Khyber Pass comes under Pakistani attack

The latest military operation against insurgents in Pakistan’s north-western Khyber tribal region has seen thousands of people flee into surrounding areas.

Pakistan is cracking down on insurgents along its border with Afghanistan, especially the Khyber tribal belt which militants use as a safe haven from where they can launch attacks across the border.

Khyber has been of particular interest as it is the area in which al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is suspected to be hiding.

Militants frequently attack vehicles along the famed Khyber Pass, which is where trucks filled with supplies for US troops pass into Afghanistan.

On the weekend the Pakistani military destroyed houses and centres for the training of militants.

One militant was killed and nine more taken into custody, while two people kidnapped by militants were rescued.

Officials have admitted the Taliban-affiliated group, Lashkar-e-Islam, the group responsible for the Mumbai bombings, has been a main target of the latest offensive.

"Capitalism is evil," says new Michael Moore film

Reuters
VENICE - Capitalism is evil. That is the conclusion U.S. documentary maker Michael Moore comes to in his latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story," which premieres at the Venice film festival Sunday.

Blending his trademark humor with tragic individual stories, archive footage and publicity stunts, the 55-year-old launches an all out attack on the capitalist system, arguing that it benefits the rich and condemns millions to poverty.

"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," the two-hour movie concludes.

"You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy."

The bad guys in Moore's mind are big banks and hedge funds which "gambled" investors' money in complex derivatives that few, if any, really understood and which belonged in the casino.

Meanwhile, large companies have been prepared to lay off thousands of staff despite boasting record profits.

The filmmaker also sees an uncomfortably close relationship between banks, politicians and U.S. Treasury officials, meaning that regulation has been changed to favor the few on Wall Street rather than the many on Main Street.

He says that by encouraging Americans to borrow against the value of their homes, businesses created the conditions that led to the crisis, and with it homelessness and unemployment.

Moore even features priests who say capitalism is anti-Christian by failing to protect the poor.

"Essentially we have a law which says gambling is illegal but we've allowed Wall Street to do this and they've played with people's money and taken it into these crazy areas of derivatives," Moore told an audience in Venice.

"They need more than just regulation. We need to structure ourselves differently in order to create finance and money, support for jobs, businesses, etc."

GREEN SHOOTS?

Amid the gloom, Moore detects the beginnings of a popular movement against unbridled capitalism, and believes President Barack Obama's rise to power may bolster it.

"Democracy is not a spectator sport, it's a participatory event," he told a news conference. "If we don't participate in it, it ceases to be a democracy. So Obama will rise or fall based not so much on what he does but on what we do to support him."

Moore also warned other countries around the world against following the recent U.S. economic and political model.

The film follows factory workers who stage a sit-in at a Chicago glass factory when they are sacked with little warning and no pay and who eventually prevail over the bank.

And a group of citizens occupies a home that has been repossessed and boarded up by the lending company, forcing the police who come to evict them to back down.

The film re-visits some of Moore's earlier movies, including a trip to his native Flint where his father was a car assembly line worker and was able to buy a home, a car, educate his children and look forward to a decent pension.

But he brings it up to date with an examination of the financial crisis, demanding to speak to the bosses of companies at the center of the collapse and demanding that banks give back the hundreds of billions of bailout dollars to the country.

And he interviews an employee of a firm which buys up re-possessed, or "distressed" properties at a fraction of their original value and which is called Condo Vultures.

Healthcare speech puts Obama at center of debate

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama hopes to use a major speech next week to revitalize his push for healthcare reform -- and his success or failure could help define the rest of his term and perhaps his presidency.

When he addresses a rare joint session of Congress on September 9, Obama must persuade lawmakers, and an increasingly skeptical public, that he can pay for the nearly $1 trillion plan without boosting the huge U.S. budget deficit or cutting health insurance coverage for those who already have it.

The Democratic president must also offer specifics and overcome issues that opponents have used to exploit anti-reform sentiments -- such as charges the reform plan would finance abortions, create bureaucratic "death panels" to decide who gets care or guarantee healthcare to illegal immigrants.

Obama's speech comes as flagging opinion poll numbers have convinced the White House it is time to find a new strategy for striking a deal.

"In every presidency there are critical moments that become turning points and this could easily be one for Obama, because he has put so many chips on to healthcare reform, and it's been getting away from him in a major way," said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia.

Aides have said the administration is open to compromise, but insist the president still supports the "public option," a proposed government-run health insurance plan as an alternative option to private insurance that is heavily supported by Obama's liberal base.

The insurance industry strongly opposes the public option, and has spent millions lobbying against it.

In the quest for a middle ground, White House officials are talking to Senator Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine, a state that backed Obama in the November 2008 presidential election.

SNOWE SOUGHT

Snowe is seen as Obama's best bet for winning any Republican Senate support at all for healthcare reform. The White House has said repeatedly it wants the plan to pass with support from members of both parties, although Democrats have the political power to push changes through unilaterally.

Snowe supports a compromise plan that would not initially include a public option, but would "trigger" the creation of a government program if insurance companies failed to meet cost and quality benchmarks.

"Conversations are taking place on her safety-net fallback option as they have throughout the debate this year, as well as other approaches to make certain people have access to affordable options," Julia Wanzco, Snowe's spokeswoman, said.

Healthcare reform is one of the long list of problems on Obama's agenda, but unlike the recession and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which he inherited from his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, healthcare is a defining issue for Obama, who has made it his top domestic policy priority.

"This is a chance to bring it back together and to make his partisans in Congress stand up and cheer. That's really what it's about," Sabato said.

Obama knows he is unlikely to win over more than the one or two moderate Republicans, so he has to unite Democrats, Sabato said. "Basically, I think his message to Democrats is, it's me or it's chaos," he said, referring to 1994, when then-President Bill Clinton's failed bid for healthcare reform helped cost the Democrats control of Congress.

OBAMA INJECTS SELF INTO DEBATE

A top Democrat, asking not to be identified by name, said Snowe's plan "is our best hope" for healthcare reform. The Democrat said it could draw some Republican support and keep that of some Democrats.

Some conservative Democrats have balked at the potential cost of reform, and expressed concern that the public option was too much government interference in the private insurance industry.

By making the speech, Obama is injecting himself squarely into the center of the debate after months leaving it largely to members of Congress and other surrogates to formulate a strategy and sell the overhaul to the public.

"His timing is perfect," said Jim Kessler of Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. He said that after letting Congress lead the debate in the first nine months and shape the legislation, Obama can step in and push through a solution, now that lawmakers have hit some major sticking points.

Obama has broad goals of reducing healthcare costs and bringing medical insurance to the 46 million Americans who do not have it. But opponents have used suggestions that the plan would fund abortions, provide healthcare for illegal immigrants or deny treatment to older Americans to fuel public distrust.

Opponents also contend that the "public option" is a step toward socialism -- virtually taboo in U.S. politics.

With conservatives within the party shaping up as a formidable obstacle to the reform push, Democrats need to take their debate over the public option behind closed doors, analysts said.

"We just need to get back to having a real discussion about healthcare. It's not about abortion or immigration or euthanasia," said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Without those issues, "We'll be left with the question - do people want to pay for near universal coverage? And that's a debate worth having," he said.

Thousands flee Khyber operation

PESHAWAR: Thousands of civilians are fleeing the latest military operation against insurgents of banned militants group Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) in Khyber Agency, a government official said Sunday.
The military destroyed two training centres and 15 militant homes of LI militants on Sunday, paramilitary troops said. One militant was killed and nine more taken into custody, a written statement from the Frontier Corps said, adding that two people kidnapped by militants had also been recovered.
The region is largely off-limits to journalists, making it difficult to verify the information independently.
Farooq Khan, a government official in Khyber, said hundreds of families had been fleeing the region since authorities relaxed a curfew on Friday.
"A few thousand, I think," he told The Associated Press by phone when asked how many civilians have so far fled.
He said there were no procedures in place to register the fleeing civilians, making impossible to reach an exact number. He said there were no plans for refugee camps and security forces were "keeping a strict eye" out for any militants trying to blend in.
Three villages in Khyber have been hard hit by the operation. While some families in Malik Din Khel, Sipah and Kambar Khel have left for other villages in the tribal area, most appeared to be leaving Khyber altogether, Khan said. Most of those families were heading to Peshawar.
There have been several army operations in past in the Khyber region that have always concluded with announcements by authorities that the area was cleared of all militants.
The Taliban-affiliated group Lashkar-e-Islam has been a main target of the latest offensive, which authorities say has killed about 90 alleged militants.

