Afghan Situation 'Serious'

WashingtonPost.com
The top U.S. commander for Afghanistan called the situation there "serious" but salvageable, in a sobering assessment issued Monday that is expected to pave the way for a request for more American troops, funds for Afghan forces and other resources. White House and Pentagon officials, while welcoming the assessment, cautioned that there is no guarantee such requests would be met.

The report by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has been tasked by President Obama to implement a revitalized strategy for the war in Afghanistan, concludes that the Taliban insurgency in the country is stronger than previously realized, according to senior Pentagon and administration officials familiar with McChrystal's thinking.

To tackle the problem, McChrystal believes above all that the ranks of Afghan soldiers and police must be increased, and that they must be trained more quickly, the officials said. That training is expected to require more U.S. and allied forces, although the assessment did not provide specific requests.

"The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable," McChrystal said in a statement. He added that progress will demand a revised strategy, greater "resolve" and a "unity of effort" by the NATO-led multinational force.

Although the assessment, which runs more than 20 pages, has not been released, officials familiar with the report have said it represents a hard look at the challenges involved in implementing Obama's strategy for Afghanistan. The administration has narrowly defined its goal as defeating al-Qaeda and other extremist groups and denying them sanctuary, but that in turn requires a sweeping counterinsurgency campaign aimed at protecting the Afghan population, establishing good governance and rebuilding the economy.

For instance, McChrystal thinks a greater push by civilian officials is vital to shore up local Afghan governments and to combat corruption, officials said. He is emphatic that the results of the recent Afghan presidential election be viewed as legitimate, but is also realistic in acknowledging that the goals of the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the coalition are not always as closely aligned as they could be, they said.

Separately, officials said, McChrystal's assessment finds that U.S. and other NATO forces must adopt a less risk-averse culture, leaving bases and armored vehicles to pursue insurgents on foot in a way that minimizes Afghan civilian deaths.

The appraisal comes amid declining U.S. public support for the war and growing tension between U.S. commanders in need of resources and a White House wary of committing to fresh troops. It echoes recent gloomy statements by top military officials such as Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the conflict is "deteriorating" and that the Taliban is far more sophisticated than it was just a few years ago. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday called Afghanistan "a mixed picture" and said "a very tough fight" lies ahead.

This year, tens of thousands of additional U.S. and allied troops have flowed into the volatile country, bringing the total to more than 100,000, of which 62,000 are American. Casualties among troops have risen to their highest levels since the U.S. military overthrew the Taliban government in the fall of 2001.

McChrystal, who took command in June after his predecessor was fired, is expected to follow his assessment with a formal, detailed request for forces, officials said. That request, expected to be primarily for military trainers, will be weighed in turn by the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and by Mullen, Gates and the military service chiefs before being delivered to Obama.

McChrystal could request any additional non-U.S. NATO forces through a separate NATO chain of command.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that it is too soon to say whether Obama will authorize more troops for Afghanistan, and that McChrystal's report has not yet reached the president's desk. Still, he asserted, for years the war had been neglected.

"I think there's broad agreement that for many years, our effort in Afghanistan has been under-resourced politically, militarily, economically," Gibbs said. He called the mounting U.S. casualties and other problems in Afghanistan a consequence of the Bush administration's strategy there.

Gates said McChrystal's upcoming "resource recommendations" will be carefully examined, but he noted that "there are larger issues" to be considered.

"I have expressed some concerns in the past about the size of the American footprint, the size of the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan," Gates said on a trip to Fort Worth. "And, clearly, I want to address those issues. And we will have to look at the availability of forces; we'll have to look at costs. There are a lot of different things that we'll have to look at, once we get his recommendations, before we make any recommendations to the president."

In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Mullen said it might not be possible to fill requests from McChrystal for new troops.

If the demand for troops in Afghanistan goes up and is not offset by reductions in Iraq, it would delay the ability of the Army and Marine Corps to give heavily deployed ground troops more time at home between combat tours.

"That's a huge concern that I have," Mullen said in the interview. He noted that the concern was shared by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, as well as by other service chiefs.

Tensions grow over U.S. resources for Afghanistan war

www.miamiherald.com
The prospect that U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal may ask for as many as 45,000 additional American troops in Afghanistan is fueling growing tension within President Barack Obama's administration overthe U.S. commitment to the war there.
On Monday, McChrystal sent his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan to the Pentagon, the U.S. Central Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NATO.
Although the assessment didn't include any request for more troops, senior military officials said they expect McChrystal later in September to seek between 21,000 and 45,000 more troops. There currently are 62,000 American troops in Afghanistan.
The assessment came on a day that bombs were reported to have killed four NATO troops -- two Americans and two Britons -- ending the deadliest month of the war, The Associated Press reported.
The U.S. military said the two Americans were killed in separate explosions in southern Afghanistan but gave no further details. Their deaths brought to 47 the number of U.S. troops who have died in the Afghan War in August -- three more than in July, which had been the deadliest month.
In London, the British Ministry of Defence said the two British soldiers on a foot patrol were killed by a bomb north of Lashkar Gah, a southern Afghan city where Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid a surprise visit last weekend, the AP said.
Administration officials said that amid rising violence and casualties, polls show a majority of Americans now think the war in Afghanistan isn't worth fighting. With tough battles ahead on health care, the budget and other issues, Vice President Joe Biden and other officials are increasingly anxious about how the American public would respond to sending additional troops.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk to the media, said Biden has argued that without sustained support from the American people, the U.S. can't make the long-term commitment that would be needed to stabilize Afghanistan and dismantle al Qaeda. Biden's office declined to comment.
``I think they [the Obama administration] thought this would be more popular and easier,'' a senior Pentagon official said. ``We are notgetting a Bush-like commitment to this war.''
Monday's assessment initially was to include troop recommendations, but political concerns prompted White House and Pentagon officials to agree that those recommendations would come later, advisors to McChrystal said. Although the White House took a hands-off approach toward Afghanistan earlier this summer, Pentagon officials said they're now getting more questions about how many troops might be needed and for how long.

Accusation of Brazen Ballot-Stuffing Casts New Doubt on Karzai

NewYorkTimes
KABUL, Afghanistan — Just a week before this country’s presidential election, the leaders of a southern Afghan tribe called Bariz gathered to make a bold decision: they would abandon the incumbent and local favorite, Hamid Karzai, and endorse his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Mr. Abdullah flew to the southern city of Kandahar to receive the tribe’s endorsement. The leaders of the tribe, who live in a district called Shorbak, prepared to deliver a local landslide.

But it never happened, the tribal leaders said.

Instead, aides to Mr. Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali — the leader of the Kandahar provincial council and the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan — detained the governor of Shorbak, Delaga Bariz, and shut down all of the district’s 45 polling sites on election day. The ballot boxes were taken to Shorbak’s district headquarters, where, Mr. Bariz and other tribal leaders said, local police officers stuffed them with thousands of ballots.

At the end of the day, 23,900 ballots were shipped to Kabul, Mr. Bariz said, with every one marked for President Karzai.

“Not a single person in Shorbak District cast a ballot — not a single person,” Mr. Bariz said in an interview here in the capital, where he and a group of tribal elders came to file a complaint. “Mr. Karzai’s people stuffed all the ballot boxes.”

The accusations by Mr. Bariz, and several other tribal leaders from Shorbak, are the most serious allegations so far that have been publicized against Mr. Karzai’s electoral machine, which faces a deluge of fraud complaints from around the country.

The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission said Tuesday that the number of complaints about vote stealing and other frauds had reached 2,615. Mr. Karzai’s campaign is accused of forging ballots, stealing votes and preventing people from going to the polls.

Mr. Karzai and his aides deny any sort of fraud, and they have hunkered down in the presidential palace to await the final results. But the allegations are casting a cloud over his re-election campaign, raising the prospect that even if he wins his presidency could be seriously tainted.

At the same time, the allegations are increasing the pressure on American officials to ensure that the accusations of fraud are properly investigated. An election widely perceived as having been stolen could deal a serious setback to the Obama administration, which has committed itself to prevailing here in the nearly eight-year-old war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Allegations like those described by Mr. Bariz are throwing the basic integrity of the election into question. Much of the story told by Mr. Bariz and the other tribal elders was impossible to verify. But their story appeared credible for a number of reasons; all three men spoke in great details. And all of them were willing to be publicly named and to have their photographs taken.

As recently as 10 months ago, Mr. Bariz said, he had considered himself an ally of President Karzai. He had been nominated by a group of Bariz elders to be the governor of the Shorbak District, a desolate stretch of sand and scrub that sits on the country’s southwestern border with Pakistan. Mr. Bariz’s nomination was ratified by Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar Province, who was appointed by President Karzai.

But as election day neared, Mr. Bariz and other leaders in his tribe said they could not bring themselves to support Mr. Karzai for another five-year term. The reason, he said: Mr. Karzai’s government had done so little good.

“There are no clinics, no schools, no roads, no water dams — nothing,” Mr. Bariz said. “We decided to support someone who would unify the country.” The leaders of the Bariz tribe picked Mr. Abdullah, a former foreign minister.

