KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- It has been nearly eight years since U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan, but the war against the Taliban insurgency is bloodier than ever.
The number of Afghan civilians killed in the wake of the war has increased 24 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same time period last year, according to the United Nations. And NATO and American forces suffered record losses this summer, with 75 troops killed in the month of July, making it the deadliest month for Western troops in the country since American warplanes first began bombing the Taliban in October 2001.
The U.S. death toll will remain high for some time as the Taliban has gained the upper hand, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Monday.
"It's a very aggressive enemy right now," McChrystal told the newspaper in the interview Saturday at his office in Kabul, Afghanistan. "We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work."
The Taliban insurgency has blossomed in northern Afghan provinces such as Kunduz and Baghlan, long considered some of the safest territory in the country. And just 20 miles east of Kabul, Taliban "judges" operate openly in the back of pickup trucks, settling legal disputes between villagers in makeshift "mobile courts."
The insurgents are filling a vacuum left by Afghanistan's Western-backed government, which foreign diplomats and military commanders concede suffers from nepotism, corruption and predatory practices.
Challenge to the Afghan government
Afghans will go to the polls on August 20 to vote in the nation's second presidential election since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. Opposition candidates have blamed the Taliban insurgency's continued growth on Hamid Karzai, the man who has occupied the presidential palace in Kabul for the past seven years.
"Because of the failure of the current administration, in losing the support of its own people, there is a vacuum, and that vacuum has led to a deterioration of security as well as in all parts of life," said Karzai's top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.
McChrystal, a former U.S. joint special operations commander who recently took command of the U.S.-NATO operation in Afghanistan, said the Taliban are challenging the very legitimacy of his partners in the Afghan government.
"The fundamental conflict in any insurgency is fighting for legitimacy with the people and the support of the population," he explained in a recent interview with CNN.
"Who do they look to as their legitimate government? Who do they pay taxes to? Who do they look to for rule of law? Who do they look to as protection? In the case of this insurgency, what we have is an Afghan government that is trying to establish itself around the country. It has problems with corruption. It has problems in some cases with predatory behavior."
Along the traffic-choked streets of Kabul, residents rarely complain about the Taliban. Instead, they often rail against the Western-backed Afghan state.
"What service has this government provided us?" asked Fawad, a young street vendor who sells watermelons for 20 cents apiece. He said that at least once a week, Afghan police show up and demand bribes of up to $100 from vendors, who must pay if they want to continue selling their goods.
"We don't want a tyrant who oppresses the people," Fawad said when asked who he would vote for in the elections. "What we want is security."
Earlier this month, an Afghan employee for CNN, who prefers not to be named for security reasons, witnessed how locals turn to the Taliban to resolve their disputes, in a village barely 20 miles east of the Afghan capital.
He said openly armed insurgents rolled up in a pickup truck, and a Taliban judge began mediating local disputes. In one case, the Taliban official resolved a disagreement between two shepherds whose flocks of sheep had gotten intermixed while grazing.
"I was shocked," said the Afghan eyewitness, who was visiting the village to attend a funeral. "The villagers were lining up asking for help from the Taliban."
NATO commanders say they have had reports of Taliban "mobile courts" operating in similar fashion just outside the southern city of Kandahar.
"There are cases of rule of law being taken care of by the Taliban instead of the Afghan government," said Col. Paul Kolken, a Dutch military spokesman at Kandahar Air Base. He said the Taliban are operating mobile courts as close as possible to the city of Kandahar.
Afghan corruption at the highest levels?
Human rights activists accuse the Karzai government of making deals with some of the country's most notorious warlords ahead of the August 20 presidential elections.
"A lot of Afghans are telling us they're quite disappointed that Karzai's not even running on a platform of promises or performance, but just an old fashioned Afghan cutting of deals," said Sam Zarifi of Amnesty International. He pointed to a recent article by Elizabeth Rubin, in the New York Times Magazine, that describes Karzai's choice of Mohammed Fahim, a former Northern Alliance militia commander, as vice presidential running mate. Fahim has long been accused of committing human rights abuses.
"Starting on the top and bringing Fahim back, this is horrific," Zarifi said. He lamented that Afghan politicians are rarely prosecuted for crimes, and if they are, they are often pardoned.
"Karzai has really regressed over the past seven or eight years," Zarifi said.
Many Afghan observers argue this culture of impunity runs directly to the presidential palace. For years, Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali, has been dogged by accusations that he is a major player in the booming drug trade in southern Afghanistan.