Fake Afghan Poll Sites Favored Karzai, Officials Assert

NewYorkTimes
KABUL, Afghanistan — In the days before the disputed presidential election, Afghan election workers loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites, where no one voted but that still registered hundreds of thousands of ballots toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.

The fake sites, as many as 800, existed only on paper, said a senior Western diplomat in Afghanistan who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the vote. Local workers reported that hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of votes for Mr. Karzai came from each of those places. That pattern was confirmed by another Western official based in Afghanistan.

“We think that about 15 percent of the polling sites never opened on Election Day,” the senior Western diplomat said. “But they still managed to report thousands of ballots for Karzai.”

Besides the fake sites, Mr. Karzai’s supporters also took over approximately 800 legitimate polling centers and used them to fraudulently report tens of thousands of additional ballots for Mr. Karzai, the officials said.

The result, the officials said, is that in some provinces, the pro-Karzai ballots may exceed the people who actually voted by a factor of 10. “We are talking about orders of magnitude,” the senior Western diplomat said.

The widening accounts of fraud pose a stark problem for the Obama administration, which has deployed 68,000 American troops here to help reverse gains by Taliban insurgents. American officials hoped that the election would help turn Afghans away from the Taliban by giving them a greater voice in government. Instead, the Obama administration now faces the prospect of having to defend an Afghan administration for the next five years that is widely seen as illegitimate.

“This was fraud en masse,” the Western diplomat said.

Most of the fraud perpetrated on behalf of Mr. Karzai, officials said, took place in the Pashtun-dominated areas of the east and south where officials said that turnout on Aug. 20 was exceptionally low. That included Mr. Karzai’s home province, Kandahar, where preliminary results indicate that more than 350,000 ballots have been turned in to be counted. But Western officials estimated that only about 25,000 people actually voted there.

Waheed Omar, the main spokesman for Mr. Karzai’s campaign, acknowledged Sunday that there had been cases of fraud committed by different candidates. But he accused the president’s opponents of trying to score political points by making splashy accusations in the news media. “There have been cases — we have reported numerous cases — and our view is the only place where discussion can be held is in the Election Complaints Commission,” he said.

American officials have mostly kept a public silence about the fraud allegations. A senior American official said Sunday that they were looking into the allegations behind the scenes. “An absence of public statements does not mean an absence of concern and engagement on these issues,” the official said.

But a different Western official in Kabul said that there were divisions among the international community and Afghan political circles over how to proceed. This official said he believed the next four or five days would decide whether the entire electoral process would stand or fall. “This is crunch time,” he said.

Adding to the drumbeat, on Sunday the deputy director of the Afghan Independent Election Commission said that the group was disqualifying all the ballots cast in 447 polling sites because of fraud. The deputy director, Daoud Ali Najafi, said it was not clear how many votes had been affected, or what percentage they represented of the total. He gave no details of what fraud had been discovered.

With about three-quarters of the ballots counted in the Aug. 20 election, Mr. Karzai leads with nearly 49 percent of the vote, compared with 32 percent for his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent, the election goes to a runoff.

Officials in Kabul say it will probably take months before the Election Complaints Commission, which is dominated by Westerners appointed by the United Nations, will be able to declare a winner. Such an interregnum with no clear leader in office could prove destabilizing for a country that is already beset by ethnic division and an increasingly violent insurgency.

One opposition candidate for president, Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister, said that the scale of the fraud on Election Day had deeply damaged the political process that was being slowly built in Afghanistan.

“For five years Mr. Karzai was my president,” he said in an interview at his home in Kabul. “Now how many Afghans will consider him their president?”

Since ballots were cast last month, anecdotal evidence has emerged of widespread fraud across the Pashtun-dominated areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan, where Mr. Karzai has many allies. Many of the allegations come from Kandahar Province, where Mr. Karzai’s younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is the chairman of the provincial council and widely regarded as the most powerful man in the region. Last week, the governor of Shorabak District, which lies in Kandahar Province, claimed that Hamid Karzai’s allies shut down all the polling centers in the area and falsified 23,900 ballots for Mr. Karzai.

Two provincial council candidates in Kandahar, both close to the government, confirmed that widespread pro-Karzai fraud had occurred, in particular in places where poor security prevented observers and candidates’ representatives from watching.

“Now people will not trust the provincial council and the government system,” said Muhammad Ehsan, the deputy head of the provincial council, who was running for re-election. “Now people understand who has come to power and how.”

Hajji Abdul Majid, 75, the chief of the tribal elders council in Argestan District, in Kandahar Province, said that despite the fact that security forces opened the town’s polling place, no one voted, so any result from his district would be false.

“The people know that the government just took control of the district center for that day of the elections,” he said. “People are very frustrated. They don’t believe in the government.”

He added: “If Karzai is re-elected, people will leave the country or join the Taliban.”

More evidence of fraud has emerged in the past few days. In Zangabad, about 20 miles west of Kandahar, local residents say no voting took place on Aug. 20. The village’s single polling site, the Sulaiman Mako School, is used by Taliban guerrillas as their headquarters, the residents said. The area around Zangabad is one of the most contested in Afghanistan. Despite the nonexistent turnout, Afghan election records show that nearly 2,000 ballots were collected from the Sulaiman Mako School and sent to Kabul to be counted by election officials.

The allegations in Zangabad are being echoed throughout the Panjwai District. Official Afghan election records show that 16 polling centers were supposed to be open on Election Day. But according to at least one local leader, only a fraction of that number actually existed.

Haji Agha Lalai is a senior member of the provincial council in Kandahar, where Panjwai is located. As a candidate for re-election, he sent election observers across the area, including to Panjwai. In an interview, Mr. Lalai said that only “five or six” polling centers were open in Panjwai District that day — far fewer than the 16 claimed by the Afghan government.

So far, the Independent Election Commission has released results from seven of Panjwai District’s polling centers. The tally so far: 5,213 votes for Mr. Karzai, 328 for Mr. Abdullah.

Provincial status for FATA demanded

PESHAWAR: The FATA Reforms Movement (FRM) has demanded provincial status for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) after approval of a self-governance reforms package for the Northern Areas.
“Like Gilgit-Baltistan, the federal government should make such an arrangement under which FATA could have its own governor, chief minister and 75-member independent assembly,” FFM President Asad Afridi told a press conference at Peshawar Press Club. He demanded that the government give a province’s status to FATA and appoint SAFRON minister as its governor. He claimed that independent province’s status for FATA would not only bring the tribal areas into the country’s mainstream politics but also FATA people would get their identity.
Flanked by FRM Secretary General Mohammad Tahir Shah Safi and Spokesman Zar Ali Musazai, Asad Afridi said that the federal government should also focus on FATA women’s representation in the country’s politics and allocate seats for them in Senate. Besides, he also demanded of the government to increase the number of National Assembly seats for each FATA agency from one to two. The FRM also demanded allocation of a seat for each Frontier Region (FR) in the National Assembly. Terming the federal government’s reforms package for FATA as insufficient, he said the president’s announced reforms package was unclear.
He said that though the president announced extension of Political Parties Act to FATA, but problems of FATA people were neglected in the recently announced package. Criticising the black law Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), he said the law empowered only one man (political agent) who at the same time was a ruler as well as a judge.
He said executive should be separated from judiciary in tribal areas; otherwise, people would have no other option but to go to Taliban courts for justice rather than to file their cases in political agents and assistant political agents’ courts. He said that if the government wanted to end the influence of Taliban, it must concentrate on winning hearts and minds of the people by redressing their grievances, providing them cheap and speedy justice and creating employment opportunities for them.

Five foreign airlines suspend Peshawar flights

Five out of six foreign airlines flying to Peshawar have suspended their flights due to security concerns following the recent rocket attacks on the Peshawar International Airport, an official said yesterday. The suspension of several international flights is causing difficulties for passengers. Following the latest rocket attack on the Peshawar airport in mid-August, five Gulf-based airlines suspended their flights to Peshawar. These include Saudi Arabian Airlines, Emirates Airlines, Gulf Air, Air Arabia and Etihad Airways. Qatar Airways in the only foreign airline still flying to Peshawar. It operates two flights a week on the Doha-Peshawar sector.

U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan

The Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy announced in March promised increased resources and coordination in a war Obama described as shortchanged by the Bush administration. He authorized deployment of an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, a surge of hundreds of civilian officials and a significant boost in military and aid funding for both countries.The results so far have been uncertain. The Pakistani military has rousted the local Taliban from the Swat Valley area, and missiles launched from unmanned U.S. aircraft have killed a number of insurgent leaders in the Pakistan tribal areas along the Afghan border. But no progress has been reported on Obama's main goal of destroying al-Qaeda's sanctuary in the border area.The stepped-up U.S. effort in Afghanistan has shown few results over a summer marked by an expanding Taliban presence and the highest U.S. casualty rate of the eight-year war. Obama appointed a new commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has assessed the situation as "serious" and is expected to ask for more troops. As Congress has grown increasingly restive and opinion polls show falling public support, the administration has said real progress must be visible within 12 to 18 months.