In theory, the decision by the elders sealed Mr. Abdullah’s victory in Shorbak: nearly everyone in Shorbak belongs to the Bariz tribe. As is common in many such societies, tribal leaders in Afghanistan often negotiate with politicians to deliver the votes of their tribe.

Mr. Abdullah’s campaign manager in southern Afghanistan, Esmatullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said the candidate met a large group of Bariz tribal elders in Kandahar on Aug. 12 to receive their endorsement. It was a joyous affair, Mr. Esmatullah said, for which even women turned out. But not everyone who wanted to come to the endorsement ceremony was able to make it.

“The police were blocking the roads,” Mr. Esmatullah said.

The next day, Mr. Bariz said, officials in Kandahar were furious. One of Kandahar’s senior officials, Mohammed Anas, ordered Mr. Bariz not to return to his home in Shorbak. Mr. Anas said he had no choice.

“When I asked him why he wouldn’t let me go home, he said, ‘Because your whole tribe is going to vote for Dr. Abdullah,’ ” Mr. Bariz said.

Mr. Bariz did not speak to Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s younger brother, only to more junior officials like Mr. Anas. But few decisions of any import are believed to be taken in Kandahar without the approval of Ahmed Wali Karzai. On the streets, his nickname is “The King of the South.” Last year, for instance, Ahmed Wali Karzai was widely seen as having replaced the governor, Rahmatullah Raufi, when he fell out of favor.

Attempts to contact Ahmed Wali Karzai were unsuccessful.

When election day finally came, the ballots were never delivered to the polling centers in Shorbak, said two Bariz tribal leaders who were charged with overseeing the sites. Instead of going to the polling places, all the ballots and ballot boxes were delivered to the district government’s headquarters. That place, the tribal leaders said, had been commandeered by the Afghan Border Police.

“The ballots were never delivered,” said Abdul Quyoum, a farmer from the village of Karaze, where one of the polling sites was supposed to be. “I waited all day.”

Mr. Quyoum was one of two tribal elders from Shorbak who traveled to Kabul with Mr. Bariz. The other was Fazul Mohammed, who told a nearly identical story.

When the ballots were not delivered to the polling site, Mr. Mohammed said, he walked to the district government headquarters to see what was wrong. The building, he said, was being guarded by officers of the Afghan Border Police. As an election official, Mr. Mohammed said, he was allowed to go inside.

“The border police were stuffing the ballots, hundreds of them, into the boxes,” he said. “And there were other people who were counting the ballots and keeping the records.”

Mr. Mohammed said he protested but was told to leave. Later, he said, he was told that a total of 23,900 ballots had been filled out, all in Mr. Karzai’s name.

“Dr. Abdullah did not receive a single vote,” he said.

Mr. Bariz, the governor, said he had not returned to Shorbak.

“I don’t think I am going to be governor much longer,” he said.

Schools, colleges still closed in Darra Adamkhel

KOHAT: Like other parts of the province, schools and colleges reopened on Tuesday after the long summer break with the exception of Darra Adamkhel where institutions were still closed.In a notification, the Education Department has directed the concerned officials in all the tribal and semi-tribal areas including Orakzai and Kurram agencies and the Frontier Regions to reopen schools and colleges. However, the sources said schools and colleges in Darra Adamkhel were yet to be reopened. They said in Darra Adamkhel the militants destroyed 17 educational institutes with explosives.The destroyed seats of learning included four govt-run high schools for boys, two for girls, six middle schools for girls, four primary schools for girls and a degree college for boys.District Coordination Officer Siraj Ahmad said the government was making final arrangements to raise tents at destroyed schools for the students to continue education. He added that soon the damaged bridges would be reconstructed and the Friendship Tunnel would be opened for 24 hours traffic.

105 militants surrendered in Pakistan's Swat

At least 105 militants surrendered to the Pakistani security forces in the insurgency-hit Swat valley on Tuesday, a military commander said.

The militants, including 18 wanted and a Taliban council member, were produced at a news conference at Kanju, three kilometers of Mingora, the main city in Swat of North West Frontier Province.

Brig Salman Akbar, who is in charge of military operations, said that all those surrendered militants belonged to Kabal area of the Swat. He said a Taliban council member Abdul Jabar was among those surrendered.

It is the second time in less than 10 days that Taliban militants surrendered in groups to the security forces. Last week, a group of 65 suspected militants surrendered to the security forces.

The surrendered militants also included a group of teenagers, who, according to the officials, were recruited for suicide bombings.

All surrendered men were sitting on benches during the press conference and were not allowed to speak to reporters.

"The locals inform us about the presence and activities of the militants," Akbar said. He said that those who did not surrender to security forces will be eliminated.

The surrendered militants will be produced in the Islamic courts, the army commander said.

"We are trying to boost up the operation in areas where the militants were resisting the forces", he said. The operation will continue till the goals are achieved, he added.

Meanwhile, search and clearance operations are continuing in Swat and 15 militants were arrested and cache of arms and ammunition recovered on Tuesday.

Shutter down strike observed in Balochistan

A shutter down strike is being observed in certain parts of Balochistan against the killing of Baloch National Movement leader Rasool Bakhsh Mengal.

Rasool Bakhsh went missing on August 23rd from Uthal area of Lasbela district and his body was found by police on the 30th of August from Bela area of the same district.

The call for the strike had been given by the Baloch National Front which was also endorsed by other Baloch nationalist parties.

The strike is being observed in Turbat, Awaran, Panjgur, Khuzdar, Kalat and some other parts of the province.

Sources say that all markets and shopping centres in these areas are completely closed and no business activity is being witnessed anywhere. Traffic was minimal on the roads while the turn out in offices and schools was also low.

The local administration has taken strict security measures to avert any untoward incident.

West faces losing battle over Afghan poll fraud

The Times

Widespread and systematic fraud during the Afghan presidential elections has tarnished the legitimacy of any future government and undermined the Nato campaign there, Western and Afghan officials have admitted.

Two more British soldiers were killed yesterday and the commander of the Nato forces in Afghanistan warned President Obama that the eight-year war was in a “serious” state and that big changes were needed if victory was to be achieved.

General Stanley McChrystal is understood to have recommended in a strategic review that counter-insurgency efforts be focused on protecting civilians rather than fighting militants.

August was one of Nato’s bloodiest months in Afghanistan, with 74 soldiers killed. More than 300 have died so far this year, making 2009 the worst year for Western forces since the Taleban were overthrown.

The latest British casualties — killed by a bomb while on foot patrol in Helmand — were from 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland. They bring to 19 the number of British troops killed in August.

David Kilcullen, one of the architects of Nato’s anti-insurgency campaign, said that the failure of the Afghan Government to provide basic services in many areas was allowing the Taleban to establish its own courts, hospitals and security. “A government that is losing to a counter-insurgency isn’t being outfought, it is being outgoverned,” he said.

There have been more than 2,500 complaints about the August 20 vote, 691 of them involving serious charges of vote rigging, meaning that they could affect the overall outcome of the election.

One international election observer, who asked not to be named, said: “The pattern is of systematic and widespread fraud, which really does call into question the legitimacy of the election. This is large scale and it is across the country.”

Ahmad Nader Nadery, head of the Afghan Free and Fair Election Foundation, said the scale of the vote rigging was serious. The fraud presents Washington with a dilemma: to back President Karzai, who is already seen as an unreliable partner, after a disputed and discredited first-round victory or to force a second-round run-off. The latter could lead to months of political paralysis and a rapid erosion of support for a war that less half of Americans now view as worthwhile.

Groundwork Is Laid for New Troops in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — A new report by the top commander in Afghanistan detailing the deteriorating situation there confronts President Obama with the politically perilous decision of whether to deepen American involvement in the eight-year-old war amid shrinking public support at home.
The classified assessment submitted Monday by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who took over American and NATO forces in Afghanistan in June, did not request additional American troops, American officials said, but they added that it effectively laid the groundwork for such a request in coming weeks.
While details of the report remained secret, the revised strategy articulated by General McChrystal in recent public comments would invest the United States more extensively in Afghanistan than it has been since American forces helped topple the Taliban government following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Taking a page from the 2007 strategy shift in Iraq, he has emphasized protecting civilians over just engaging insurgents.
For Mr. Obama, who already ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan this year, the prospect of a still larger deployment would test his commitment to a war he did not launch even as it grows more violent by the month.

He already faces growing discontent among his liberal base, not only over the war but also over national security policy, health care, gay rights and other issues.

An expanded American footprint would also increase Mr. Obama’s entanglement with an Afghan government widely viewed as corrupt and illegitimate. Multiplying allegations of fraud in the Aug. 20 presidential election have left Washington with little hope for a credible partner in the war once the results are final.

The latest tally, with nearly half of the polling stations counted, showed President Hamid Karzai leading with 45.9 percent against 33.3 percent for his main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, Reuters reported.

But the White House left open the possibility that Mr. Obama would send more troops. “There’s broad agreement that for many years, our effort in Afghanistan has been under-resourced politically, militarily and economically,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Monday. He went on to use the words “under-resourced” and “under-resource” six more times during his daily briefing.