One high-ranking Western diplomat stationed in Kabul described discussing the allegations with Karzai in a one-on-one meeting. Karzai asked for advice on how best to address his brother's alleged illicit business dealings, the diplomat said. At one point, the diplomat said, Karzai looked up helplessly, asking, "He's my brother. What can I do?"
Both Karzai and his brother have repeatedly dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.
This month, Karzai made a rare trip outside his presidential palace to woo voters in Baghlan province. He conceded that Afghanistan is still far from stable, but promised that if re-elected he would redouble his efforts to rebuild the country.
"Terrorism is still harassing us. It is still killing us. It is still destroying this land," he told a crowd of several thousand supporters. "The moment I become the president of Afghanistan -- again -- through your vote, through your able hands, my first attempt will be to ensure perpetual peace."
Several days later, at a press conference with Karzai, the newly appointed secretary general of the NATO military alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called for NATO countries to contribute more troops to support the Afghan government.
"NATO-ISAF is here to protect your elections," the former Danish prime minister said at Kabul's presidential palace. "What we need are credible elections that reflect the will of the people."
ISAF -- the International Security Assistance Force -- is the United Nations-mandated U.S.-NATO presence in Afghanistan.
U.S. needs a strong Afghan partner
President Obama's administration has committed more resources and troops to battling the insurgency and training Afghan security forces, while also sending additional diplomats and civilian aid workers to focus on reconstruction and development.
When Obama took office, he vowed to redirect military resources from the war in Iraq to Afghanistan, which he described as being -- along with neighboring Pakistan -- the "central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism."
McChrystal told The Wall Street Journal that he is still considering a request to send 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan in addition to the planned 68,000 troops that are expected to be in place by the end of the year.
The information is a preview of a strategic assessment he plans to deliver to Washington later this month.
The military initiative is an effort to bolster Afghanistan's weak government, which many Afghan observers argue has been, more than anything, a source of frustration and popular disappointment.
"If the same trend continues, if the same failing of the administration continues, more troops, more resources, more civilian advisors will not be a substitute," argued presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah.
Security will be on the minds of most Afghan voters as they head to the polls, according to Jahid Mohseni, the Australian-Afghan head of Tolo TV, Afghanistan's most influential TV channel.
"People are frustrated with things not happening," Mohseni said. "In terms of day-to-day life, the development that they wanted in government has not been happening."
"They are looking at being able to walk down the street at night without ... risking getting attacked, et cetera. They want to make sure that their kids don't get kidnapped."
Monday, August 10, 2009
Opium barons at top of kill or capture list as US targets the Taleban
www.timesonline.co.uk
The Pentagon has put 50 of Afghanistan’s powerful opium barons on a “kill or capture” list, signalling a radical shift in tactics against the Taleban.
The announcement came as the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, admitted that the insurgency, nurtured by tens of millions of dollars from the country’s vast poppy fields, now held the upper hand.
The existence of the “joint integrated prioritised target list” — a rogues’ gallery of drug lords who are earmarked for arrest or assassination — is revealed in an unpublished Senate report obtained yesterday by The Times.
It was confirmed by Rear-Admiral Gregory Smith, the top US military spokesman in Afghanistan. “The list of targets are those that are contributing to the insurgency — the key leadership — and part of that obviously is the link between the narco-industry and the militants,” he said.
The report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee does not give names but it spells out the new military objectives clearly: “We have a list of 367 ‘kill or capture’ targets, including 50 targets who link drugs and insurgency,” a US general told the panel.
“The military places no restrictions on the use of force with these selected targets, which means they can be killed or captured on the battlefield,” the report states.
The generals insisted, however, that no targeted assassinations were authorised “away from the battlefield”. They did not provide their definition of “battlefield”.
Most of the drug lords linked to the Taleban are known to live in Quetta, Pakistan, and targeting them would probably have to involve operations similar to the missile strike last week that killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban.
Such cross-border strikes have become increasingly frequent in the war on the insurgency, often provoking the ire of the Pakistani Government. The new strategy of aiming Hellfire missiles at drug dealers, and even corrupt Afghan officials, as one officer suggested, will be even more controversial.
The Senate report notes that several Nato members opposed the tactic earlier this year, questioning “whether killing traffickers and destroying drug labs complied with international law”.
Two US generals told the panel that the rules of engagement governing the conduct of US forces in Afghanistan and the international law of war “had been interpreted to allow them to put drug traffickers with proven links to the insurgency on a kill list”.