President Hamid Karzai takes 100% of votes in opposition stronghold

www.timesonline.co.uk
In the southern Afghan district of Shorabak, the tribesmen gathered shortly before last month’s presidential election to discuss which candidate they would back. After a debate they chose to endorse Abdullah Abdullah, President Hamid Karzai’s leading opponent.

The tribal leaders prepared to deliver a landslide for Abdullah – but it never happened. They claim Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother and leader of the Kandahar provincial council, detained the local governor and closed all the district’s 46 polling sites on election day.

The ballot boxes were taken back to the district headquarters where, tribal leaders allege, they were stuffed with ballots by local policemen. A total of 23,900 ballots were finally sent off to Kabul, the capital – every one of them a vote for Karzai.

The alleged fraud, which Ahmed Wali Karzai denies, was the most blatant example among hundreds of incidents that have threatened to make a mockery of the election.

The sheer scale and audacity of the cheating, which includes supposedly “state-sponsored” ballot-stuffing, vote burning, intimidation and the closure of polling stations in antigovernment areas, has overwhelmed the country’s fledgling Electoral Complaints Commission.

Its staff are battling with more than 2,600 reports of vote-rigging, including at least 650 deemed serious enough “materially” to influence the result.

“This is a blatant violation of the procedure and I think it is stealing in daylight,” Abdullah said yesterday.

His aides say privately that if Karzai wins the 50.1% of votes needed for victory in the first round, they won’t accept the result. Abdullah said he intended to use all legal means to challenge any Karzai victory; his supporters talked menacingly of “Iran-style protests with Kalashnikovs”.

In the Spin Boldak district in the south of the country, the fifth-ranked candidate, Mirwais Yasini, accused pro-Karzai agents of taking out his votes and burning them.

“Democracy is dead in Afghanistan,” he said. “It’s buried. I’m not even bothering to get my results any more because it’s completely rigged. It’s completely biased.”

In the southern province of Oruzgan, pro-Karzai staff tried to bar election observers from entering the polling stations. Abdul Raziq waited three hours outside one station in Tarin Kowt, while election officials questioned his credentials as an observer. He watched 60 to 80 voters go into the Sayed Al-Khan high school, while he argued with the supposedly independent officials.

“Finally, when they let me in, I saw all the ballot boxes were full,” he said. He had arrived at 8am, an hour after the polls opened. “No one was voting because there were rockets, but when I went in, there were eight boxes, all of them full of votes.”

Sher Mohammed Khan, a tribal elder from Oruzgan and an Abdullah supporter, said three of his observers were arrested. “In Derawut district the police chief, Omar Khan, told observers not to come near the polling stations. His henchmen threatened to kill anyone who tried to get in,” he said.

Insecurity in Kandahar and Helmand stopped election observers from visiting all but a handful of polling sites. The country’s Independent Election Commission (IEC), which is counting the votes, is supposed to spot substantial irregularities.

Yet in the Kandahar village of Torzai, the results showed that Karzai had won every vote. At four of its eight polling stations, he received exactly 500 votes. At a primary school in Dahani, Helmand, Karzai also won 100% of the votes.

A row within the IEC over what to do with the suspect ballots has held up the announcement of further results for the past four days. Its last tally on Wednesday showed Karzai three points short of his 50.1% target. He may yet face a divisive second round run-off against Abdullah.

Obama faces a pivotal autumn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are showing signs of impatience with their new president as Barack Obama enters a pivotal period facing a raft of critical decisions ranging from healthcare to Afghanistan.

A wide variety of public opinion polls paint a difficult picture for Obama, with Americans expressing doubts about his handling of the U.S. economy, healthcare and Afghanistan. His job approval rating has drifted down to around 50 percent. It was at 68 percent when he took office in January.

White House officials are aware of the challenges and are working to try to regain the initiative on his top domestic priority, a healthcare overhaul by year's end, after a tumultuous summer. Obama will give a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 and may use the rare forum to argue for his retooled strategy.

"The president is considering all of his options on how to advance the debate and get reform passed. This includes possibly laying out a more specific vision. No decisions have been made though," said a senior official.

Complicating the picture for Obama, there has been no broad feeling of economic rebirth despite gains in the stock market, a slowing in job losses and other signs of improvement.

He also faces foreign-policy challenges.

Amid mounting American casualties, he is reviewing a U.S. military report on Afghanistan and is facing conflicting pressures on how to confront the deteriorating situation there, with some liberals arguing for fewer troops and some at the Pentagon wanting to send more.

FULL AGENDA

He is trying to coax Middle East peace moves back to life, engage Iran in diplomatic negotiations over its nuclear program with an end-of-September deadline approaching, and get North Korea back to nuclear talks.

His administration is also conducting policy reviews on a cluster of challenges -- Burma, Sudan and missile defense.

"It is a pivotal phase of his presidency on how he not only resolves healthcare but also deals with North Korea, Afghanistan and energy," said Democratic strategist Doug Schoen, who worked in the Clinton White House.

The Democratic president also is trying to nurse the U.S. economy out of a lingering recession that did not start on his watch but has lasted long enough to create political problems for him.

"Part of the problem here is the American public's appetite for immediate resolution of everything," said Democratic strategist Bud Jackson. "The biggest thing that President Obama could hope for is more patience from people."

Opposition Republicans, hoping to gain ground on Democratic majorities in the U.S. Congress in 2010 congressional elections, charge a $787 billion economic stimulus plan has done nothing to cure the country's 9.4 percent unemployment rate.

His financial regulatory reform plans are working their way through Congress and he sits down with world leaders at both the U.N. General Assembly in New York and at a Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh this month to try to work out ways to boost the global economy.

NOVEMBER TESTS

Elections in November to determine governors of Virginia and New Jersey are looming as an early referendum on the president. The races are far from over but Republican candidates are in the lead.

"Obama is on the ballot, front and center, like it or not," said Republican strategist Scott Reed.

The first issue to confront Obama on his return next week from a two-week working vacation is healthcare, after raucous town hall meetings conducted by lawmakers showed that Americans are far from agreement on how deeply to revamp the system and confused as to what the overhaul would mean for them.

Many experts believe he will be forced to accept an agreement that is less than what he desired, well under the $1 trillion price tag and not as sweeping, without a government-run insurance option to compete with private insurers.

Some liberals say he should use the Democrats' power to ram through his plan even if by a slim majority, while some Republicans urge him to start afresh and conduct a more bipartisan approach.

"The American people believe we're headed in the wrong direction on healthcare and believe we should come back to Washington next week and start over," said Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander.

Pollster John Zogby said to some extent Obama is a victim of the high expectations that accompanied his ascension to power last January.

"This was bound to happen. The expectations were very high, at least relative to the previous administration where expectations had sort of bottomed out. Here's a new president, young and dynamic, lots of promise and promises, and this is what happens," he said.

Afghan election officials defend vote-counting

KABUL-- Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission sought to reassure voters Saturday that it was impartially tallying the results of the August presidential election.

The IEC was mainly responding to accusations by Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger to President Hamid Karzai, who wants a second term in office. Abdullah is Karzai's former foreign minister.

According to the latest vote counts released by the commission, Karzai is getting close to having the 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a runoff.

Abdullah has called the alleged vote rigging "state-engineered fraud." He is demanding that the IEC stop announcing vote tallies from the provinces, and that the Electoral Complaints Commission inform Afghans about the status of its investigations.

By September, election officials said they had received nearly 2,500 complaints, with about 560 of them deemed serious enough to potentially affect the outcome. The grievances include polling irregularities, voter intimidation and ballot stuffing.

The complaints commission said that in order for election results to be certified, it must resolve the complaints.

"This is the blatant violation of the procedure, and I think it's stealing in daylight," Abdullah said at a Saturday news conference. He claimed the alleged malfeasance is reflected in the provisional results released so far.

"Today we see that everybody seems to be paralyzed. If there is an effort for cover-up, the cost of it is not for one candidate or another candidate. The cost of it is for the country," he said.

The IEC defended its work in Afghanistan.

The "IEC assures all the Afghan people, presidential and provincial council candidates that IEC has been doing its job impartially and faithfully," the commission said in a news release.

The IEC said it was considering Abdullah's allegations and statements to the media that there was "massive fraud" orchestrated by the government with the help of the commission.