The report comes after a sharp escalation of violence in Afghanistan, where more American troops died in August than in any month since the beginning of the war.

The military announced Monday that two American soldiers died in separate attacks involving homemade bombs, bringing the total killed last month to 51, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The number of such attacks has nearly quadrupled since 2007, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort,” General McChrystal said in a statement after sending his report to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of all Middle East forces.

A military official said General Petraeus immediately endorsed its findings and forwarded it on Monday to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who will review it before sending it to the White House.

The report coincides with an effort by the Obama administration to develop a series of benchmarks, or metrics, to measure progress in Afghanistan, much as was done in Iraq. Congress has insisted on evidence of improvement to justify the additional troops, financial investment and civilian reconstruction teams already committed by Mr. Obama.

Mr. Gates said Monday that despite the “gloom and doom” that has characterized recent discussion, Afghanistan today is a “mixed picture.”

He said he would consider any troop requests in the coming weeks, but told Bloomberg News that he was concerned about “the implications of significant additional forces in terms of the foreign footprint in Afghanistan, whether the Afghans will see this as us becoming more of an occupier or their partner, and how do you differentiate those.”

Shortly after taking office Mr. Obama ordered 17,000 more combat troops and 4,000 more trainers to Afghanistan, and once they all arrive the American force there will number 68,000. As the NATO commander, General McChrystal also has 40,000 additional foreign forces available to him, but some of their home governments have placed restrictions on how they can be used.

General McChrystal wants a large expansion of Afghan security forces and an acceleration of their training, according to American commanders. The Afghan government currently has about 134,000 police officers and 82,000 soldiers, although many of them are poorly equipped and have little logistical support.

Under the strategy described by General McChrystal and other commanders in recent weeks, the overriding goal of American and NATO forces would not be so much to kill Taliban insurgents as to make ordinary Afghans feel secure, and thus isolate the insurgents. That means using force less and focusing on economic development and good governance.

General McChrystal also intends to try to unify the effort of American allies like Britain, Canada, Germany and France, and possibly to ask them to contribute more troops, money and training.

With polls showing falling support for the Afghan war, critics in Congress have grown increasingly vocal in calling for withdrawal.

Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, returned from Afghanistan last week and said that despite the capable Americans now there, he was pessimistic about the chances of success and did not even know how to define it.

“I have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that we’re getting sucked into an endless war here,” he said in an interview.

Some Afghanistan specialists said Mr. Obama might have to swallow his own doubts and defy his base. “I think he’s going to have to tough it out,” said James Dobbins, a former American envoy to Afghanistan. “The downside of a policy of disengagement and what would happen for now would be more severe both for the president and for the country.” Mr. Obama has said that deciding to send the additional troops was the hardest decision he has made during his young presidency. On Sunday, just before ending his vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, he visited briefly at the Cape Cod Air Station with the family of a 21-year-old Marine who was killed in Afghanistan in July.

Mr. Obama had met the Marine, Cpl. Nicholas Xiarhos, who was born in Hyannis, Mass., in February when he visited Camp Lejeune, N.C., to announce his plan to withdraw combat forces from Iraq. He told a story then of two Marines who stood in the path of a suicide bomber’s truck and stopped it from entering a Marine outpost in Ramadi, Iraq, losing their own lives but saving dozens of their colleagues.

One of those saved was Corporal Xiarhos. He later shipped out to Afghanistan, where he was killed in action in July.

5 militants killed; 28 captured in Bara operation

At least five militants including two of their commanders were killed Tuesday in a renewed military operation in Khyber agency, report said. Twenty-eight suspected militants were also detained in the second phase of the operation “Bayadar-e-Ilm” launched early Tuesday in Bara tehsil of Khyber tribal area against the banned Lashkar-e-Islam. Two militant commanders identified as Abdul Rehman and Murad were among those killed in the dawn raids. Twelve militants and three security personnel were also injured in the gunbattles. Seven houses allegedly belong to militants and their supporters were also demolished in the offensive.

Not Peshawar anymore

Dawn.com

WITH the closure of the city’s only cosmopolitan hotel, the Pearl Continental, Peshawar is indeed poorer.The closure comes as a telling sign of the real impact the war against terrorism has had on the Frontier province on the whole, and its fabled, yet not too long ago modernising, capital. A majority of airlines have simply struck Peshawar off their maps.The provincial government’s demand that the war against terrorism and its impact must be counted among the factors that form the basis of an equitable distribution of the federal divisible pool among the provinces is more than legitimate.
The province stands quite high on the overall poverty index as huge swathes of its countryside comprise utterly underdeveloped towns and villages. Even a cursory look around the capital, Peshawar, reveals the extent of the damage the province has endured. The wounds inflicted by terrorism require much more than just a dressing of the emotional renaming of the Frontier as Pakhtunkhwa.
In the past year or so, many of Peshawar’s affluent businessmen have relocated to Islamabad and Lahore along with their families, taking their businesses with them, or keeping just a shadow of what these used to be in Peshawar. The Saddar area has lost its twinkle. The Saddar Bara and the adjacent high street, Arbab Road, with its department and bookstores and many rent-a-car outlets wear a deserted look. The old Dean’s Hotel, another landmark, sprawling property harking back to the pre-independence days, has long gone; in its place now stands a massive shopping mall, but where are the shoppers, you may ask.
The Mall (road) and its adjacent tree-lined boulevards are under security surveillance. Not many dare to venture out for pleasure after dark. The entire area around the chief minister and the governor house is cordoned off to the public. The Peshawar Club, another major venue for the chattering classes, and from where emerged the country’s squash legends, wears a deserted look. The sombre atmosphere at the Abaseen Art Centre and the Peshawar Museum, the repositories of popular culture and national heritage of the Gandhara civilisation, respectively, are matching. The museum houses the most spectacular of Gandhara sculptures (2nd century BC to 5th century AD).
In the city proper, the once bustling Khyber and Qissa Khwani bazaars and their many corollaries have seen a series of bombings in the past months. The Namak Mandi food street of sorts, the nearby carpet sellers’ and buyers’ mecca along Khyber Bazaar, the Afghan Metal Works, a handicraft workshop over the train tracks on Pajjagi Road, find few pilgrims. Gor Khatri, the eerie tomb of a fabled donkey, it seems, is all that remains as a sentinel of the cold winds of change that have been blowing over the vale of Peshawar.Unfortunately, the only places bustling with human activity are the Lady Reading Hospital downtown and its somewhat distant cousins, the Khyber Teaching Hospital (of the Afghan jihad days’ fame) and Hyatabad Medical Complex. For here are brought the victims of terrorism for treatment from far and wide, and the infirm from among the displaced persons. Not too far away, coffins ready to be filled with their cargo and trucked off to distant towns and villages line the main road. They must be selling; that’s why they are there.The Peshawar University, Engineering University and Islamia College campuses reflect the glum mood encompassing their surroundings. Not too long ago, the authorities here emphasised that men and women students and faculty should not walk on the same pavement. The girls got the pavement on the left of the road, the right-wingers obviously got the men on the right side. Some sense of priority. Nearby a number of shops showcasing Afghan wedding gowns draped over mannequins seemed so out of place.In Hyatabad, the city’s upscale suburb, security forces’ pickets and their patrolling vehicles are permanent sights. In Hyatabad itself and further up the road in the famous Barra market near Khyber Agency, the possibility of random shootouts breaking out between security forces and suspected militants looms. Peshawar is just not Peshawar anymore.Under the circumstances, the challenges before the ANP-led provincial government are daunting in their enormity. The province lies in a state of complete socioeconomic disarray. Peshawar as a melting pot of its original Hindko and Pushto-speaking dwellers is now home to hundreds of thousands of Afghans (and Central Asians) of different denominations and backgrounds, as well as the many internally displaced people hoping to eke out a living there. Reconstruction and rehabilitation of the multiple facets of life seems well nigh impossible given the inimical paucity of funds the Frontier faces.The province deserves special attention in terms of its diverse, emergency needs. Keeping the peace even in the capital itself has not been an easy task. The federal government must ensure that Peshawar is given its due share in the funds Pakistan has been begging the world to provide in order for it to cope with the consequences of the war against terrorism. The least Islamabad can do is release the overdue sums in hydropower production royalty to the Frontier government.The National Finance Commission award being considered now hopefully on the basis of multiple factors, and not just the size of a province’s population alone, should offer Peshawar an equitable share of funds in the federal divisible pool. But even that will not be enough and additional money must be made available to deal with the fallout of terrorism.No grievances will be fully addressed unless provinces are given fiscal autonomy over their own resources. This can only be done by drastically cutting down the federal concurrent list, and restoring to the federating units what is rightfully theirs. If a representative government does not do this, no one will.

Pak-Afghan border reopens after two days

QUETTA : Pakistan-Afghanistan border has reopened for traffic after closure of two days. The border was closed due to disagreement between Pakistani and Afghan forces over checking procedure.More than 1,000 Nato-supply vehicles and other commercial vehicles piles up as result of closure. Unknown attackers fired rocket at these vehicles last night and opened fired caused a blaze in Nato-supply trucks. One FC personnel injured in the firing whereas two attackers wounded in retaliatory fire of security forces managed to flee.According to sources, over 25 containers, oil tankers, trailers and the vehicles mounted on trailers were all destroyed in the incident.

