leaders and the military, he said. “But without the politicians we cannot do it. Military cannot be politicians.”  Tarzi acknowledged that Canadians, like citizens of other NATO countries losing soldiers’ lives in the conflict, are experiencing “fatigue among ‘the good’. You have to be, as Canadians, extremely proud of what your country is doing over there. Your country is actually building bridges, building dams, talking to people.”  Tarzi said he prefers Canada's triple-D policy of diplomacy, development and defense over the approach of the U.S. and said Canada isn't getting the support it deserves from bigger NATO countries who are “sitting on the sidelines.”  But Tarzi warned pulling out of Afghanistan now would only “enable” the Taliban ....


UN Appeals to Taliban to Allow Afghan Food Aid
Steve Herman, Voice of America, 6 Oct 08
Article link

The United Nations chief in Afghanistan is making an appeal to the Taliban not to disrupt food aid heading to hungry Afghans. The representative of the world body on Monday also lashed out at the increasing number of pessimistic voices predicting that the seven-year-old international military and humanitarian campaign in the country is doomed to failure. VOA Correspondent Steve Herman in Kabul has details.  With millions of Afghans expected to confront hunger this coming winter, the United Nations' top representative in Kabul is calling for food aid from the international community not to be impeded by the Taliban.  Kai Eide, the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General to Afghanistan, says insurgents in the country should understand the food shipments are purely humanitarian, not a political effort "to win hearts and minds."  "I will take this opportunity to appeal to the Taliban and to the appeal to its leaders to ensure access for food distribution," he said. "There are disagreements on so many things but let us demonstrate that we can share this humanitarian agenda." ....


Insecurity Looms As Afghans Register For 2009 Presidential Vote
Ron Synovitz, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 6 Oct 08
Article link

Officials in Afghanistan have begun registering voters for next year's presidential election, in which Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he will seek a second five-year term.  The vote in autumn of 2009 will also include elections for the 34 local provincial assemblies and councils in Afghanistan.  Experts are already warning that the vote is likely to be the most dangerous and challenging in the country since the Taliban regime was ousted from power in late 2001, due to insurgent violence, which has increased dramatically since the presidential election of 2004 and the parliamentary elections of 2005.  Violence across Afghanistan has increased by some 30 percent just since last year -- making 2008 the worst year for security in Afghanistan since U.S. troops entered the country seven years ago ....


U.S. Asks Allies To Fight In Afghanistan, Or Share Cost
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 6 Oct 08
Article link

The United States has asked Japan and NATO allies who have refused to send troops to Afghanistan to pay the estimated $17 billion needed to build up the Afghan National Army, according to U.S. defense officials.  The push to quickly increase the size of Afghanistan's army and spread the cost of the initiative underscores the financial and military strain the war has placed on the United States and NATO members, many also operating in Iraq and elsewhere.  "The faster we get the [Afghan Army] to the size and strength they need to be, the less they depend on us for providing security, and God knows we operate far more expensively than the Afghan national security forces do," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.  "At a minimum it's going to cost $17 billion. That's a hefty price tag and someone's got to pay it," Morrell said.  "This may be one of those cases where countries that have had a reluctance to contribute forces, in particular combat forces, may be able to take part in this mission through a financial contribution to the development of the Afghan National Army." ....


Afghan Insurgent Leader Protected By Iran - Spanish Radio
Lloyds.com, 6 Oct 08
Article link

MADRID (AFP)--A confidential military report made public Monday charges Iran offered protection to an Afghan insurgent leader who claimed responsibility for an August ambush that killed 10 French soldiers.  The report by Spain's CIFAS military intelligence agency, which was obtained by Cadena Ser radio and posted on the station's Web site, said Gulbuddin Hekmatyar enjoyed "total freedom" when he lived at a Tehran hotel in 2005 - with his security provided by the Iranian government.  He met daily with many unidentified individuals while in Tehran, added the report which was dated Aug. 9, 2005, according to Cadena Ser ....