The aggressive new approach to Afghanistan’s drug trade and its links to the militants reflects America’s frustration with the authorities in Kabul, the capital. The US previously sought the arrest of suspected drug lords but has found that they tended to get lost in the corrupt jungle that is the Afghan judiciary.
No extradition treaty exists between the two countries, so sometimes loopholes have to be found. The Senate report details one such “creative response” involving British and US agents.
“In October 2008, agents from the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] and Britain’s Soca [Serious Organised Crime Agency] tricked Haji Juma Khan, a major kingpin linked to the Taleban who ran his empire out of Quetta, into flying into Indonesia,” it says.
He was promptly arrested and flown to New York to face charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and supporting a terrorist organisation.
Estimates of the Taleban’s annual takings from the Afghan opium trade range between $75 million (£45 million) and $125 million.
According to the report, the largest source of the Taleban's drug income is the tax paid by traffickers to the Quetta shura, the insurgents' governing council based in the Pakistani city.
The urgency of curbing the Taleban’s power was highlighted by General McChrystal, who gave a bleak assessment of the progress of a war that has been dragging on for eight years. “It’s a very agressive enemy right now,” he said. “We’ve got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It’s hard work.”
As if to illustrate his point, a small group of Taleban fighters infiltrated a provincial capital 40 miles south of Kabul yesterday. The fighters - some disguised as women, with suicide vests hidden under their burqas - fired rocket-propelled grenades at government buildings in the city of Pul-i-Alam. Three policemen and two civilians were killed, along with six militants, said a local government spokesman.
Afghanistan closes Kabul route for Kurram people
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PESHAWAR: The only road linking Kurram Agency with the outside world was closed after the Afghan government told tribesmen that they could not travel to Peshawar via Kabul because of the presidential election to be held there on August 20.Sources said the Afghan government had informed the authorities in Upper and Lower Kurram that the border with Pakistan would remain closed till the completion of election process.
People of the region have been travelling to Peshawar and other parts of the country via Kabul and Jalalabad for almost two years since the main highway linking Parachinar with Thall cannot be used because of militancy.At present, a Cessna plane is the only means of transportation for the people of Kurram. Its one-way fare is Rs7,000 per passenger. The air strip in Parachinar has proper landing facilities built by the Civil Aviation Authority in late 1980s.President Asif Ali Zardari had recently directed the ministry of defence to arrange flights between Peshawar and Parachinar, but no action has been taken so far.
Solidarity Walk in Rawalpindi by Christians
Islamabad: On behalf of Pakistan Christian Congress Xavier William and the Churches Association of Rawalpindi and Islamabad organized a Solidarity Walk in Rawalpindi to support the Christians of Gojra. This Walk was organized at the St. Paul Church, Mall road, Rawalpindi. We invited all the Churches or Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
The walk started with prayer and praise at the St. Paul Church, then Mr. Xavier William the Coordinator of Pakistan Christian Congress led a special prayer for the martyrs of the Gojra incident.
The Bishops and the pastors gave a message on peace, some of the leading personalities like Pastor Sohail Samar, Mr. Robinson Asghar, Mr. Jeffard Daniel, Pastor Lamuel George, Mr. Patras William, Mr. George Boota and Retired Col. Treslor were present for the Solidarity Walk. Then the walk started towards the Rawalpindi Press Club. There were around 1500 people present at the walk.
The Bishops, Pastors and the organizers requested the participants to join us for the "Black Day".
In the end the Bishops, Pastors prayed for the Christian Community of Pakistan and thanked all the participants.
The walk started with prayer and praise at the St. Paul Church, then Mr. Xavier William the Coordinator of Pakistan Christian Congress led a special prayer for the martyrs of the Gojra incident.
The Bishops and the pastors gave a message on peace, some of the leading personalities like Pastor Sohail Samar, Mr. Robinson Asghar, Mr. Jeffard Daniel, Pastor Lamuel George, Mr. Patras William, Mr. George Boota and Retired Col. Treslor were present for the Solidarity Walk. Then the walk started towards the Rawalpindi Press Club. There were around 1500 people present at the walk.
The Bishops, Pastors and the organizers requested the participants to join us for the "Black Day".
In the end the Bishops, Pastors prayed for the Christian Community of Pakistan and thanked all the participants.
Shut Out at Home, Americans Go to China
BEIJING — Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.
Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States.
“I’ve seen a surge of young people coming to work in China over the last few years,” said Jack Perkowski, founder of Asimco Technologies, one of the largest automotive parts companies in China.