BENAZIR BHUTTO was no security risk.

LAHORE: Former premier Benazir Bhutto was no threat to national security, former chief of army staff Mirza Aslam Beg told Daily Times Editor-in-chief Najam Sethi on Dunya TV on Sunday.Beg said that Benazir remained “rock solid” in 1990 amid reports of conspiracy against Pakistan.Attacks: He said when reports surfaced in 1990 that the US, the Israelis and Indians were planning to attack Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, then PM Benazir had asked Pakistan Air Force to be ready to attack India’s nuclear facilities in case Pakistan was attacked.
Money: The former army chief said Saudis had given bags full of money to Mahmood Haroon to woo politicians to join the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), which was constituted to ensure that Benazir did not return to power, and fund IJI’s election campaign.He said Haroon had claimed that the ‘money-bags’ were so heavy that his “shoulders hurt for days”.Rift: Beg also said former army chief Asif Nawaz and former PM Nawaz Sharif had been at odds because of former ambassador to US Abida Husssain.
He said Abida had complained to Nawaz that Asif had met some American leaders during his US visit, but had not included her in those meetings.She had told Nawaz that Asif was conspiring against him with the US leadership.

Japanese Opposition Wins Elections in Landslide

The Democratic Party of Japan won the Lower House election by a landslide Sunday, grabbing more than 300 seats in the 480-seat chamber.

The victory by the main opposition party will end more than half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party. It will also usher in DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama, 62, as the new prime minister by mid-September.

The DPJ-led opposition camp secured 340 seats against just 140 for the LDP-New Komeito ruling bloc. In the opposition camp, the DPJ alone had 308.

Flush with victory, DPJ executives started full-fledged preparations for launching a new administration in the evening, party sources said, adding that talks were also planned with its two allies — the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) — on forming a coalition government.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Taro Aso said he will step down as LDP president to "take responsibility" for his party's defeat. An election to pick his successor as LDP chief will be held soon, he said.

LDP Secretary General Hiroyuki Hosoda also said on NHK the party's top three executives have all told Aso they plan to resign.

"We'd like to straightly face the severe results. We will search our souls and start preparing for the next election," Hosoda said, adding that the LDP will overhaul its policies to gain more support.

The LDP also lost some big names in single-seat races, including former Foreign Ministers Nobutaka Machimura and Taro Nakayama, as well as Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano and former Finance chief Shoichi Nakagawa.
However, Machimura and Yosano regained their seats in proportional representation.

New Komeito suffered even worse, with party chief Akihiro Ota and heavyweights Kazuo Kitagawa and Tetsuzo Fuyushiba all defeated in their single-seat districts. They didn't "insure" themselves by putting their names on the party's list of proportional-representation candidates.

DPJ deputy chief Ichiro Ozawa declined comment before the poll results were complete but said "there is nothing (for voters) to worry" about concerning an impending change in government.

"We'd like to steadily implement what we have promised to the nation," Ozawa told NHK.

Pre-election media polls showed the DPJ leading the LDP thanks to strong populist tail winds propelled in part by frustration with years of stagnation and mismanagement under the LDP.

As many as 1,374 candidates, including a record 229 women, competed for seats in the 480-member chamber — 300 in single-seat districts and 180 in the 11 proportional representation blocks nationwide.

Due to strong voter interest, voter turnout was estimated to have reached 69.29 percent, exceeding the 67.51 percent in the previous general election in 2005.

A record 13.98 million people, or 13.4 percent of all eligible voters, cast early ballots.

Most of the nearly 51,000 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 8 p.m.

The DPJ, which had just 115 seats before the election, secured 308.

The LDP, in contrast, captured as few as 119, a shocking decline from its 300 seats before the race. New Komeito won 21 seats, far short of the 31 seats it had before the election.

The LDP's fall from power was only its second since it was founded in 1955. It was out of power for about 11 months between 1993 and 1994.

After campaigning officially began Aug. 18, Aso made clear his priority was to stimulate the economy, saying the economy is only halfway through its recovery.

He argued against giving a popular mandate to the DPJ on the grounds that the opposition party tends to waver on national security matters, and that his LDP is the only party responsible enough to govern.

The DPJ's Hatoyama promised to up support to households, saying a DPJ-led government will "cut waste created in bureaucrat-reliant politics and reorganize the budget in such a way as to spend money on what's really important."

The change in the Lower House will clear the legislative deadlock in the Diet, which has plagued the LDP-New Komeito ruling bloc for the past two years, when the less-powerful Upper House came under control of the opposition.

Campaigning effectively began July 21, when Aso, 68, dissolved the Lower House. Since then, parties had pitched their policies to voters based on their campaign platforms.

In its platform, the DPJ pledges to cut wasteful spending, offer cash to households and keep the 5 percent consumption tax intact for the next four years, the duration of the term for new Lower House lawmakers.

But its big-budget policies, like the monthly child allowance to families, have been criticized as lacking specifics about sources of funding.

Aso was widely expected to call the poll soon after taking office last September after two of his immediate predecessors quit after about a year in office each. But as the recession deepened, he vowed to focus on reviving the economy and delayed dissolving the lower chamber.

In the general election of September 2005, the LDP captured a whopping 296 seats as then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi painted the race as a contest between those for his postal system privatization initiative and those against it.

Pakistan illegally modified US-made missiles: White House

WASHINGTON: The US government has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying US-made anti-ship missiles to make them capable of striking land targets and thus creating a new threat for India, The New York Times reported late on Saturday.

Citing unnamed senior administration and congressional officials, the newspaper said the accusation was made in an unpublicized diplomatic protest delivered in late June to Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

At the center of the row were Harpoon anti-ship missiles that were sold to Pakistan by the administration of former US president Ronald Reagan as a defensive weapon during the Cold War in the 1980s, the report said.

US military and intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistan has modified the missiles in a manner that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act, the paper said.

Pakistan has denied the charge, saying it developed the missile itself. But according to the report, US intelligence agencies detected on April 23 a suspicious missile test that appeared to indicate that Pakistan had a new offensive weapon.

The missile would be a significant new entry into Pakistan's arsenal against India, The Times said. It would enable Pakistan's navy to strike targets on land, complementing the sizable land-based missile arsenal that Pakistan has developed.

That, in turn, would be likely to spur another round of an arms race between the nuclear-armed rivals that the United States has been trying to halt, the paper noted.

‘The potential for proliferation and end-use violations are things we watch very closely,’ The Times quotes an administration official as saying.

‘When we have concerns, we act aggressively.’

The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying US-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions, another violation of US law that the administration of President Barack Obama has protested, the report said.

Suicide attack in Mingora kills 12

MINGORA: A militant blew himself at a police station in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley on Sunday killing 12 cadets in the second such attack in the area in recent weeks, a senior government official said.

The military went on the offensive in the region northwest of the capital in late April and has killed or driven out many Taliban militants in what has been widely seen as a successful operation, but the attacks show the militants can hit back.

‘Training was going on when a suicide bomber disguised as a recruit walked into the building and blew himself up,’ Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of the North West Frontier Province where Swat is located, told Reuters.

‘We have reports that 12 were killed’ in the attack in the main town of Mingora, he said.

Pakistan's military push had allayed fears among its allies, in particular the United States and other countries with troops in neighbouring Afghanistan that the nuclear-armed country was failing to get to grips with spreading militant violence.

A suicide bomber killed 22 Pakistani border guards on Thursday in an attack at the main crossing point into Afghanistan at the west end of the Khyber Pass.

It was the first big attack in Pakistan since Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US missile strike on August 5 and raised fears that the militants, who officials say have been in disarray, were hitting back.

Five soldiers were killed in a suicide attack at a security checkpoint in the Swat valley on August 15.

British PM pays surprise visit to Afghanistan

(CNN) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Saturday, thanking his nation's fighting forces for a job "well done."

"This has been the most difficult summer in Afghanistan because the Taliban have tried to prevent the elections taking place and I think our forces who I've been meeting today have shown extraordinary courage during this period," Brown said in a televised interview, taped in Afghanistan and aired in Britain.

Brown dropped by Camp Bastion in Helmand province, where the country's service members are based in Afghanistan. Brown was returning to Britain on Saturday.

The troops have been fighting Taliban insurgents in volatile Helmand province. Like their American counterparts, they have suffered many deaths this summer.

In one 10-day stretch in July, 15 British troops were killed, and the casualties have sparked an intense debate in Britain about the country's military role in the war-ravaged country.

The British military last month said an operation it led to clear the Taliban from parts of Afghanistan has succeeded. It was called Operation Panther's Claw and it was designed to flush the Taliban from parts of southern Helmand Province before Afghan elections, which were held last week.

"They know that the reason why we're here and the reason why we're continuing to be here is that our security at home depends on a stable Afghanistan and no return of the Taliban, and no role for al Qaeda in the running of Afghanistan," Brown said in the interview.

In the interview, Brown was optimistic about training about 50,000 Afghan soldiers over the next year.