Uprising against Taleban spreads
Arab News, 7 Oct 08
Article link

Pressed by military and partly disgusted by brutality exercised by Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters, Pakistani tribesmen are rising up against militancy in some parts of the tribal region along Afghan border and other areas.  Three ethnic Pashtun tribes in Bajaur district — the Salarzai, Tarkhani and Utmankhel — raised a “Lashkar,” or private army, of around 10,000 tribesmen to drive Taleban out of their area, after weeks of fierce fighting between security forces and militants resulted in heavy civilian casualties and property losses.  “We have been told very clearly by the authorities that the only way to avoid collateral damage is that we clear our areas of Taleban and bring stability here,” said tribal elder Fazal Karim, who leads the Lashkar ....

 

[GAP]

Articles found September 7, 2008

Pakistan to deport Afghans from tribal area
Article Link

KHAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan ordered the deportation of about 50,000 Afghan refugees in an insurgency-wracked tribal region amid a major military offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters

The government said it was expelling all Afghan refugees in the Bajur tribal region, alleging many of them have links to militant groups. Police in the town of Khar in Bajur arrested 25 Afghans and said they would soon be deported.

"The orders have been issued to the tribal police to push all of them [refugees] out," said local government official Abdul Haseeb on Monday, adding that their homes would be bulldozed to keep them from returning.

A government offensive in Bajur that began in early August has claimed some 1,000 lives. It comes amid increased U.S. pressure on the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to crackdown on militants in the restive border region where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.

Washington has long complained Pakistan is unwilling or unable to take strong action against the extremists.

Zardari has pledged his cooperation in the fight against terrorism, but must tread carefully given strong domestic opposition to his country's alliance with Washington.

This balancing act has become increasingly complicated by an upswing in U.S. missile strikes against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban hide-outs in the northwest and more recently by Zadari's comments to The Wall Street Journal suggesting he had consented to the strikes.
More on link

OUR SECRET WAR IN PAKISTAN
Posted: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 8:29 AM Filed Under: Islamabad, Pakistan By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
Article Link

JALALABAD, Afghanistan – U.S. military officials don’t talk about our secret war in Pakistan. 

Don’t even ask, I was told, on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan at Bagram and Jalalabad.

Don’t ask about the remotely-controlled American drones armed with missiles that are now hunting across the Pakistani border, searching through the mountain peaks, valleys and dusty villages inside Pakistan for the leaders of a few dozen networks of al-Qaida fighters, Taliban militants, warlords, weapons smugglers and opium traffickers.

And certainly don’t ask about the troops on bases here in Afghanistan who don’t wear uniforms, have long beards (so they can better blend in during covert operations), tattoos and don’t mingle with regular soldiers. 

They eat in their own chow halls, plan their own missions and don’t talk much. They don’t talk at all to the media.  They’re the men who have been called in to cross into Pakistan when the drones can’t get deep enough to find and kill their targets. 

They are elite Special Operations Forces, the most-highly trained and covert of the U.S. military. They are America’s ghost warriors. According to Pakistani villagers who claim to have witnessed their operations, the "Special Ops" work in small teams, fast roping out of helicopters, air assaulting their objective before the enemy can re-group.

Their strengths are rapid violence, stealth, mobility and surprise. The Special Operations Forces don’t receive much attention or credit in the media, but they’re leading America’s secret war inside Pakistan, at least for now.
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German cabinet backs extra troops for Afghanistan
10.07.08, 6:16 AM ET
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BERLIN, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet agreed on Tuesday to extend Germany's participation in a NATO peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and raise the number of troops it can send there by 1,000, a government official said.

Under the current parliamentary mandate, Germany can send up to 3,500 soldiers to Afghanistan as part of the NATO force, which currently numbers just over 50,000. But it has been facing pressure from its allies to boost troops to help fight a Taliban insurgency.

Merkel's conservatives and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners agreed at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday to seek a new mandate that would allow Germany to send a total of 4,500 troops, said the official, who requested anonymity because the cabinet meeting was not yet over.