"These statements are out of the expectation of IEC, since IEC has done its best to preserve its impartiality, and avoid any kinds of frauds without supporting any particular candidates.

"IEC has been processing the elections results with transparency and we assure you that the final result will be announced by the relevant commissions, and all the doubt and skepticism regarding the work of the IEC will be solved."

63 militants killed in Khyber Agency

BARA: At least 63 militants were killed and several others injured in a military operation in Tirah valley and Kambarkhel areas of Khyber Agency on Saturday, said security sources. Troops pounded Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) bases in Gogrina and Sandapal areas of Tirah valley. An LI centre – being used as a hideout and training facility – was destroyed, and at least 63 militants killed in that attack. The sources said six militants were killed in Kambarkhel area of the Bara tehsil, while two suspects were arrested from Shakas area. They said 15 houses were also demolished in Kambarkhel area of Khyber Agency’s Bara tehsil.

PUKHTUNKHWA(NWFP)s security is Pakistan’s security

DAILYTIMES.COM
The Chief of the Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, inaugurating a rehabilitation centre for captive children trained as suicide-bombers by the Taliban, has said that the army has broken the back of the Taliban rebellion; but that the army will not leave the affected areas until the last vestige of the militants is removed. A news report parallel to his statement says there is a 62 percent decrease in terrorist attacks in the country after the success of the military operation in Malakand and FATA.

It is clear that the security of the entire country now depends on the state of war against terrorism in the above region. But more significantly, it is the security of the NWFP that has improved, meaning that one entire province of the country is in the process of regaining its governance. One can also note here the security linkage of the NWFP with the tribal areas — Malakand and FATA. Only Malakand is one-fourth of the area of the province with 3 million people inhabiting it.

What has been achieved is a significant pacification of a terrain that was held hostage by the Taliban and their mercenary warlords. The remnants of terror are still there and will have to be gotten rid of completely; but the interim period too provides a lot of satisfaction to those who want the NWFP to get its fair share from the central divisible pool and implement its development projects without being assailed by the Taliban. The truth that peace in the NWFP depends on peace in the tribal areas has now dawned on everyone; it is also clear that peace in the NWFP means peace in the rest of Pakistan.

The army operation has killed hundreds of terrorists. The Taliban are divided and their decision-making process is affected by a simmering ongoing contest for leadership. The effect on the NWFP has been very pronounced; but it is also recognised now that without sorting out the Khyber Agency of FATA, Peshawar can hardly be at rest. The army is getting to grips with the problem of Lashkar-e-Islam in Khyber run by a local warlord that easily trespasses into parts of Peshawar and kills people there. Khyber is also penetrated by the Taliban because of their strategy of attacking the NATO supply route.

All this has been achieved because of clarity of thinking in Pakistan, the government and the people both. The old policy of abstaining from designating the enemy clearly and interpreting the activity of the warlords correctly led to the consolidation of the illegal writ of the warlords. No one can measure the extent of damage done to the public mind in this period. The child suicide-bomber who says he will not hesitate to kill his parents is just one manifestation of it. There is a general lack of trust in the ability of the state to assert itself, which means that the public mind is free to opt for the worldview of those who control their lives with guns.

The army has its priorities right, but does the rest of the nation? One has to admit that the war against terror is not the uppermost thought among the politicians and some professional sections of civil society. While there is no opposition as such to the military operations, there seems to be a consensus that putting General Pervez Musharraf (retd) on trial for treason is more urgent. There is a tendency in favour of what is called “dittoism”, i.e., everyone thinking the same thought without a healthy tendency to break the uniformity of thought.

The politicians are busy in their infighting, barely hiding their instinct of revenging themselves upon each other. People with no expertise in economics are railing against shortages caused by the demand-push of Ramazan and want the government’s head as trophy, forcing Prime Minister Gilani to say he is not going anywhere. Few realise in this environment that if the war against terror doesn’t go well, all these priorities will be overthrown and the warlords will make their comeback, this time not on the peripheries, but right in the centre called Islamabad where they can still attack a federal minister at will.

Guv backs letting students watch to Obama speech

Republican Gov. Gary Herbert supports President Barack Obama's plan to deliver a televised back-to-school speech to the nation's students on Tuesday, saying he sees "nothing but good coming out of this."
Herbert said he favors letting students listen to the speech, and he thinks it will foster a dialogue between parents and their children.
"I think it's great. To hear from the president of the United States is an important thing," he said Saturday. "I'd like to hear what he has to say.
"I hope parents will take the opportunity to discuss the issues with their children, hear what the presidents views are and what his vision is for the future of America. If they agree, then explain that. If they disagree, explain to their children why. I see nothing but good coming out of this," he said.
The governor, who has grandchildren in the Utah school system, said he can't imagine that they wouldn't watch the speech.
Conservative critics have charged that the speech is an underhanded attempted at political indoctrination.
White House officials say the 15- to 20-minute speech is about getting students to work hard and stay in school.

Obama Expands Workers' Retirement Options

VOA.COM
U.S. President Barack Obama has announced new initiatives designed to make it easier for Americans to save for retirement. In his weekly national radio and Internet address, Mr. Obama noted the "painful toll" the global economic downturn has had on "retirement security."He said the government will make it easier for small companies to set up retirement savings plans in which all workers are automatically enrolled, unless they ask to be omitted.The government will also begin allowing people to check a box on their federal tax returns asking that any refund be sent as a savings bond. another new option will make it possible for workers when leaving a job to put payments for unused vacation and sick days into their retirement account, rather than taking it in cash.The president said the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department are creating an easy-to-follow manual, as well as a Web site, to help people navigate the "complicated waters" of changing jobs and continuing their retirement savings. Mr. Obama said the "common-sense changes," will help families put away money for the future. He said "tens of millions" of families have not been able to put away enough money for a secure retirement.

Blast Targets German Troops in Afghanistan

VOA News

A roadside bomb exploded Saturday near a convoy of German troops in northern Afghanistan, a day after German military commanders ordered a NATO airstrike in the region, killing up to 90 people, many of them civilians.

Authorities say the blast damaged vehicles, but there are no report of any serious injuries from Saturday's explosion.

NATO is calling for an investigation of Friday's air strike that blew up two fuel trucks in a massive explosion.

The pre-dawn strike was ordered by German military commanders after fuel trucks that had been hijacked earlier by Taliban militants were spotted on a river bank in the Northern Kunduz province, surrounded by what appeared to be insurgents, in the process of unloading the tankers.

German officials say the order to attack was given because the trucks could be used as weapons in a suicide attack against nearby German troops.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the NATO command in Afghanistan are promising full investigations into the civilian deaths.

Mr. Karzai issued a statement saying "targeting civilians is unacceptable."

Provincial officials say the strike killed 56 Taliban militants and a large number of civilians, including children who had been called to the area by the Taliban members to remove fuel from the tankers.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Zemarai Bashary, said the government is working to confirm civilian casualties.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs expressed concern about the reports of civilian deaths.

Afghan civilian deaths during foreign military operations have caused resentment among the public.

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal ordered U.S. and NATO troops in July to limit the use of air strikes to try to reduce such casualties.

U.S. military commanders say protecting Afghan civilians and providing security is a focal point of the Obama administration's revamped strategy in Afghanistan.

Troops kill 35 militants in Khyber strikes

JAMRUD: Troops backed by helicopter gunships killed about 35 militants on Saturday in attacks on militant hideouts in the northwestern Khyber Pass region, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps said.The Khyber Pass is a main route for supplies being trucked from Karachi to western forces battling al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan.The airstrikes come as troops continue mopping up militant positions in the northwestern Swat valley, where the military says more than 2,000 militants have been killed since an offensive was launched in April.Troops began a new operation in the Khyber this week against militants, including some who had fled from the Swat offensive.‘Our forces targeted a headquarters of Lashkar-i-Islam and about 15 militants were killed in the attack,’ said a Frontier Corps spokesman in Peshawar, referring to a group under the command of Mangal Bagh, an ethnic Pashtun militant.Another 20 were killed elsewhere in the region on strikes on hideouts of militants loyal to Bagh.Khyber is one of seven Pakistani tribal regions with a high degree of autonomy based on tribal laws. On August 27 a suicide bomber killed 22 border guards at the main crossing to Afghanistan.In Swat, security forces killed a militant commander and arrested five others, according to a military statement.Another seven militants surrendered to security forces.
Troops also destroyed two militant hideouts in the neighbouring Dir region, the military said.The show of force in Swat and elsewhere has helped allay fears among allies —particularly the United States and others with troops in Afghanistan — that Pakistan was failing to confront militants.