"Stepping that up means that the Afghans take more responsibility for [their] own affairs," Brown said. "They're backed up by partnering and mentoring done by the British forces and you can see behind you the new equipment we're bringing into the field to back this up."

Brown will not be attending the funeral of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy as had been anticipated. Brown's office said the prime minister wanted to attend the funeral but couldn't "because of government business. He has sent his apologies and condolences to the family."

Kennedy Laid to Rest After Day of Honor

Thousands of mourners both great and ordinary bade farewell to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on Saturday, remembering him as the beloved youngest child of a dynasty who grew to be its patriarch, a man who left his mark on millions of Americans through the laws he shepherded over more than four decades, during which he became one of the most powerful political figures in the country. Mr. Kennedy’s 77-year journey through history concluded with a funeral Mass in Boston, a brief ceremony at the Capitol in Washington and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday evening.A military guard carried his coffin to the grave site as rose-colored sky grew dim, just before 8 p.m. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, presided over the traditional Catholic burial as Mr. Kennedy’s family and a select group of close friends — including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator John Kerry — looked on, enduring the last in a day-long series of ceremonies.
“They called him the lion of the Senate and indeed that was what he was,” Cardinal McCarrick said. “His roar and his zeal for what he believed made a difference in this nation’s life.”The cleric also revealed some of the content of a letter Mr. Kennedy wrote to Pope Benedict XVI, hand-delivered by President Obama during a recent trip to the Vatican.“I’m writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my health declines,” Cardinal McCarrick read from Mr. Kennedy’s letter. “I’m 77 years old and preparing for the next passage of life.”Mr. Kennedy wrote that his Roman Catholic faith “has sustained and nurtured and provided solace to me in the darkest hours,” and though “I have been an imperfect human being,” he wrote, his faith helped “right my path.”The pope responded with an assurance of “his concern and of his spiritual closeness,” Cardinal McCarrick said. Friends, family and colleagues braved relentless rain to attend the funeral in Boston, where Mr. Obama gave the eulogy in a hushed church before 1,400 mourners.“Today we say goodbye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy,” Mr. Obama said. “The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy, a champion for those who had none, the soul of the Democratic Party, and the lion of the United States Senate — a man whose name graces nearly 1,000 laws, and who penned more than 300 laws himself. Mr. Obama owes Mr. Kennedy an inestimable debt for his endorsement in last year’s primary campaign battle for the Democratic presidential nomination against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Obama repaid it in part with eloquent words of praise, saying Mr. Kennedy had suffered more pain and loss than most people will ever know, yet he never succumbed to self-pity or abandoned his dreams and principles.“The greatest expectations were placed upon Ted Kennedy’s shoulders because of who he was, but he surpassed them all because of who he became,” the president said. “We do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office. We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy — not for the sake of ambition or vanity, not for wealth or power, but only for the people and the country that he loved.”The funeral was at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the Roxbury section of Boston, a 130-year-old Romanesque church known as a place of healing. Mr. Kennedy prayed there every day when his daughter Kara was being treated for lung cancer several years ago at a nearby hospital.Mourners began gathering at 7 a.m. for the 10 a.m. service as a steady rain fell. Many storefronts and taverns in the neighborhood, known as Mission Hill, displayed blue and white signs reading, “Kennedy, Thanks.” Mourners arriving at the church also saw a billboard on Tremont Street with a large picture of Mr. Kennedy and the words, “The dream lives on.”President Obama arrived in Boston on Friday night from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. Shortly before 7:30 a.m. he walked from his hotel across the street to the Fairmont Copley Plaza, where he had a private 10-minute meeting with Mrs. Kennedy.As the church filled Saturday morning, Mrs. Kennedy greeted dozens of members of Congress and other dignitaries at the John F. Kennedy Library, where Mr. Kennedy’s body lay in repose. Mrs. Kennedy and family members accompanied the flag-draped coffin in somber procession to the church, arriving at 10:45 a.m. in a bobbing sea of black umbrellas as the church bell tolled. The flag was removed and folded, replaced by a white shroud.Former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter attended the service. The other living former president, George Bush, did not attend for health reasons, an aide said. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former Vice Presidents Al Gore, Dan Quayle and Walter F. Mondale also attended.Fifty-eight senators, 21 former senators and dozens of members of Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended. Also present were Sarah Brown, the wife of Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain; Shaun Woodward, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland; and Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister for the Northern Ireland Assembly.The neighborhoods around Mission Hill became a kaleidoscope of American flags, Kennedy-themed signs and the umbrellas held by the thousands who lined the streets.They testified to both Mr. Kennedy’s common appeal and his lineage. One man, David Higgins, was an Irish immigrant who credited Mr. Kennedy with helping him get a visa. Another, Maureen McQuillen, volunteered as a greeter at Mr. Kennedy’s wake on Thursday. Members of a health-care union stood in purple jackets and said Mr. Kennedy had helped labor in “innumerable ways.”

Supply for Nato stops after row with Afghans

QUETTA: Fuel and other supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan were stopped as traffic on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border remained suspended on Saturday because of a row over search of goods trucks coming from Afghanistan.

Hundreds of trailers carrying fuel and other supplies, including food, military equipment and vehicles, were stuck up in the border town of Chaman.

According to sources, about 300 vehicles are stuck in the Pakistani border area. A large number of vehicles loaded with fruit and other goods are also stuck on the Afghan side of the border.

The sources said that the row broke out on Friday after Pakistani border officials asked Afghan drivers of trucks carrying grapes and other fruit to unload their goods for search.

The drivers refused to do so, saying the unloading would spoil the fruit.

The officials said they would not allow entry of trucks without checking. ‘We cannot change our method of checking,’ a senior border security official said.

The Afghan drivers alleged that the border officials demanded money for clearing the trucks. Pakistani officials denied the allegations.

Meanwhile, Afghan traders stopped entry of trucks and other vehicles carrying Nato supplies into Afghanistan in protest against the Pakistan government’s decision.

The Chaman Chamber of Commerce of Industry expressed concern over the issue and said that traders would suffer huge losses if the dispute remained unresolved.

Suicide Bomber Training Camp Destroyed

Pakistan's military says it has destroyed a training camp for suicide bombers in the Swat Valley.The army said in a statement that reports from intelligence sources and local residents led them to the location in northwest Pakistan.They said six militants were killed in the operation and several others were wounded.Pakistan's government has been fighting a Taliban insurgency in the northwest.Friday Britain pledged $1 billion in aid to help stabilize Pakistan's violent border regions and to address the underlying causes of extremism.British Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed the pledge during a meeting in London with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.A spokesman for Mr. Zardari, Farhatullah Babar, also called for better access to European Union markets to help boost Pakistan's economy.

Unemployment, poverty main causes of terrorism: Bilour

PESHAWAR: The NWFP Senior Minister and Parliamentary Leader of ANP, Bashir Ahmad Bilour has said Pukhtoons are hospitable and human friendly that fully supported and work side by side with the international community for the cause of human welfare. However, he regretted that we once again being left alone today like that in the past and despite rendering numerous sacrifices of lives and properties in war against terror, we are faced with uncertainty at our own soil. Main cause of the terrorism, law and order and crimes in this region is the ever-increasing poverty and unemployment while we made clear to our central government and world community to focus on these issues to ensure peace and stability in the region as well as on the entire globe", he added. He was talking to Ms. Candas Patnum, the newly appointed Principal Officer of US consulate, who called on him at his residence here on Friday and discussed matters of mutual interest including the regional development and solidarity. Bashir Bilour said a sense of deprivation was emanating among the people here due to immense level of poverty, backwardness and unemployment in the otherwise rich of resources province. On the other side he said, Pukhtoons were being trapped by terrorist and anti social elements besides indulging in the religious, sectarian and linguistic differences. He lamented that most of poor families due to lack of educational and health facilities sent their wards to religious seminaries where children were given free education, dress and food. Similarly, he said plight of water supply, food, other basic facilities and even infrastructure was also unsatisfactory while the provincial government had very meager resources for improving it. The Senior Minister said the people of this region offered matchless sacrifices right from cold and Afghan war to present war on terror, so much so that millions of the IDPs from various districts of Malakand had to migrate and face immense difficulties of weather and society. He said we were able to win war on terror due to these sacrifices but the people here did not get its fruit and instead faced numerous social and economic hardships. He said our industries were closed increasing the joblessness ratio while our trade routes from Afghanistan to central Asia provide us sufficient resources to ensure peace, stability and prosperity as well as promote goodwill on national and international level. The US Diplomat agree with the Senior Minister and assured all out assistance of her country by appreciating steps of provincial government on war on terror and welfare of the masses.