Germany has expanded its role in overseas missions over the last decade, but the deployment to Afghanistan is unpopular with some left-wing politicians and many voters who remain uneasy about the emergence of a strong army.

The lower house of parliament is set to vote on the new Afghanistan mandate this month.
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Victory in Afghanistan need not be total
October 7, 2008 at 1:13 AM EDT
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The reported remarks of Britain's top commander in Afghanistan should not be taken as defeatism, but as an opportunity to clarify the West's war aims. It is important to be clear on what Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said. He did not say Britain, Canada, the United States and the rest of the NATO and non-NATO countries fighting in Afghanistan should withdraw, or that a secure Afghanistan is no longer vitally important to the West. He told the Sunday Times, “We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.” That is hardly a surprising statement after nearly seven years of fighting Taliban insurgents, with no end in sight.

It echoes what a panel headed by John Manley, the former Liberal MP, told the Canadian government in a report commissioned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “In the end,” the Manley panel wrote in January, “the counterinsurgency war will have to won by Afghans. Few counterinsurgencies in history have been won by foreign armies, particularly where the indigenous insurgents enjoy convenient sanctuary in a bordering country.” Canada's mission is focusing increasingly on training Afghan forces to take on the job.
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[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 8

Afghan Observations 5
david frum's diary, Oct. 8
http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODg3MTE0NWM3NGM5MTlhMTUwYTg1MjY0YmQ3NzNhOTI=

The best news from Afghanistan is the coalition success in building a credible Afghan army.

Some 65,000 men have now completed basic training and taken the field. The eventual goal is a force of almost 130,000.

Much of the training takes place at the Kabul Military Training Center, once a large Soviet base. (A large field of the center remains a graveyard for rusting Soviet tanks and trucks – maybe $100 million worth, our group hastily estimated as we snapped souvenir photos.) We watched as new recruits marched through a day of basic training, denying themselves food and water in the hot sun because of the Ramadan holiday.

Polls (Afghans are extensively polled by Western polling organizations) suggest that the ANA, to give the army its acronym, Afghan National Army, is the most respected institution in the country.

Relatively few army units are as yet able to fight independently. Almost all ANA detachments require NATO mentoring even under fire. A Dutch officer told me: “It is a very strange thing to go into battle, but not to shoot. My job is to remind the [Afghan soldiers] of their drills and skills, to help them think during the battle.”

But all agree: The Afghan military units have high morale. They do not run away. And they hold a clear and simple idea of what this war is about: “To kill Taleban.” At KMTC on the day of our visit, the tour leaders pulled 20 men, divided them into 5 groups of 4 each to talk to a pair of us visitors, helped by a translator. I asked my 4 whether they had suffered any personal losses in Afghanistan’s years of fighting. One had lost a father to the Taleban, another an uncle during the post-Soviet civil war, a third a brother. Only one of the 4 was unscathed.

Now the worrying news.

1) The West has been working on Afghan reconstruction for nearly 7 years. But only in the past 24 months have we gotten in any way serious about training an Afghan army. Only now is the ANA receiving proper kit (the men in basic training all had good uniforms and boots, but they were wearing mismatched helmets, some Soviet army surplus). Only now are they receiving Western weapons (the men at KMTC were training with AK-47s). The army still has very limited capacity to feed and move itself. The US and the coalition over-confidently assumed they had won the Afghan war in 2001. Although Afghanistan’s civilian reconstruction was generously, even lavishly, funded, the military problem was slighted. Only now are we getting around to doing the security work that should have been done in 2002-2004, when the Taleban were dazed, reeling, and demoralized.

2) Although everybody insists that the new army is ethnically balanced, in fact it is disproportionately recruited from the Tajik and Uzbek north [emphasis added]. That is even more strikingly apparent when you look at the faces of the officers – or of elite units like those that guard the presidential palace. In the grand receiving room of the KMTC the photo of the old Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud  is displayed exactly equally prominently as that of President Karzai. You are left wondering whether the ANA is truly an Afghan “national” army – or whether it is a Tajik army eager to settle scores with its former Pashtun tormenters.