“When I came over to China in 1994, that was the first wave of Americans coming to China,” he said. “These young people are part of this big second wave.”
One of those in the latest wave is Joshua Arjuna Stephens, who graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies. Two years ago, he decided to take a temporary summer position in Shanghai with China Prep, an educational travel company.
“I didn’t know anything about China,” said Mr. Stephens, who worked on market research and program development. “People thought I was nuts to go not speaking the language, but I wanted to do something off the beaten track.”
Two years later, after stints in the nonprofit sector and at a large public relations firm in Beijing, he is highly proficient in Mandarin and works as a manager for XPD Media, a social media company based in Beijing that makes online games.
Jonathan Woetzel, a partner with McKinsey & Company in Shanghai who has lived in China since the mid-1980s, says that compared with just a few years ago, he was seeing more young Americans arriving in China to be part of an entrepreneurial boom. “There’s a lot of experimentation going on in China right now, particularly in the energy sphere, and when people are young they are willing to come and try something new,” he said
And the Chinese economy is more hospitable for both entrepreneurs and job seekers, with a gross domestic product that rose 7.9 percent in the most recent quarter compared with the period a year earlier. Unemployment in urban areas is 4.3 percent, according to government data.
Grace Hsieh, president of the Yale Club in Beijing and a 2007 graduate, says she’s seen a rise in the number of Yale graduates who have come to work in Beijing since she arrived in China two years ago. She is working as an account executive in Beijing for Hill & Knowlton, the public relations company.
Sarabeth Berman, a 2006 graduate of Barnard College with a major in urban studies, initially arrived in Beijing to take a job that would have been difficult for a 23-year-old to land in the United States: program director at BeijingDance/LDTX, the first modern dance company in China to be founded independently of the government.
Ms. Berman said she was hired for her familiarity with Western modern dance rather than a deep knowledge of China. “Despite my lack of language skills and the fact that I had no experience working in China, I was given the opportunity to manage the touring, international projects, and produce and program our annual Beijing Dance Festival.”
After two years of living and working in China, Ms. Berman is proficient in Mandarin. She travels throughout China, Europe and the United States with the dance company.
Willy Tsao, the artistic director of BeijingDance/LDTX, said he hired Ms. Berman because of her ability to make connections beyond China. “I needed someone who was capable of communicating with the Western world.”
Another dynamic in the hiring process, Mr. Tsao says, is that Westerners can often bring a skill set that is harder to find among the Chinese.
“Sarabeth is always taking initiative and thinking what we can do,” he said, “while I think the more standard Chinese approach is to take orders.” He sees the difference as rooted in the educational system. “In Chinese schools students are encouraged to be quiet and less outspoken; it fosters a culture of listening more than initiating.”
Mr. Perkowski says many Chinese companies are looking to hire native English speakers to help them navigate the American market.
“I’m working with a company right now that wants me to help them find young American professionals who can be their liaisons to the U.S.,” he said. “They want people who understand the social and cultural nuances of the West.”
Mr. Perkowski’s latest venture, JFP Holdings, a merchant bank based in Beijing, hasn’t posted any job openings, but has received more than 60 résumés; a third of them are from young people in the United States who want to come work in China, he said.
Mick Zomnir, 20, a soon-to-be junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is working as a summer intern for JFP. “As things have gotten more difficult in the U.S., I started to think about opportunities elsewhere,” he said. He does not speak Chinese but says he will begin studying Mandarin when he returns to M.I.T. in the fall.
A big draw of working in China, many young people say, is that they feel it has allowed them to skip a rung or two on the career ladder.
Ms. Berman said: “There is no doubt that China is an awesome place to jump-start your career. Back in the U.S., I would be intern No. 3 at some company or selling tickets at Lincoln Center.”
For others, like Jason Misium, 23, China has solved the cash flow problem of starting a business. After graduating with a degree in biology from Harvard in 2008, Mr. Misium came to China to study the language. Then he started Sophos Academic Group, an academic consulting firm that works with Chinese students who want to study in the United States. “It’s China’s fault that I’m still here,” he says. “It’s just so cheap to start a business.” It cost him the equivalent of $12,000, which he had in savings, he said.
Among many young Americans, the China exit strategy is a common topic of conversation. Mr. Stephens, Ms. Berman and Mr. Misium all said they were planning to return to the United States eventually.