US wants 20,000 more troops to fight Taliban

www.independent.co.uk
The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan will ask for 20,000 more international troops as part of his new strategic plan for the alliance's war against a resurgent Taliban, The Independent has learned.The demand from General Stanley McChrystal will almost certainly lead to more British soldiers being sent to the increasingly treacherous battlegrounds of Helmand, the Taliban heartland, despite growing opposition to the war.General McChrystal, tasked with turning the tide in the battle against the insurgency on the ground, has given a presentation of his draft report to senior Afghan government figures in which he also proposes raising the size of the Afghan army and police force.
But the request for troop reinforcements will come at a time of intensifying public debate about the role of the Nato mission. Last month saw a record number of troop deaths and injuries in a conflict that has claimed more than 200 British soldiers since the start of the US-led invasion in 2001. British losses rose sharply last month with 22 deaths, making it the bloodiest month for UK forces since the Falklands war. August has been the deadliest month for American troops in the eight-year war. Most of the deaths have come from lethal roadside bombs that Western troops appear unable to combat effectively. For the first time, the American public now views the fight against the Taliban as unwinnable, according to the most recent opinion polls.

The conduct of the Afghan government has not helped the mood on either side of the Atlantic. While US, British and other foreign troops are dying in what is supposedly a mission to rid Afghanistan of al-Qa'ida militants and make the country safe for democracy, the incumbent President stands accused of forging alliances with brutal warlords and overseeing outright fraud in an attempt to "steal" the national elections, the results of which are still being counted.
Last week, General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, intervened against a backdrop of heightened debate about the UK's military role. He stressed that the objective of the war was "to ensure that Afghanistan does not again become a sanctuary for al-Qa'ida and other extremists".
According to General McChrystal's draft plan, the number of Afghan troops would rise from 88,000 to 250,000, and the police force from 82,000 to 160,000 by 2012. These increases are higher than expected, with previous suggestions that the totals would be raised to 134,000 and 120,000 for the army and police respectively.
The US commander will, however, ask other Nato countries to send further reinforcements and will travel shortly to European capitals to discuss the issue. It is widely expected that the UK will send up to 1,500 more troops. At the same time, a force of 700 sent to help provide security for the Afghan elections last week on a temporary basis will become a permanent presence.
Following the withdrawal from Iraq, British military commanders, backed by the then Defence Secretary, John Hutton, had recommended in the spring that up to 2,500 extra troops could be sent to Afghanistan. However, following lobbying from the Treasury, Gordon Brown agreed to only the temporary deployment of 700. Criticism of the decision by senior officers has led, it is claimed, to Downing Street changing its stance.
General McChrystal, who replaced Gen David McKiernan as Nato chief in Afghanistan earlier this year, was originally due to produce his strategic report this month, but decided to wait until after the Afghan presidential election. According to Western and Afghan sources he is continuing to take soundings from various quarters and the finalised document is due out after it becomes clear whether or not a second round of voting is needed to decide the outcome of the poll.
As part of an initial troop surge overseen by General McChrystal, the US has already committed to boosting its forces from 31,000 to 68,000 this year. However Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan was told by commanders in Afghanistan last week that those numbers would not be enough for what is being viewed as defining months of fighting to come.
In his meeting with Afghan officials, General McChrystal is reported to have stated that the extra troops would be needed to enforce a new policy of maintaining a presence in the areas captured from insurgents. This will provide security for residents and allow reconstruction and development.
Other Nato nations have the option of focusing on the training of Afghan security forces. However, say American officials, failure by Nato countries to "step up to the plate" would mean the shortfall would be covered by the US.
Diplomatic sources have also revealed that plans are being drawn up to sign a "compact" between Afghanistan and the US which will reiterate Washington's commitment to the security of Afghanistan while the Afghan government pledges to combat corruption and reinforce governance. Unlike previous international agreements over Afghanistan, the compact will be bilateral, without any other governments being involved. The timing of the agreement is due to coincide with a visit by Mr Karzai to New York, if, as expected, he emerges the election winner.

'Furious' Karzai and Holbrooke row over election fraud fears

Hamid Karzai flew into a rage when the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan raised concerns over alleged election fraud at a meeting in Kabul.

Details have emerged of an angry exchange between the country's president and Richard Holbrooke when they met the day after last week’s election. Mr Holbrooke had lunch with Mr Karzai at the presidential palace, and also met with his main rival, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, at the US embassy on August 21, according to diplomatic sources.

The three-hour meeting with Dr Abdullah went smoothly, the sources said, but Mr Karzai became angry when the US envoy - dubbed the “Bulldozer” for his negotiating style in the Balkans - raised concerns about alleged fraud and urged him to accept the results even if he did not win in the first round.

“Karzai accused the Americans of trying to push the election into a second round,” said one of the diplomatic sources. “He was furious.” The two men are said to have promptly finished their desserts, and shaken hands, before parting company.

A US embassy spokeswoman denied reports that there had been a shouting match, and that Mr Holbrooke had stormed out.

But the exchange illustrates the growing tension between the United States and Mr Karzai, who swept to power with American support after a US-led invasion toppled the Taleban government in late 2001.

Since the last presidential election in 2004, US officials have grown increasingly frustrated with corruption in Mr Karzai’s government, and with persistent allegations that some of his key allies, inclduing his half-brother, are involved in the drugs trade. They were also angered in the run-up to last week’s poll by Mr Karzai’s surprise approval of a law that critics say condones marital rape, and his alliances with several notorious warlords, who are also suspected war criminals.

They now fear that his allies may have tried to rig last week’s election, undermining the credibility of international efforts to defeat the Taleban and build democracy in Afghanistan.

With just over 17 per cent of the results released, Mr Karzai leads Mr Abdullah by 42.3 percent to 33.1 percent, but is still short of the outright majority needed to avoid a run-off after results are finalised next month.

Dr Abdullah and other opposition candidates have accused Mr Karzai and his allies of rigging the vote in the south - his main support base - where turnout was severely depleted by Taleban threats and attacks.

Mr Karzai’s supporters have already claimed that he won more than 68 per cent of the national vote - even though he won just 55.4 percent in 2004, and the last opinion polls before last week’s election put him on less than 50 per cent.

Michael Semple, a former EU official in Afghanistan who was accused of spying and expelled in 2007, said that the disagreement appeared to have been over Mr Holbrooke’s suggestion that it was in Afghanistan’s interests to have a second round run-off.

“That’s the point that we understand that Ambassador Holbrooke made; however we also understand that President Karzai disagreed with that fervently,” he said.

“And some of his supporters have been deliberately leaking the information about the 68% or 72%, which is why there probably was a battle royale in the presidential palace on the 21st.

US warns Karzai on fraud, corruption, militia ties

WASHINGTON: US envoys and lawmakers have bluntly warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai that American patience is running out, citing concerns about allegations of fraud and corruption and attempts to prejudge the outcome of last week's election, participants said on Thursday.

Karzai met twice with US President Barack Obama's envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, after the Aug. 20 presidential election, including a private lunch in Kabul that turned "tense" when the US envoy raised the possibility of a run-off.

After that confrontation, the two finished dessert and shook hands, officials said.

US tensions with Karzai, in meetings with Holbrooke and a visiting delegation of US senators, reflected both election-time stress and growing discord in American relations with the man who has been leading Afghanistan since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001.

Endemic government corruption and his close ties with former militia leaders have eroded Karzai's support, both with the Afghan people and with Washington policymakers.

The Obama administration was particularly disturbed by Karzai's last-minute alliance with Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, officials said.
"He (Karzai) has hurt himself in the eyes of a lot of people," a Western observer close to US deliberations explained of Dostum's role in Karzai's campaign.

US officials say Dostom, who fought for Afghanistan's Soviet-backed Communist government and later switched sides repeatedly during years of factional civil war, may be responsible for war crimes.

Karzai justified the move to Washington, telling officials he believed Dostum, who enjoys the overwhelming backing of ethnic Uzbeks in the north of Afghanistan, delivered key votes that could put him over the top.

CLOSE RACE

Karzai would need more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off, but partial tallies so far show a close race with his leading challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Tensions flared the day after the election, when Karzai's campaign drew Washington's ire by declaring victory even though none of the results had been released by the independent election commission.

Washington fears such declarations undercut the commission and cast doubt on the election's legitimacy.

At their lunch meeting, Holbrooke urged Karzai to respect the election process, particularly given the possibility of a run-off. Karzai, who has told Washington that a run-off risks igniting ethnic violence, became angry, officials said.

Holbrooke has said Washington would make the fight against corruption a central focus after the election, a move that could further stoke tensions with a Karzai administration.

US officials fear allegations of fraud will undermine Afghan public support for whatever government emerges after the election.

"There's been wholesale fraud to the benefit of Karzai in the past but there is no evidence that he was personally involved in fraud," a US State Department official said after the vote.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll showed most Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting and only a quarter say more troops should be sent there.

"It's the last chance," Senator Sherrod Brown said, describing the message his congressional delegation delivered to Karzai last week during a post-election visit to Kabul.