3) In every insurgency since Malaya, the police not the army have proven the decisive arm. It is always harder to train a counter-insurgency police force than an army: an army lives in barracks, while the police have to go home at night. They are subject to threats, pressure, and bribes in a way that soldiers are not. And all agree: the Afghan police are  a disaster, despised by everybody – very much including the ANA.

The police force was built in 2002 out of the old warlord militias. Loyal to local powerholders, badly paid, the police preyed on the local population: demanding bribes, erecting unauthorized checkpoints and road tolls. The Taleban made them an early target: the police suffer the largest part of the casualties in Afghanistan’s insurgency.

Many of the old muj have died or quit. Their replacements joined for the $60 a month that policemen were paid until very recently. Their primary mission is to stay alive, and to achieve that end they play double and triple games, selling their loyalty to the central government by day, to the Taleban by night, and to the drug traffickers whenever called. Often their pay is stolen by their superiors. When paid, it is not paid on time. And even in Afghanistan, a man cannot support a family on $60 a month – especially not in a year when bread prices have doubled.

The US and NATO are now again trying to retrain the police. Pay has been raised to $100 a month. But the other incentive problems remain. A British officer in Kandahar explained: “We have the police on the outer edge of the settled areas, where the army should be – and we have the army concentrated in the cities, where the police should be.”

Many in NATO were abandoning the police problem as hopeless, focusing instead on a project to create a new mobile paramilitary police force on the model of the Italian carbinieri. But this project, even if a good idea, will be slow. Its advocates acknowledge that it will take until 2012 to complete the training of a new force. And long before that, most of the NATO troops in the country – as well as the “surge” of US reinforcements expected in 2009 – will have gone home.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 9

U.S. Urgently Reviews Policy On Afghanistan
Washington Post, Oct. 9
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100900019.html?sid=ST2008100900021&s_pos=

The White House has launched an urgent review of Afghanistan policy, fast-tracked for completion in the next several weeks, amid growing concern that the administration lacks a comprehensive strategy for the foundering war there and as intelligence officials warn of a rapidly worsening situation on the ground.

Underlying the deliberations is a nearly completed National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan and the Pakistan-based extremists fighting there. Analysts have concluded that reconstituted elements of al-Qaeda and the resurgent Taliban are collaborating with an expanding network of militant groups, making the counterinsurgency war infinitely more complicated.

As the U.S. presidential election approaches, senior officials have expressed worry that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is so tenuous that it may fall apart while a new set of U.S. policymakers settles in. Others believe a more comprehensive, airtight road map for the way ahead would limit the new president's options...

Heading into the review, Gates has already determined that the United States must take a more forceful lead in strategy and combat from NATO forces in Afghanistan. Bush has pledged thousands more U.S. troops and last week the long-bifurcated command structure in Afghanistan was changed to put NATO and U.S. forces under the same American general.
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12267

But these and other initiatives still lack a broad strategic framework. Military Special Operations forces and CIA operatives, now conducting regular secret incursions into western Pakistan, need to be incorporated into the larger effort, along with new Iraq-tested intelligence and surveillance platforms. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Gen. David H. Petraeus, incoming head of the U.S. Central Command, have undertaken their own strategy reviews...

Officials described the Pakistan-based extremist network, which the Pentagon calls "the syndicate," as a loose alliance of three elements. Kashmiri militants, constrained by recent agreements between Pakistan and India, have "leaned over" to assist a domestic terrorist campaign launched by homegrown extremists often referred to as the "Pakistani Taliban," one official said. The Afghan Taliban -- itself divided into several groups -- is based in Pakistan but focused on Afghanistan, as are the forces led by warlords Jalauddin Haqqani and his son Siraj, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, among others. Traditional tribal groups in Pakistan's western, Federally Administered Tribal Areas -- FATA -- are a third element. Those groups are said to be focused primarily on keeping the Pakistani military and government out of their areas, and assisting the Afghan-oriented parts of the network...