Mr. Woetzel of McKinsey said work experience in China was not an automatic ticket to a great job back home. He said it was not a marker the way an Ivy League education is: “The mere fact of just showing up and working in China and speaking Chinese is not enough.”
That said, Mr. Woetzel added, someone who has been able to make their mark in China is a valuable hire. “At McKinsey, we are looking for people who have demonstrated leadership,” he said, “and working in a context like China builds character, requires you to be a lot more entrepreneurial and forces you to innovate.”
Gilani, Kiyani and Hoti arrive in Swat
SWAT : Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kiyani and Chief Minister Pukhtunkhwa Ameer Haider Khan Hoti have arrived here on Monday.During the visit they are expected to visit Seedo Sharif Hospital. Prime minister is also due to address the jirga in Seedo Sharif.High security measures have been put in place on the occasion in Mangora and Seedo Sharif.
Terrorists on the run; to be eliminated soon; Gilani
SWAT : Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday said that the terrorists were on the run, the differences between them are widening and they will soon be eliminated.Addressing a large gathering of elders here, the prime minister said that government had to ensure its writ and resorted to the use of military to counter the miscreants.
"No one will any longer be allowed to dishonour our women, deny education to them, make their lives miserable, create lawlessness," Gilani said in his first visit since the return of the displaced people.
He asked the people of Swat and Malakand to be wary of "blacksheep" who mislead them and create problems for them and the country.
Governor NWFP Owais Ghani, Chief minister NWFP Ameer Haider Khan Hoti and Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif attended the public meeting.
The prime minister who made an unannounced visit to the scenic Swat valley, that was forcefully vacated from groups of militants, said the valley as more beautiful than Switzerland and vowed to revive its main tourism industry.
He urged the locals to come up with suggestions so as to revive the business activities that grounded to a halt and assured full government support.
The prime minister said the government would soon introduce a special package for Swat that includes its reconstruction, rehabilitation of affected people besides initiating new development projects for the areas' uplift.
He said the federal government would provide as much financial assistance for Swat and the rehabilitation of locals.
"Money does not matter before your safety and development," he said while addressing to the Swat locals.
He said the government had already allocated Rs 50 billion for rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), so as to continue the development projects.
Gilani announced setting up of Navtec in Swat besides relaxing the age limit to 28 and lowering the qualification to Bachelors so as to enable the local youth get skilled training with a stipend of Rs 10,000.
The prime minister also announced construction of Dargai- Mingora dual carriageway and said funds for the project will be sought through the Friends of Democratic Pakistan.
Terrorists have neither any religion nor any conscience and the people are witness that they turned their guns towards their own people.
He said the of people of Swat and Malakand have sacrificed their today for a bright and prosperous future of the country.
"I salute you all on behalf of the nation," Gilani said.
He asked all the four chief ministers to nominate a minister each to represent at the flag hoisting ceremony on 14th August in Swat.
He also paid rich tributes to all those who participated in this operation to rid the country of the elements who were bent upon creating chaos.
The prime minister said the people who hosted hundreds of thousands of displaced families deserve rich tributes as they exhibited the spirit of Ansaar-e-Madinah.
He assured the people of Swat, Malakand and adjoining areas that the government will extend full support to the people and take all necessary measures to provide best possible facilities to these people.
He hoped peace and tranquility will soon return to the affected areas as the government gears up its machinery to rebuild the devastated areas.
The prime minister said it was vital that the new generation be enlightened enough to differentiate between what is right and wrong and the real message of Islam, that is against violence and preaches tolerance.
Earlier the prime minister and the Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvaiz Kayani were also briefed about the measures taken for return of the Internally Displaced Persons and reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.
"No one will any longer be allowed to dishonour our women, deny education to them, make their lives miserable, create lawlessness," Gilani said in his first visit since the return of the displaced people.
He asked the people of Swat and Malakand to be wary of "blacksheep" who mislead them and create problems for them and the country.
Governor NWFP Owais Ghani, Chief minister NWFP Ameer Haider Khan Hoti and Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif attended the public meeting.
The prime minister who made an unannounced visit to the scenic Swat valley, that was forcefully vacated from groups of militants, said the valley as more beautiful than Switzerland and vowed to revive its main tourism industry.
He urged the locals to come up with suggestions so as to revive the business activities that grounded to a halt and assured full government support.
The prime minister said the government would soon introduce a special package for Swat that includes its reconstruction, rehabilitation of affected people besides initiating new development projects for the areas' uplift.
He said the federal government would provide as much financial assistance for Swat and the rehabilitation of locals.