Loss of 4 relatives traumatises Swati student

PESHAWAR: A young MBA student traumatised by the death of four members of her family due to the violence in Swat is finding it difficult to continue her education.Razia, a student of Qurtuba University Peshawar, living in a private hostel, said she was unable to concentrate on her studies due to unbearable loss. “After enduring all those sufferings, it isn’t easy to focus on my studies,” she told ‘The News’.
Hailing from Matta tehsil, Razia lost her 13-year-old brother Mehran Khan, her uncle Muhammad Nisar, and cousins Kashif and Arif Khan. Her father, Yousaf Khan, a trader, was seriously injured, while the rest of her family moved to her grandfather’s home at Sumbat Cham, Matta, and later to Peshawar.Razia is the eldest daughter of Yousaf Khan. She has four sisters and three brothers enrolled at various educational institutes in Swat. She said their schools had been destroyed as a result of militancy and military operation.“My younger brother, Imran, developed a psychological disorder while my father is still hospitalised,” she added. Razia shared her tale with ‘The News’ how her family suffered and her life turned tragic. She said: “Following the launch of the military operation in Swat in the first week of May 2009, the Taliban occupied our mosque named Masjid Sidiqqia. On May 7, the security forces started pounding our area with mortar guns. Four of our family members died in the shelling and our market, dealing in cement, bricks and iron bars, was also destroyed.Our two trucks and two cars parked there were buried under the falling debris of the buildings due to the shelling.” Razia has fond memories of her hometown, Matta. “It was a beautiful town and in summer tourists would come to enjoy the scenery and pleasant weather. Now the infrastructure has been destroyed due to Taliban attacks and the subsequent military action. People live in fear and there is uncertainty and hopelessness,” she opined. She pointed out that most of the government-run educational institutions for females were already closed due to fear of militants’ attacks. She said that many parents were convinced that it would be unsafe to send their daughters to schools. She said female teachers too are worried while performing their duties at the schools. “I think people of Swat have been pushed back by 20 years due to the militancy and military operation. The economy has been damaged, tourism is finished and educational institutions, markets, hotels, banks, etc have suffered irreparable damage,” she added.

Struggling to earn a crust in Swat

www.irinnews.org
MINGORA- People living in and around Swat Valley's principal city of Mingora are facing tough economic choices as a direct result of the recent clashes between government forces and militants in northwestern Pakistan. "There is a curfew in many places outside Mingora. People cannot work or move freely, and this means they cannot earn," said Shaukat Salim, a Mingora-based lawyer and human rights activist. Many people were being forced to sell household goods, jewelry or any other belongings to survive. "Soon they will have nothing left to sell," he said. Others say they have lost their livelihoods because of the damage caused to infrastructure by over two months of fierce fighting.
"I used to earn around Rs 200 [US$2.40] per trip by transporting goods to the market for farmers or those who manufactured small items of various kinds. But now the roads are so badly damaged only donkeys or other animals can move along them, and my van is useless," said local trader Daud Ali. "I was terrified my vehicle would be destroyed during the fighting. Now I wish that that had happened. It serves no purpose for me," he said, adding that checkpoints were also restricting movement. The destruction of shops, schools and offices has led to income loss for many others. "My husband was a cleaner at a local clinic. But it has been closed as the building was damaged and the owner has gone to Peshawar for good. Now we beg from our neighbours," Azra Bibi, a local resident, told IRIN. She said local shops had stopped giving her and others credit for fear they would not be able to pay it back.
Restoring livelihoods
Sebastien Brack of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has been active in conflict-hit areas for many weeks, said: "Livelihood is a key concern, as many people used up their savings during the time of displacement and had to borrow large sums." Food packages were being distributed so that "people don't have to spend more and build up more debt," Brack said. Despite such efforts, people who have returned to Mingora and other conflict-hit zones after weeks of displacement are struggling to manage. "Our land has been destroyed; we have no stocks of food and it will take a year before we can grow vegetables to sell," said Karimullah Khan, a farmer from a village on the outskirts of Mingora. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, minister of information in the North West Frontier Province government, said: "We are aware of the problems people face in Swat and are doing everything we can." Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani earlier this month announced a development plan for Swat which included programmes to increase access to livelihoods.
High cost of food
Meanwhile, food prices remain higher in Mingora than in places outside the conflict zone and supplies are erratic. A 20kg sack of wheat flour costs US$10-20 in Mingora, but under $7.40 outside the conflict zone. "There is a need for food assistance in Swat, especially for people who remained stuck there through the weeks of conflict and received no help at all," Amjad Jamal, a spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Pakistan, told IRIN, adding that WFP would be carrying out an assessment to ascertain exactly what help was needed.

Fraud claims cloud growing Karzai lead

www.independent.co.uk
The head of Barack Obama's team monitoring Afghanistan's election said yesterday that he was "extremely concerned" about persistent reports of fraud and that he would press for the claims to be fully investigated.

Timothy Carney made the comments during a meeting with Pashtun tribal chiefs and and the presidential candidate they had supported, Sarwar Ahmedzai, after the chiefs threatened to stage a protest against alleged attempts by President Hamid Karzai to steal the election.
Meanwhile, a second partial release of election results showed Mr Karzai widening his lead over his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

The latest count showed that the incumbent president had boosted his lead over his former foreign minister from just over 10,000 to 91,000. The latest returns lift Mr Karzai's share of the vote to 44.8 per cent, with Mr Abdullah now at 35.1 per cent. The count is based on returns from 17 per cent of polling stations nationwide.

The announcement of the latest count was interrupted by another candidate, Ramzan Bashardost, who claimed that the public tallying of the votes before more than a thousand complaints of electoral malpractice had been investigated was unconstitutional. Mr Bashardost had run a poorly funded but suprisingly well-supported campaign on an anti-corruption ticket.

The tribal leaders from Paktiya in the southern Pashtun belt descended on the capital, Kabul, to hold a protest rally against what they claimed was the theft of their votes by representatives of Mr Karzai. The protest, organised by the candidate from their area, Mr Ahmedzai, was called off after an appeal by Western officials who thought it might spark violence in the current atmosphere of public anger and disillusionment over the elections.

One Pashtun elder, Mir Ali, said to Mr Carney: "We will take to the mountains and fight as we have done in the past if this election is decided by fraud. Karzai may call himself a Pashtun but he has sold himself to the warlords."

Mr Carney said: "Our view is that all evidence of fraud should be given to the investigators and thoroughly examined in deciding the result [of the election]. The US and the international community are very concerned that this takes place."

Mr Ahmedzai said: "Karzai has surrounded himself with corrupt people and his brothers are corrupt. We reserve the right to take any action necessary if the fraud is not dealt with. More of our people are coming to Kabul and they are not going to tolerate the election being stolen."

Five presidents to mourn at funeral for Edward Kennedy

Five American presidents are due to attend the funeral mass as Senator Edward Kennedy is laid to rest on Saturday.President Obama will read the eulogy, breaking off his holiday on Martha's Vineyard once more to pay his respects to his "dear friend", and former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. Bush and Jimmy Carter are expected to be among the mourners.The private Catholic mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Hope in Kennedy's home town of Boston will be the climax of three days of mourning for the head of the Kennedy clan and patriarch of the Democratic Party, who died of brain cancer on Tuesday night at the age of 77.The solemnities begin at noon today (1600 GMT), with a private Mass for family members at Kennedy's sprawling home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.An hour later a motorcade will leave the compound for a slow journey to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, where the Senator's body will lie in state until late Friday.On the journey the hearse will pass milestones in Kennedy's life — St Stephen's Church, where his mother Rose was baptised and buried; the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenaway Park in Boston, which Kennedy helped to create; and the site of Kennedy's office in his first job as an assistant district attorney for Massachusetts from 1960-62.As the motorcade drives past historic Faneuil Hall, the Mayor of Boston will ring a mourning bell — one of innumerable tributes to the departed politician.All government buildings across the country have lowered the Stars and Stripes to half mast, and last night the Lightship Nantucket, which has marked the dangerous shoals off the Massachusetts coast for 150 years, steamed in alongside Kennedy's house and illuminated his schooner.The Senator's body will lie in a closed casket at the library, while a military honour guard and members of his family, friends and staff stand vigil.Thousands of members of the public are expected to file through to pay their last respects, past enlarged photographs of Kennedy at different stages of his life.On Friday night, an invitation-only memorial service will be held at the library during which Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, and Senator John McCain, last year's defeated Republican presidential candidate, are both expected to speak.The family chose Our Lady of Perpetual Hope a cavernous 19th-century building that seats 1,300, for Saturday's funeral Mass because it was the church where Kennedy went every day to pray while his daughter, Kara, was being successfully treated for lung cancer in a nearby Boston hospital."Over time, the Basilica took on a special meaning for him as a place of hope and optimism," said a statement released by the Senator's office.
After the service Kennedy's body will be transported to Virginia, where at 5.30pm (2130 GMT) it will be laid to rest alongside the graves of his brothers, John and Robert at Arlington National Cemetery, on a hillside overlooking Washington.John F. Kennedy's wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and baby son Patrick, who died aged just two days, are also buried nearby.Kennedy is eligible to be buried at Arlington because of service in Congress and his two years in the Army from 1951-53, as a military policeman stationed in Paris.As the arrangements are made for Kennedy's obsequies, other moves are being made to adapt to the void he has left in American political life.Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts, has thrown his support behind a proposal to change state law to allow the Governor to nominate an interim senator until a fresh election can be held.Kennedy himself made the request in a letter to Governor Patrick last week, writing that it was wrong for Massachusetts to go without a senator "at such a critical time" — a reference to the epic congressional battle over Mr Obama's healthcare reforms. Since his death, the state only has John Kerry in the Senate."I'd like the legislature to take up the Bill quickly and get it to my desk and I will sign it," said Governor Patrick.Meanwhile Democrats in Congress appear to be using the death of Kennedy, known as a liberal lion who championed social reform, as an extra weapon in their battle to get Mr Obama's legislation through.Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has argued that the healthcare reforms should be passed in Kennedy's name and spirit.Republican Rush Limbaugh has said that any such sentiments would make him "vomit".But the tactic has been used successfully before. Two years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson invoked the Kennedy name to pass the Civil Rights legislation, as well as the welfare state laws Medicare and Medicaid.