Al-Qaeda, composed largely of Arabs and, increasingly, Uzbeks, Chechens and other Central Asians, is described as sitting atop the structure, providing money and training to the others in exchange for sanctuary. "They are oriented to just keeping the Pakistani military and government out of their areas," the intelligence official said. "They help the groups who are interested in Afghanistan."..

In recent months, the Pentagon has sent emissaries around the world with a proposition: If they do not want to fight in Afghanistan, they should at least be prepared to pay for those who do. "There is a real effort made to figure out which among the nations not contributing forces can pony up," a defense official said.

Just before the recent change in government in Japan, he said by way of example, "our Asia guys went over there and said: 'You don't want to send forces? We understand. How about contributing $20 billion over the next five years?' " [emphasis added]

The Japanese, he said, "swallowed their chopsticks." 

Gates Seeks European Troops for Afghanistan
Washington Post, Oct. 9
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/08/AR2008100803535.html

OHRID, Macedonia, Oct. 8 -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Wednesday asked defense ministers from southeastern Europe to send more troops to Afghanistan, a message that he is likely to forcefully echo at a meeting with other NATO defense officials this week.

"As the situation on the ground in Iraq continues to improve, I urge you to consider sending your military forces to Afghanistan, where there is an urgent need for trainers as they expand their army," Gates said at a meeting of the South-Eastern Europe Defense Ministerial, a 12-member organization composed of NATO members and countries such as Macedonia that want to join the military alliance.

"Your assistance will not only help Afghanistan better protect and care for its citizens but will also reinforce your important role in ensuring peace and stability around the globe," he said...

There are more than 5,000 troops in Afghanistan from the countries attending the meeting here, including NATO members such as Italy. The meeting's host, Macedonia, has 136 troops in Afghanistan, including a medical team. The country also has a special-forces platoon and an infantry platoon in Iraq.

"The Macedonians have indicated an openness as their Iraq deployment comes to an end to look at augmenting the forces already in Afghanistan," said Philip T. Reeker, the U.S. ambassador to Macedonia...

NATO faces calls for more Afghan troops
Reuters, Oct. 9
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4980BC20081009

NATO allies face calls on Thursday to send more troops to fight Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and boost military spending, despite the prospect of budget cuts due to the global financial crisis.

Defense ministers of the 26-nation alliance hold a two-day meeting in Budapest against a backdrop of a rise in violence in Afghanistan even though there has been a big increase in the size of the NATO-led international force in the past two years.

The United States has urged allies to send extra troops, and commanders of the 50,700-strong NATO force are seeking up to 12,000 more, but Washington's European allies have been reluctant to commit additional numbers.

NATO is also seeking to plug shortfalls in equipment such as helicopters and to resolve differences among member countries over U.S. calls for a more aggressive fight against the drugs trade that fuels the Taliban insurgency.

On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet agreed to allow for an increase in German troop numbers in Afghanistan of 1,000 to up to 4,500. But Berlin has resisted Washington's calls to station troops in the insurgent-troubled south.

Washington has urged countries in southeastern Europe, including aspiring NATO members, to send more troops.

The United States plans to increase its troop strength in Afghanistan from the present 33,000, which include 13,000 under NATO command, but U.S. officials are concerned allies will see this as an excuse not to meet pledges...

U.S. officials said this week Washington had asked Japan and NATO allies that have refused to send troops to Afghanistan to help pay the estimated $17 billion needed to build the Afghan army to a target strength of 134,000...

Military Justifies Attack That Killed at Least 33 Afghan Civilians
Washington Post, Oct. 9
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/08/AR2008100803876.html

A military investigation has concluded that U.S. forces acted in legitimate self-defense in launching an August air assault against Taliban militants in Afghanistan that it said left 33 civilians dead, including at least 12 children.

A summary of the classified report, released yesterday by the U.S. Central Command, said the military's initial conclusion that only five to seven civilians died in the Aug. 21-22 raid was erroneous. The Afghan government and human rights organizations, as well as the United Nations, have said at least 90 civilians were killed by U.S. and Afghan ground forces and a U.S. AC-130H gunship in the village of Azizabad in western Afghanistan.