Swat Museum to be re-opened

PESHAWAR: The NWFP government on Friday decided to reopen the Swat Museum, while all preperations have been finalised in this regard.During Operation Rah-e-Rast the Swat Museum was closed for an indefinite period of time, while the heritage of the museum was shifted to Peshawar to safeguard it.However after the successful operation of the security forces and the safe return of all IDPs, all offices have now been reopened.
As law and order situation is improving in Swat, the provincial government has now decided to reopen the museum. -Online

NATO must tell Russia of Afghan plans in case of fiasco’

MOSCOW: NATO should keep Russia informed on operations in Afghanistan as they could heighten unrest near Russian borders, the Russian envoy to the alliance said on Friday on Echo of Moscow radio station.

“We want to know about military strategy, about military planning and political planning in case NATO runs into a total fiasco,” Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO in Brussels, said. “If they leave there like they left Vietnam, they will leave behind broken china, a shaken hornet’s nest, with only Russia and our Central Asian partners nearby,” the envoy added. He noted that Russia was supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan by allowing the alliance to use Russian territory to transit supplies to NATO forces, and was also providing direct bilateral aid to the Afghan government. “As we help, we also need to know what is going on there,” Rogozin said.

Coordination: He said the situation for NATO in Afghanistan was becoming increasingly “dramatic” and pointed to a NATO airstrike on Friday that Afghan authorities say killed around 90 people as proof of alliance disorganisation in the country. “In truth, there is not serious coordination among various NATO contingents inside Afghanistan so far despite all the efforts that have been made over the past few years,” he said.

‘Army to chase Taliban till end’

DailyTimes

MINGORA/RAWALPINDI: Inaugurating a rehabilitation centre for young men taken and trained to become terrorists and suicide bombers by Taliban, Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani said the military has broken the terrorists’ backs and Operation Rah-e-Rast would continue as long as the last terrorist was not eliminated.

The army chief, visiting Malakand on Friday, later told a gathering of local leaders and soldiers that the terrorist network had been dismantled and peace restored to the Swat valley. He also discussed issues of rehabilitating and resettling the internally displaced population of the area.

“The army will chase these militants till the very end.” He also hoped that the people of these areas would support the armed forces in their mission. Local elders assured Kayani of their complete support to the army.

According to an ISPR statement, Gen Kayani visited the newly-built community police-training centre in Kalam, where he also met with recruits.

Rehabilitation centre: According to military officials, the ‘Sabawoon’ (morning light) Rehabilitation Centre will look after the young men brainwashed and indoctrinated by Taliban for suicide attacks on security forces and other targets in Swat. Many such youths were arrested by troops or found in camps raided by security forces during search and clearance operations in the valley.

Based in Malakand, the would-be Taliban will be nursed back to a “proper state of mental health”. “A team of specialist doctors, both from the Army and civil, is dedicated for this purpose. 32 children are presently undergoing the rehabilitation process,” the ISPR release said.

Signs of progress in Afghanistan

CNN.COM-The first surprise is Kabul airport. The new terminal — “a gift of the people of Japan” — appears to have been airlifted in from a small American city; light-filled, modern and staffed by young men in uniforms of khaki pants and blue shirts who politely answer travelers’ questions as they direct traffic through the quiet, marble halls of the terminal.

This is quite a change from the old Kabul airport terminal, which was not much more than a big shed that broiled in summer and froze in winter with one wheezing baggage belt disgorging luggage to a chaotic press of travelers.

I have visited the Kabul airport since 1993 and it has been an accurate barometer of Afghanistan’s shifting fortunes. In the mid-90s the country was in the grip of a civil war in which hundreds of thousands died and the airport of the capital was littered with the carcasses of airplanes large and small that had crashed on landing or takeoff during the past decade-plus of war.

Under the Taliban — whose fantasies about establishing a 7th century utopia here on earth did not extend to the simplest acts of real governance — no effort was made to clear up this mess. Once their regime fell in 2001, gradually the rusting hulks of the crashed planes were cleared from the runways.

Then came the mine sweepers. Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world and the strategically significant Kabul airport was mined particularly heavily. It took years for the mine sweepers to clear the airport runways but now they are long gone, as they are from much of the country.


Lost in the deluge of the recent media coverage of the rising violence and the flawed presidential election in Afghanistan are the markers of real progress over the past eight years, which in a small but important way is exemplified by the turnaround at Kabul airport.

Consider that:

• More than five million refugees have returned home since the fall of the Taliban. This is one of the most substantial refugee repatriations in history, yet it is little remarked upon because it has largely gone so smoothly.

• One in six Afghans now has a cell phone. Under the Taliban there was no phone system.

• Millions of kids are now in school, including many girls. Under the Taliban girls were not allowed to be educated.

• In 2008, Afghanistan’s real GDP growth was 7.5 percent. Under the Taliban the economy was in free fall.

• You were more likely to be murdered in the United States in 1991 than an Afghan civilian is to be killed in the war today.

Some reading this may be thinking — can this really be right? But do the math: In 1991, almost 25,000 people were murdered in the United States at a time when the American population was approximately 260 million. In Afghanistan today some 2,000 Afghan civilians are killed each year by the Taliban and coalition forces out of a population of around 30 million

A comparison with Iraq is also instructive. As the violence peaked in Iraq in early 2007 more than 3,500 Iraqi civilians were being killed every month. Adjusting for population sizes, civilians in Iraq were 20 times more likely to be killed two years ago than they are today in Afghanistan.

Of course none of this is to deny the existence of epic corruption in Afghanistan, the massive drug trade, the scandal of billions of dollars of aid wasted on failed aid projects that have principally enriched giant American contractors like DynCorp, and the resurgence of the Taliban.

These are all too real, but they are only part of the story, and for Afghans who have lived through an invasion by a totalitarian superpower that killed one in ten of their family members, then a civil war that killed many more, and then the Taliban who brought security at the price of living in a completely failed theocratic state, the most important fact is that history is now behind them and that the future promises something better.

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum, and at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. He’s the author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader,” and the editor of the AfPak Channel.

Shoot-out in Swat

THE NEWS
A lashkar shot dead three militants after an hour-long gun battle in the Kabal tehsil of Swat. The area had been among those where militants had the strongest hold. Elsewhere in Swat too we are hearing of people identifying militants and in several cases handing them over to authorities. The fear that the militants had exerted has clearly begun to fade. For months local people had been unable to defy the Taliban. They speak now of the kind of terror they suffered under for months, often with great bitterness. We were also informed that support for the extremists was widespread. Indeed even the ANP government had contributed to this misperception by enforcing the Nizam-e-Adl regulation in Swat. It was said people wanted Shariah law and that there was support for those who advocated it.

The actions we are seeing now in the area suggest this is simply not accurate. People are ready to act against militants and to take matters into their own hands to do so. Most seem to hold little sympathy for them. They are indeed ready to challenge them at some risk to themselves, as the actions of the lashkar demonstrated. But there is also the fact that the militants possessed sufficient gun power to hold out for a prolonged battle. They also seemed sufficiently motivated to do so. These are somewhat ominous signs and suggest there is a need to drive home the victory that is being claimed. For the moment top militant leaders, including Maulana Fazalullah, remain free; their whereabouts are unknown and until they are apprehended the risk of some attempt at reorganization in the future will remain. The authorities need to lay out their strategy in this respect. Troops, who still man check posts and pickets across Swat and remain posted in cities, cannot be kept deployed forever. It may be necessary to think about a local force to defend Swat and perhaps the lashkars that have come up spontaneously in some places can be used for this purpose. But this should not form the lone pillar of official strategy. Events in Swat in the past have shown that, more than anything else, people seek access to equitable justice. They also seek opportunity and development. It is offering them this that will prove the hardest blow to militancy.

US Official Reaffirms Need for Afghanistan Society Building

VOA.COM
It has been about six months since the Obama Administration unveiled a new strategy boosting efforts to rebuild Afghan civil society. That is part of a comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. A top State Department official is acknowledging the need to show real progress soon.A senior U.S. official acknowledges the clock is ticking on showing the effectiveness of America's multibillion dollar attempt to rebuild Afghanistan. The effort has been deemed a foreign policy priority of the Obama administration.The Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Jack Lew, on a visit to India, spoke with a small group of Indian and American reporters in the capital. He told them it is critical to continue the effort to transfer skills and tools to Afghans so foreigners do not need to have a permanent presence there.
"It is a challenge after just a few months of implementation to be able to speak with confidence about when these things will occur," said Lew. "But the president has been clear, the Administration has been clear that there's a need for demonstrable progress on a short order."
The deputy secretary, who is the State Department's chief operating officer, adds that Congress and the administration itself will hold those responsible accountable to show a difference is being made in Afghanistan.
Programs underway include training the Afghan National Army and police, as well as building capacity in Afghan government ministries. President Obama, in late March, outlined a comprehensive plan to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida in order to bring security to Afghanistan and to construct a civil infrastructure.Lew says these efforts "address a direct threat to the United States." The deputy secretary is to visit Afghanistan next week. His trip comes at a critical time with the results of the country's presidential election still uncertain and worries a disputed outcome, due to allegations of widespread ballot box stuffing, could spark further civil violence.The White House is now reviewing strategic recommendations made by the top U.S. military officer in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. Details are confidential but they are believed to include the possibility of adding more troops to the already 60 thousand Americans in uniform deployed there in the eight-year old war. This comes at a time when opinion polls show dropping support among Americans for the military effort in Afghanistan, where Afghan, American and NATO coalition forces together are fighting the Taliban.