About 90% IDPs in Pakistan's Swat return home

Xinhua.com
Around 90 percent of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to the military operations in northwestern Pakistan's Swat have so far returned to their homes, a UN humanitarian official said here Thursday.

"Around 90 percent Swat displaced have returned back to their homes. The figure so far stand at 1.6 million out of total 2.3 million IDPs from different areas," said Martin Mogwanja, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan.

"During past week, average 500 families returned to their homes daily. Earlier, the return rate was faster as 1,400 families use to return their homes every day," Mogwanja said at a news conference.

He said as large number of IDPs have returned to their homes, now only 454 school buildings are under their use out of total 4,700 school buildings.

"All the rest buildings have been vacated by the IDPs and hopefully will be used for educational purposes with the start of the educational session," he said.

Revealing the findings of the recent mission to Swat area, Mogwanja said, due to scattered attacks by independent groups, still there are some security concerns. Secondly, he said, check points and barricades are causing significant delay in movement of IDPs and relief goods. Thirdly, he said, early recovery activity for provision of basic facilities was urgently required as 600,000 IDPs were on their way back home.

"They will also be needing basic facilities, infrastructure and livelihood. Four distribution hubs have been set up for providing them food and non-food items," he said.

Adding to Mogwanja, the WHO Country Representative Khalif Bille Mohamud said, 25 health facilities were partially and five were totally damaged during the operation.

Mohamud said after recovery five facilities out of these 25, have started functioning and he mentioned the shortage of human resource, especially lady medical workers.

Girls victimized by Taliban find safe haven to learn

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- In Pakistan's combustible Swat Valley, some girls refuse to wear uniforms so they can make it to school without being harmed.Other girls hide textbooks in their shawls to escape harassment.School-age girls are among the victims in the fierce fighting between government soldiers and Taliban militants in the Swat Valley. The Pakistani government said it has flushed much of the Taliban out of the area, but some fighting persists.Many girls remain banned from schools. Dozens of their schools have been bombed, and militants have burned books.A new program has taken 26 girls out of the battle-scarred region to Islamabad for a 10-day retreat, where they can learn in safer surroundings.A group of college students of Pakistani background is helping the girls. Among them are Shiza Shahid, 20, from California's Stanford University, who organized the program called Shajar-e-llm, or Tree of Knowledge.Shahid said she was moved to help after hearing about how the girls struggled to get an education."I think we were so angry, upset and emotional that we decided we have to do something," she said.Though well-intentioned, the program sometimes seems disorganized."We need support. We need unfortunately more organization, more of the bureaucratic nitty-gritty that you don't want to do, but you have to," Shahid said. "We are young, and that does come with the burden as not being equally trusted or seen as capable."Nonetheless, the group has ambitions for a boys' learning retreat as well.The lessons are simple enough -- confidence-building exercises, critical-thinking lessons -- all framed in the context of Islamic values.
The girls -- ages 11 to 14 -- spoke about their dreams. One wants to meet a poet; another wants to learn calligraphy. Another wants to grow up to lead Pakistan.
"I want to become president and rule this country in a good way," said 12-year-old Malila.One day during the retreat, the girls were taught a song about freedom of speech. As a guitarist strummed, the girls sang that God gives everyone the right to free speech and no one can take it away.Free speech seemed to end with the song, however. The girls could not risk talking about Taliban harassment, because the militants' version of Islamic law lingers. Such Islamic law, or shariah, also keeps females from going to school or going outside without their husbands.The United Nations estimates that 375,000 Swat Valley residents fled their homes during fighting that started in April. In all, 2.5 million Pakistanis were displaced in what was said to be one of the largest human migrations in recent history.Many residents have returned to their homes, but peace has not been completely restored to the region.
And soon, the girls at the learning retreat will return home to the Swat Valley as well.Organizers said they hope the girls will carry a new love for education.
"There were tears and there were tough moments," said Madihah Akhter, a volunteer with the program. "But the girls surprised me. They were really resilient. They were beyond their years."

Afghanistan Election Results On Hold for at Least Two Days

Afghanistan's voters are going to have to wait a bit longer to receive further results of ballot counting from last week's presidential election.

Results from Afghanistan's disputed presidential election are in a further state of limbo. The organization tabulating the votes says no further returns will be made public until Saturday, at the earliest.

The Independent Election Commission has announced no reason for the delay. But one official with the IEC acknowledges the counting is proceeding slower than expected because of computer software glitches.

The senior project officer for the team in Kabul from Democracy International, Bill Gallery, tells VOA News this should not be a cause for alarm.

"We are not super concerned about a couple days delay," he said. "We have been looking at the numbers released so far and there is some information there to use. We would be worried if they delayed any further. But I think this could just be an administrative issue."

It has been one week since the election. Results from only 17 percent of the polling stations have been released. Those returns show incumbent President Hamid Karzai with 43 percent of the vote. His closest rival among a long list of challengers, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, has 34 percent.

Mr. Karzai will need more than 50 percent of the total to avoid a run-off election next month.

A number of the contenders have alleged widespread irregularities. The Election Complaints Commission, partly appointed by the United Nations, says it is prioritizing dozens of serious allegations for investigation.

Violence involving Taliban insurgents who vowed to disrupt the election is continuing.

Officials in Paktika province say a regional Taliban commander and five of his followers have been captured following a fierce six-hour gun battle at a hospital there.

The Taliban leader, named as Mullah Muslim, had gone to the medical facility to seek treatment. Provincial officials say the commander had been wounded during election-day violence.

U.S. and Afghan forces, tipped off that the Taliban had entered the hospital, responded with troops and a helicopter gunship.

Officials say 12 insurgents and one soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force died in the clash.

At Least 22 Dead in Pakistan Bombing

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide attacker pretending to offer food to a group of Pakistani police officers detonated his explosives among them on Thursday, killing at least 22 people as they gathered to break the Ramadan fast on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials and witnesses said.

The attack in or near Tokham, a post on the main route for moving supplies to NATO and American forces in Afghanistan, took place just before dusk, as the men prepared to eat on the lawn outside their barracks. Because the attacker offered food, he was welcomed to join the gathering in accordance with local tradition during Ramadan, said Sajid Shinwari, a policeman who witnessed the attack.

A militant group affiliated with the Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack, and a spokesman for the group called a local reporter to warn of further strikes against security forces if Pakistan did not stop NATO supplies from passing through its territory.

Medical workers described a chaotic scene at the hospital and blast site.

“So far, we have 22 bodies brought here, but there are many others so we don’t know the exact casualty figures,” said Dr. Zar Alam Shinwari, a local doctor. “We have asked for ambulances from other towns. The situation is bad.”

It was unclear how many of the dead were police officers.

The group that claimed responsibility for the attack, the Dr. Abdullah Azzam Brigade, is based in the Orakzai tribal region and is named after a fiery Palestinian scholar who was a mentor to Osama bin Laden and was killed in a car bomb in Peshawar in 1989.

In another episode, at least four people were killed earlier Thursday in the South Waziristan tribal region in a missile strike by a remotely controlled United States aircraft aimed at a meeting of local Taliban militants, according to local news reports.

The attack took place in the town of Kanigurram, in an area considered to be a stronghold of Waliur Rehman, the man the Taliban chose as its regional leader after Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, died from injuries sustained in another drone attack earlier this month.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the number of dead from the strike could rise and that some foreign militants might also have died.

Ted Kennedy dead at 77

Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, after a lengthy battle with brain cancer. He was 77. "We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," a family statement said. "We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," a family statement said. "We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice."

President Obama learned about Kennedy's death at 2 a.m. Wednesday, according to a senior administration official. Obama later called Kennedy's widow to offer condolences.

In a statement, Obama says: "An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time."

Kennedy, nicknamed "Ted," was the younger brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was gunned down while seeking the White House in 1968. However, his own presidential aspirations were hobbled by the controversy around a 1969 auto accident that left a young woman dead, and a 1980 primary challenge to then-President Jimmy Carter that ended in defeat.
But while the White House eluded his grasp, the longtime Massachusetts senator was considered one of the most effective legislators of the past few decades. Kennedy, who became known as the "Lion of the Senate," played major roles in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, and was an outspoken liberal standard-bearer during a conservative-dominated era from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
"He was probably best known for the ability to work with Republicans," said Adam Clymer, Kennedy's biographer. "The Republican Party raised hundreds of millions of dollars with direct appeal to protect the country from Ted Kennedy, but there was never a piece of legislation that he ever got passed without a major Republican ally."