The discrepancy led to sharp tensions between the U.S. and Afghan governments and resulted in a decision by Central Command to send a senior officer from outside Afghanistan to reinvestigate the initial military findings...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

ARTICLES FOUND OCT. 10

U.S. plans to train Afghanistan tribal militias
Military leaders see Kabul's influence as weak amid growing violence and consider working with warlords.
LA Times, Oct. 10
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usafghan10-2008oct10,0,6743460.story

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

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

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

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

"There has been very, very tough fighting this year, and it will be tougher next year unless we adjust," Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday.

Supporters contend that the dangers are offset by the prospect that well-trained tribal forces could help improve local security, undercut the insurgency and strengthen ties between rural areas and the central government...

Any broad effort to train tribal militias probably would have U.S. military forces working with Taliban sympathizers. But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss the Afghanistan war with North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers, said Thursday that the U.S. would be open to reconciling with the Taliban.

"There has to be ultimately, and I'll underscore ultimately, reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this," Gates said. "That's ultimately the exit strategy for all of us emphasis added]."..

A particularly acute need is for new military trainers for regular Afghan forces and the militias, as part of the U.S. push to improve local security.

The new Pentagon plan would expand the number of military trainers in Afghanistan by giving combat troops added responsibilities. Currently, most units are assigned either to a combat or training role. Mullen has advocated a hybrid role for most units [emphasis added].

The shift would have the effect of de-emphasizing combat operations against militant targets. Some experts have said those offensives amount to a fruitless game of whack-a-mole and distract from the more crucial training mission.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff has approved the hybrid proposal, officers said. But supporters of the local approach in Afghanistan said the task is likely to be far more complicated there than it was in Iraq.

Part of the reason the hyper-local strategy in Iraq was successful in decreasing violence was because the U.S. was able to offer employment and a measure of local power to tribal minorities alienated from the Shiite Muslim-led government.

In Afghanistan, however, tribes in the restless south and east are mostly Pashtun, the same ethnicity as President Karzai.

"The Sunnis in Iraq were disenfranchised, so we knew what motivated them," a military official said. "The Pashtuns in Afghanistan are not disenfranchised, so the same tools won't work [emphasis added]."

'A hybrid mission'

In part the proposed shift reflects the new reality in Afghanistan. Units sent there this year and charged with training have found themselves fighting militants. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, went to southern Afghanistan to train security forces but regularly ended up in combat...

NATO strikes deal for tougher Afghan drug action
Reuters, Oct. 10
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/081010/n_top_news/cnews_us_nato

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - NATO allies reached a deal on Friday to allow direct attacks on the Afghan drugs trade that the United States says are vital to bringing security to the country in the face of a worsening Taliban insurgency.

NATO operations commander Gen. John Craddock has asked for the alliance force in Afghanistan to be allowed to attack laboratories, trafficking networks and drug lords to stem a trade that helps fund the Taliban insurgency.

A NATO spokesman said NATO defense ministers reached an agreement that tougher action by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could be taken based on requests by the Afghan government and U.N. Security Council resolutions under the alliance's current operations plan.

"ISAF can act in concert with the Afghans against facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency subject to the authorization of respective nations," James Appathurai said after discussions among the ministers in Budapest.

Germany and some other NATO states including Spain, have been wary of extending the role of the NATO mission. Berlin is concerned it could worsen the violence and increase the risk to its forces, which although stationed in the quieter north patrol trafficking routes out of Afghanistan.

At the Budapest meeting, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak fully backed Craddock's call for more robust NATO action...

A Pentagon spokesman said Gates was "extremely pleased" a deal had been reached. A senior U.S. defense official called it a "delicate compromise."

The official stressed the deal said allies "can" take on the counter-narcotics tasks but are not required to. That meant the "hard work" would start now, the official said, noting Washington would now start pressing allies to sign up...

Mark
Ottawa