Furor over Obama's speech 'silly season'

Associated Press
The White House on Friday dismissed as pointless the furor over President Barack Obama's plan to deliver a televised back-to-school speech to the nation's students.
"I think we've reached a little bit of the silly season when the president of the United States can't tell kids in school to study hard and stay in school," presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. "I think both political parties agree that the dropout rate is something that threatens our long-term economic success."

Obama's planned address to students has prompted a surprising push-back from some quarters over what the White House sees as an important but innocuous topic.
Some conservative critics say Obama is trying to promote a political agenda and overstepping his bounds, taking the federal government too far into public school business.
Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a potential presidential contender in 2012, said Obama's speech is "uninvited" and that the president's move raises questions of content and motive.
Many school districts have decided not to show Obama's speech, to be delivered at 12 noon EDT Tuesday, partly in response to concerns from parents.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, on Friday defended Obama's plan to address students.
"The bottom line is we need the president of the United States of America to use his bully pulpit to talk to kids about the importance of education and to help inspire kids," she said on "The John Gambling Show" on radio station WOR NewsTalk Radio 710 in New York.
Gibbs said former Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush delivered similar speeches to students. He said Obama's speech will not be partisan but rather a chance for children to get "a little encouragement as they start the school year."
The White House spokesman said he couldn't speak to the motivations of some school districts.
"Look, there are some school districts that won't let you read 'Huckleberry Finn,' " Gibbs said.
He said the administration understands that some districts have logistical concerns with the timing of Obama's speech.
The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it. Obama will deliver the speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.

NATO airstrike in Afghanistan kills up to 90

KABUL -- A NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said.

The NATO command said a "large number of insurgents" were killed or injured in the pre-dawn attack near the village of Omar Khel in Kunduz province. An Afghan police officer said the 90 dead included about 40 civilians who were siphoning fuel from the trucks.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

The top NATO commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has ordered curbs on airstrikes after a strong backlash among Afghans against the high number of civilians killed in such military operations.

Police Chief Gulam Mohyuddin said Taliban fighters stopped the vehicles as they were about to cross the Kunduz River.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a public affairs officer, said NATO warplanes attacked and destroyed the two tankers after determining that there were no civilians in the area.

She said that NATO and the Afghan government are investigating reports of civilian casualties.

Another NATO spokesman said one reason the fuel tankers were targeted was they are frequently used in suicide attacks.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said insurgents hijacked the trucks as they were headed from Tajikistan to supply NATO forces in Kabul.

When the hijackers tried to drive them across the Kunduz River, the vehicles became stuck in the mud and the insurgents opened valves to release fuel and lighten the loads, he said. He said about 500 villagers swarmed the trucks to collect the fuel despite warnings that they might be hit with an airstrike, he said.

Mujahid said no Taliban died in the attack.

Kunduz Gov. Mohammad Omar, who also gave the 90 deaths figure, said a local Taliban commander and four Chechen fighters were among those killed.

Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition.

Humanyun Khmosh, director of the Kunduz hospital, said 12 people were being treated for severe burns. He could not say whether they were civilians or insurgents, although one was a 10-year-old boy.

He said the hospital had only one confirmed death - a truck driver.

In Kabul, the deputy chief of the U.N. mission, Peter Galbraith, said he was "very concerned" by reports of civilian casualties in Kunduz and that all efforts must be undertaken to care for the wounded and compensate families of the dead.

"Steps must also be taken to examine what happened and why an air strike was employed in circumstances where it was hard to determine with certainty that civilians were not present," he said, adding that a U.N. team would be sent to Kunduz to investigate.

Kunduz province had been relatively peaceful until violence began rising earlier this year. German forces who are based there come under almost daily attack, including rockets and mortars at their bases and small arms fire against patrols.

Violence has soared across much of the country since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, shifting the focus of the U.S.-led war on Islamic extremism from Iraq.

Fifty-one U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in August, making it the bloodiest month for American forces there since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.

Rising casualties during this summer's fighting have undermined support for the war in the U.S., Britain and other allied countries.

On Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the war is worth fighting and signaled for the first time he may be willing to send more troops after months of publicly resisting a significant increase.

At a Pentagon news conference, Gates said Obama's efforts are "only now beginning" to take effect and should be given a chance to succeed.

"I don't believe that the war is slipping through the administration's fingers," Gates said. Later, he added: "I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan."

China and India Dispute Enclave on the Edge of Tibet

NewYorkTimes
TAWANG, India — This is perhaps the most militarized Buddhist enclave in the world.
Perched above 10,000 feet in the icy reaches of the eastern Himalayas, the town of Tawang is not only home to one of Tibetan Buddhism’s most sacred monasteries, but is also the site of a huge Indian military buildup. Convoys of army trucks haul howitzers along rutted mountain roads. Soldiers drill in muddy fields. Military bases appear every half-mile in the countryside, with watchtowers rising behind concertina wire.
A road sign on the northern edge of town helps explain the reason for all the fear and the fury: the border with China is just 23 miles away; Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, 316 miles; and Beijing, 2,676 miles.
“The Chinese Army has a big deployment at the border, at Bumla,” said Madan Singh, a junior commissioned officer who sat with a half-dozen soldiers one afternoon sipping tea beside a fog-cloaked road. “That’s why we’re here.”
Though little known to the outside world, Tawang is the biggest tinderbox in relations between the world’s two most populous nations. It is the focus of China’s most delicate land-border dispute, a conflict rooted in Chinese claims of sovereignty over all of historical Tibet.
In recent months, both countries have stepped up efforts to secure their rights over this rugged patch of land. China tried to block a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank on the grounds that part of the loan was destined for water projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the state that includes Tawang. It was the first time China had sought to influence the territorial dispute through a multilateral institution. Then the governor of Arunachal Pradesh announced that the Indian military was deploying extra troops and fighter jets in the area.The growing belligerence has soured relations between the two Asian giants and has prompted one Indian military leader to declare that China has replaced Pakistan as India’s biggest threat.Economic progress might be expected to bring the countries closer. China and India did $52 billion worth of trade last year, a 34 percent increase over 2007. But businesspeople say border tensions have infused business deals with official interference, damping the willingness of Chinese and Indian companies to invest in each other’s countries.
“Officials start taking more time, scrutinizing things more carefully, and all that means more delays and ultimately more denials, “ said Ravi Bhoothalingam, a former president of the Oberoi Group, the luxury hotel chain, and a member of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. “That’s not good for business.”
The roots of the conflict go back to China’s territorial claims to Tibet, an enduring source of friction between China and many foreign nations. China insists that this section of northeast India has historically been part of Tibet, and should be part of China.Tawang is a thickly forested area of white stupas and steep, terraced hillsides that is home to the Monpa people, who practice Tibetan Buddhism, speak a language similar to Tibetan and once paid tribute to rulers in Lhasa. The Sixth Dalai Lama was born here in the 17th century. The Chinese Army occupied Tawang briefly in 1962, during a war with India fought over this and other territories along the 2,521-mile border.
More than 3,100 Indian soldiers and 700 Chinese soldiers were killed and thousands wounded in the border war. Memorials here highlighting Chinese aggression in Tawang are big draws for Indian tourists.“The entire border is disputed,” said Ma Jiali, an India scholar at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a government-supported research group in Beijing. “This problem hasn’t been solved, and it’s a huge barrier to China-India relations.”
In some ways, Tawang has become a proxy battleground, too, between China and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetans, who passed through this valley when he fled into exile in 1959. From his home in the distant Indian hill town of Dharamsala, he wields enormous influence over Tawang. He appoints the abbot of the powerful monastery and gives financial support to institutions throughout the area. Last year, the Dalai Lama announced for the first time that Tawang is a part of India, bolstering the India’s territorial claims and infuriating China.Traditional Tibetan culture runs strong in Tawang. One morning in June, the monastery held a religious festival that drew hundreds from the nearby villages. As red-robed monks chanted sutras, blew horns and swung incense braziers in the monastery courtyard, the villagers jostled each other to be blessed by the senior lamas.
At the monastery, an important center of Tibetan learning, monks express rage over Chinese rule in Tibet, which the Chinese Army seized in 1951.“I hate the Chinese government,” said Gombu Tsering, 70, a senior monk who watches over the monastery’s museum. “Tibet wasn’t even a part of China. Lhasa wasn’t a part of China.”
Few expect China to try to annex Tawang by force, but military skirmishes are a real danger, analysts say. The Indian military recorded 270 border violations and nearly 2,300 instances of “aggressive border patrolling” by Chinese soldiers last year, said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, a research organization in New Delhi. Mr. Chellaney has advised the Indian government’s National Security Council.“The India-China frontier has become more ‘hot’ than the India-Pakistan border,” he said in an e-mail message.Two years ago, Chinese soldiers demolished a Buddhist statue that Indians had erected at Bumla, the main border pass above Tawang, a member of the Indian Parliament, Nabam Rebia, said in a session of Parliament.Tawang became part of modern India when Tibetan leaders signed a treaty with British officials in 1914 that established a border called the McMahon Line between Tibet and British-run India. Tawang fell south of the line. The treaty, the Simla Convention, is not recognized by China.“We recognize it because we agreed to it,” said Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile. “If China agreed to it now, it would be a recognition of the power of the Tibet government at that time.”China has grown increasingly hostile to the Dalai Lama after severe ethnic unrest in Tibet in 2008. This year, it turned its diplomatic guns on India over the Tawang issue. China moved in March to block a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank, a multination group based in Manila that has China on its board, because $60 million of the loan had been earmarked for flood-control projects in Arunachal Pradesh. The loan was approved in mid-June over China’s heated objections.
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction to the move, which can neither change the existence of immense territorial disputes between China and India, nor China’s fundamental position on its border issues with India,” Qin Gang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a written statement.
In May, weeks after China first tried to block the loan, the chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi, now retired, told a prominent Indian newspaper that China posed a greater threat than Pakistan.
Another official, J. J. Singh, the governor of Arunachal Pradesh and a retired chief of the Indian Army, said the next month that the Indian military was adding two divisions of troops, totaling 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers, to the border region over the next several years. Four Sukhoi fighter jets were immediately deployed to a nearby air base.
Since 2005, when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China visited India, the two countries have gone through 13 rounds of bilateral negotiations over the issue. A round was held just last month, with no results.
“The China-India border has got to be one of the most continuously negotiated borders in modern history,” said M. Taylor Fravel, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is a leading expert on China’s borders. “That shows how intractable this dispute is.”

Bia Daraglam ... “Here I Come Again,”

BARA: The security forces continued demolition of houses owned by militants or their supporters in Bara sub-division of Khyber Agency on the third day of the military operation on Thursday.Thirteen houses were destroyed with the help of explosives and heavy machinery in different parts of Bara including Shlobar, Malikdinkhel, Kamarkhel and Sipah. Eighteen tribesmen described as suspects were arrested during the search operation.The houses of Said Rasan, Habib Shakir and Imtiaz, all reportedly affiliated to the outlawed Lashkar-e-Islam, were destroyed in Kamarkhel area as the troops resumed action around 10am on Thursday.Two more houses owned by Sirajuddin and Shahid were razed to the ground in Malikdinkhel area. The former is known to be one of the founding members of Lashkar-e-Islam.In Shlobar area, houses of Haji Qasim and Gulmat were demolished. Haji Qasim was accused of funding the banned Lashkar-e-Islam while Gulmat is stated to be a member of Shlobar unit of the organization.The house of Lashkar-e-Islam chief Mangal Bagh was demolished in Sipah area. His house was earlier destroyed in the military operation conducted in June last year.Bia Daraglam, or “Here I Come Again,” is the name of the military action now underway in Bara area. This is the second military operation after the one carried out last year.Federal Minister Hamidullah Jan Afridi, who belongs to Bara, has criticized the military action and demanded an end to it. The government is claiming successes in the operation but tribesmen are complaining that innocent people have been killed and arrested during the action.People complained about the indefinite curfew and said they were running out of food and other items of daily use. Said Ayaz, general secretary of the shopkeepers association in Bara, told The News that the food items, vegetables and fruit in their shops were rotting. He said the security forces should relax the curfew for some time so that they might bring the perishable items out.

Majority affected by sugar crisis

PESHAWAR: Majority of Pakistanis claimed to be affected by the recent sugar crisis in the country. According to a Gilani Research Foundation survey carried out by Gallup Pakistan, more than two third of all Pakistanis (79%) have complained about facing difficulties in purchasing sugar, while 20% faced no problem. High price is one of the major hurdles respondents (78%) claimed to have faced during the recent sugar crisis, followed by other problems like unavailability (9%), long queues (8%), and bad quality (4%). Seventy percent (70%) believe it is an artificially created crisis and a conspiracy. Target of blame for the price hike is split between government (47%), manufacturers (28%) and traders/exporters (24%). A nationally representative sample of men and women from across the country were asked “In the past few months there has been an extreme shortage of sugar in the country and people are facing difficulties in buying sugar. Have you also faced such difficulties?” Seventy nine percent (79%) said yes, while 20% seemed to have not been affected by this sugar crisis. One percent (1%) gave no response. “In the past few months there has been an extreme shortage of sugar in the country and people are facing difficulties in buying sugar. In a follow up question the respondents were asked “If yes, which one type of the following problems did you face with regards to buying sugar?” Majority (78%) said that while sugar is available in the market, it is exceptionally expensive. Amongst the remaining respondents 9% claimed sugar is not available, 8% complained about having to stand in long queues to buy a sugar bag, and 4% said the sugar quality is very bad. One percent (1%) gave no response. It is noted that while comparatively more urbanites complained about long queues, people from rural areas said sugar is not available in the market. To understand what people think is the real cause of this recent sugar shortage in the country, respondents were asked “In your view, do you think our country is going through a real sugar crisis or is it happening because of some planned conspiracy?” While 28% believe it is a real shortage, majority 70% think it is a planned conspiracy. Two percent (2%) gave no response. The findings show that men, adults of above 50 years of age, and more people from urban areas tend to believe sugar crisis is a conspiracy and artificially created. “In your view, do you think our country is going through a real sugar crisis or is it happening because of some planned conspiracy?” When the respondents were asked who they thought was responsible for this exorbitant increase in sugar prices, majority of them (47%) blames the government, 28% believe it’s the fault of sugar mill owners, 19% think businessmen are responsible, while 5% believe exporters are guilty of creating such a mess. One percent (1%) gave no response. The study was released by Gilani foundation and carried out by Gallup Pakistan, the Pakistani affiliate of Gallup International. The latest survey was carried out among a sample of 2765 men and women in rural and urban areas of all four provinces of the country.

Gates Signals He’s Open to More Troops in Afghanistan

NewYorkTimes
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates signaled on Thursday that he was open to an increase in American troops in Afghanistan and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was now a “sense of urgency” about the eight-year-old war and that “time is not on our side.”

In a joint news conference with Admiral Mullen at the Pentagon, Mr. Gates said his previous concerns about the American “footprint” becoming too big in Afghanistan had been “mitigated” by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, President Obama’s hand-picked commander who took over American and NATO forces in the country in June.

Mr. Gates said that although he had long been worried that a large number of American forces would alienate the Afghan population, as happened when the Russians had 120,000 troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, he was taking seriously the views of General McChrystal, who has indicated that the size of the force is less important than what it does.

“Where foreign forces have had a large footprint and failed in no small part has been because the Afghans concluded they were there for their own imperial interests and not there for the interests of the Afghan people,” Mr. Gates said. But he said that Mr. McChrystal’s efforts since June to reduce civilian casualties and interact more with Afghans “has given us a greater margin of error in that respect.”

The change of view on the part of Mr. Gates is important because he is expected to be an influential adviser to Mr. Obama as the president weighs in the next weeks whether to add more American troops to Afghanistan. In the past, Mr. Gates has expressed some skepticism about a buildup.

The defense secretary made his remarks two days after General McChrystal submitted a report to his superiors at the Pentagon on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. Mr. Gates said he has since forwarded the report, which has not been made public, to Mr. Obama, and that he and Admiral Mullen would be offering their views to the president next week. General McChrystal is expected to ask for additional forces within the month.

Military strategists close to the Pentagon say that General McChrystal might offer three options for troop increases, with what he sees as associated risks for the American effort in Afghanistan. A high-risk option, the strategists said, might be 10,000 to 15,000 additional troops. A medium-risk option could be 25,000 troops and a low-risk option might be 45,000 troops.

Defense analysts said it was possible that Mr. Gates might recommend to the president what Pentagon officials call the “Goldilocks option,” the medium-risk one in the middle.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, cautioned that talk about troop levels was speculation. “Anyone who tells you that they know how many troops the commander is going to ask for and the options he may or may not present doesn’t know what he’s talking about because that has not been determined yet,” Mr. Morrell said. He said that Mr. Gates had not made up his mind about any level of troop increase he would recommend to the president.

A wily former C.I.A. director who has worked for eight presidents of both parties, Mr. Gates will also take cues on troop increases from Mr. Obama, whose schedule and public speeches have been dominated this summer by the health care debate.

At the news conference, Mr. Gates said he understood why public support for the war in Afghanistan was slipping, but counseled patience. “The fact that Americans would be tired of having of their sons and daughters at risk and in battle is not surprising,” Mr. Gates said.

He asked that Americans give the strategy time to work. “Our new commander appeared on the scene in June,” he said, adding that not all of the 21,000 additional American troops Mr. Obama approved for Afghanistan in March are in place yet.

When they are, sometime this fall, the United States will have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan.

Mr. Gates, a Republican who served as defense secretary in 2007 and 2008 for President George W. Bush, also said he was not of the same view as the syndicated columnist George F. Will, who wrote in a column published Tuesday that the United States should significantly reduce its presence in Afghanistan.

“I have a lot of respect for Mr. Will, but in this case I do disagree with him,” Mr. Gates said. “I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan.”

Asked if the administration needed to do more to clarify for the American public the reason for the war, Mr. Gates said he thought that the president had been “crystal clear” in a recent speech about Afghanistan to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Mr. Gates also said that “I don’t believe that the war is slipping through the administration’s fingers.”

Sixteen militants killed in second day of Bara operation

LANDI KOTAL: At least 16 suspected militants were killed and 35 others arrested on the second day of a military operation in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency on Wednesday.
Commander of the operation Brigadier Fayyaz told journalists in Jamrud that security forces had faced stiff resistance in Akkakhel and Kohi localities, but cleared the areas after a clash which left several militants dead.Journalists were shown hundreds of AK-47, 12-bore, .303 and 7mm rifles, machineguns, airguns, pistols, rocket-propelled grenades and thousands of rounds seized from militants’ bases and an arms market in Bara.The arrested men, including pro-administration tribal elder Malik Duran Gul Malikdin Khel, were also brought before the journalists.Khyber Agency’s Political Agent Tariq Hayat said Malik Duran had been arrested for violating curfew and he was later released.Mr Hayat said that Bara-based militant organisations were getting financial support from abroad and had links with the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.He said security forces had seized a large quantity of drugs from militants’ bases.He said two explosive-laden vehicles had been found at the house of Lashkar-i-Islam leader Sabeel, adding that these were intended to be used in suicide attacks in Peshawar.The houses of militant leaders Sabeel, Hastam, Murad, Habib, Kashkol, Tayyab and Saifoor were demolished and the two vehicles were blown up.Mr Hayat said the operation would be expanded to other areas in Khyber Agency.‘We do not have any deal and will not have any deal with anyone who challenges the government,’ he said.

Pakistan's new winged weapon

Pakistan has a new weapon to combat the Taliban - a domestically made, unmanned aircraft that is expected to replace the country's use of controversial US drones.
With more than 50 air attacks in the last two years, hundreds of civilians have been killed and public attitude towards the government has been inflamed.The Pakistani military has said it has made gains on the Taliban this year with the aid of US drones, and that it has also been providing reliable information about targets which the US has not taken out.With greater control over its skies, the Pakistani military hopes that will change.

Forty suspected militants killed in Bara operation

LANDI KOTAL: At least 40 suspected militants were killed and 43 others captured in a new military offensive in the Bara area of Khyber tribal region on Tuesday. Helicopter gunships provided cover to troops.The local administration imposed curfew in Bara tehsil in the morning before the operation, Biya Daraghlam (Here I come again), was launched.In an earlier operation, named ‘Here I come’, the army did not succeed to enforce the writ of the government in Bara and the area remained under the control of the outlawed Lashkar-i-Islam.Briefing journalists, Khyber Agency’s Political Agent Capt (retd) Tariq Hayat Khan said there was no time-limit for the new operation and it would continue till the achievement of all its objectives.He said the operation had been launched at the request of the people of Bara whose lives had been made miserable by anti-social elements. He said the curfew would be lifted only after the security forces had gained control of the situation. Capt Hayat said that peaceful people of the area would not be harmed, but those who had challenged the writ of the government would be severely dealt with.Referring to deaths of security personnel in recent attacks, he said: ‘It’s payback time and we are going to pay back with interest.’He said the operation was not only against the Lashkar-i-Islam, but against all groups, organisations and individuals who had challenged the government.He said the people who had been detained would be released if they proved their innocence.He refuted allegations that some captured people had been shot at close range and said that militants were killed only when they put up resistance.Military commander for Khyber Agency Brig Fayyaz was present at the briefing. Two leaders of the banned group, Murad and Abdur Rehman, were among those killed. Security personnel blocked all points of entry to Bara and the local bazaar was closed.Troops operated mainly in Shalobar, Qamakhel and Malikdinkhel areas.
Ali Hazrat Bacha adds from Peshawar: Police arrested at least 20 suspected militants who were fleeing towards Peshawar after the operation was launched in Bara.SSP (Operation) Abdul Ghafoor Afridi said around 500 policemen had been deployed at 35 points on the Kohat road, Bara road and around Hayatabad Township.According to sources, police intended to launch an operation in the outskirts of Peshawar against people who were supporting militants and criminals.

Suicide Bomber Kills 23 in Eastern Afghanistan

VOA News
A suicide bomber has detonated explosives in a crowd of government officials in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 23 people, including the country's deputy chief of intelligence.

The bombing occurred Wednesday morning at a mosque in the city of Mehtarlam in Laghman province, about 100 kilometers east of Kabul.

Authorities suspect intelligence official Abdullah Laghmani was the target of the attack.

A Taliban spokesman says the militant group was responsible for the bombing.

US senators raise Balochistan issue

ISLAMABAD: Three US senators called on President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday and expressed concern over the law and order situation in Balochistan.

According to sources, Senators Carl Levin and Jack Reed of the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee and Edward Kaufman of the Foreign Relations Committee stressed the need for complete peace in Balochistan and asked the government to settle all outstanding issues with the Baloch people.

The US believes that peace in Balochistan is imperative to winning the ‘war on terror’ because security agencies will not be able to concentrate on other fronts if they remain engaged in the province.

President Zardari called upon the US to expedite reimbursement of $1.6 billion outstanding payments relating to the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) and work for early adoption of the Kerry Lugar Bill and legislation to set up reconstruction opportunity zones (RoZs) in war-affected areas.

He also sought help in the energy sector and for a $2.5 billion plan for rehabilitation of displaced people and reconstruction of their area.

Briefing journalists after the meeting, presidency’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the president had urged the senators to try to expedite the reimbursement and supply of critically needed equipment, including helicopter gunships.

‘Payment of outstanding amounts in the support funds is important for the security forces to continue the ongoing military operation against militants,’ he said.

The president said inordinate delays in reimbursement of the CSF claims were not conducive for the fight against militancy.

He said that security forces had cleared 94 per cent of Swat and a large number of displaced people had returned to their homes.

A national consensus and support of a cross-section of people had made the success possible, he said.

The president said Isaf and Nato forces in Afghanistan should ensure that there was no direct or indirect support to militant factions from Afghanistan. He called for increased access of Pakistani goods to the US and EU markets.

President Zardari said attaching conditions to aid would be counter-productive and impart a transactional nature to the relationship which must be avoided.

Terming the RoZ legislation a critically important national security initiative, he called for increasing its area as well as product coverage.

He said that a deadlock over the legislation would send wrong signals to the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan who badly need a peace dividend.

He welcomed President Barack Obama’s commitment to help Pakistan address its energy needs and said the US government and private sector could help by supporting projects and mobilising investment.

Pakistan's religion minister shot

Pakistan's Minister for Religious Affairs, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, has been injured in a gun attack on his car in the capital, Islamabad, police say.
A man believed to be Mr Kazmi's driver was killed in the attack and another passenger injured, said police.No one has claimed to have carried out the attack. Mr Kazmi has been an outspoken critic of the Taliban.He was behind a conference in May which denounced the Taliban's suicide bombing tactics as un-Islamic."Gunmen sprayed bullets on the minister's car," a police officer who identified himself as Qasim told Reuters news agency.