"Money does not matter before your safety and development," he said while addressing to the Swat locals.
He said the government had already allocated Rs 50 billion for rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), so as to continue the development projects.
Gilani announced setting up of Navtec in Swat besides relaxing the age limit to 28 and lowering the qualification to Bachelors so as to enable the local youth get skilled training with a stipend of Rs 10,000.
The prime minister also announced construction of Dargai- Mingora dual carriageway and said funds for the project will be sought through the Friends of Democratic Pakistan.
Terrorists have neither any religion nor any conscience and the people are witness that they turned their guns towards their own people.
He said the of people of Swat and Malakand have sacrificed their today for a bright and prosperous future of the country.
"I salute you all on behalf of the nation," Gilani said.
He asked all the four chief ministers to nominate a minister each to represent at the flag hoisting ceremony on 14th August in Swat.
He also paid rich tributes to all those who participated in this operation to rid the country of the elements who were bent upon creating chaos.
The prime minister said the people who hosted hundreds of thousands of displaced families deserve rich tributes as they exhibited the spirit of Ansaar-e-Madinah.
He assured the people of Swat, Malakand and adjoining areas that the government will extend full support to the people and take all necessary measures to provide best possible facilities to these people.
He hoped peace and tranquility will soon return to the affected areas as the government gears up its machinery to rebuild the devastated areas.
The prime minister said it was vital that the new generation be enlightened enough to differentiate between what is right and wrong and the real message of Islam, that is against violence and preaches tolerance.
Earlier the prime minister and the Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvaiz Kayani were also briefed about the measures taken for return of the Internally Displaced Persons and reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.
US admits Pak role in Baitullah’s killing
WASHINGTON : US National Security Adisor James Jones Sunday said evidence suggests Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead, noting that his ouster and dissension within the Taliban represents an important moment in the struggle against violent extremism in Pakistan. Jones described the US relationship with Pakistan as very positive and credited Islamabad for major blow to the Taliban, which he described as a "positive indication that things are turning for the better" in Pakistan. "We think so. The Pakistani government believes that he is (killed) and all evidence that we have suggests that. But there are reports from the Mehsud organization that he is not, but we think it looks like he is," he told FOX News Sunday when asked if the feared militant is dead. The retired Marines general said the dissension in the Taliban ranks is "not a bad thing for us" but said he could not confirm at the moment the death of one or both top contenders for Pakistani Taliban leadership. "It goes to show that I think the strategy that we are engaged with Pakistan is actually having some effect, and that is good." Questioned what does the development say about President Barack Obama's fight against extremism, Jones praised Islamabad's anti-terrorism efforts and said the US and Pakistan are moving in the right direction. "I think in terms of Pakistan, it means that the Pakistani government and the army is and our relationship with the army are having a good effect and I think that we are moving in the right direction. "Mehsud was a very bad individual, he was responsible for a lot of violence, a lot of innocnent pepople losing their lives and I think that if there is dissenion in their (Taliban) ranks and if, in fact, he is - as we think - is dead this is a positive indication that in Pakistan things are turning for the better." Jones also cited Pakistan's effective offensive against the Taliban in Swat valley region while also showing sensitivity for the displaced people and said the two countries have a growing relationship. "We have a growing relationship in terms of intelligence sharing and I think the relationships between the two countries is certainly very positive right now. And also, the reltionship with Afghanistan, dont forget that this is a theater of wider engagement.
Eleven militants, five Lashkar men killed in clash
GHALANAI: Eleven militants and five members of an anti-Taliban Lashkar were killed in a fierce gun battle in Khwaizai tehsil in Mohmand tribal region on Sunday morning.
According to official sources, a group of militants attacked the residence of the pro-government chief of the local peace committee in Khwaizai at about 2am. The attack was repulsed by the Lashkar and the clash ended at around dawn.The sources said that Malak Ajmal, the chief of the peace committee, suffered serious injuries and was taken to the agency headquarters hospital in Ghalani where he died. Four men of the Lashkar were killed and seven are missing.During the clash 11 militants, a key local commander among them, were killed and seven injured.Both sides used heavy weapons during the clash and security forces also pounded militants’ positions with artillery from Ghalani.
In Spinki Tangi area, a child and two women suffered injuries when an artillery shell fell on a house.
According to official sources, a group of militants attacked the residence of the pro-government chief of the local peace committee in Khwaizai at about 2am. The attack was repulsed by the Lashkar and the clash ended at around dawn.The sources said that Malak Ajmal, the chief of the peace committee, suffered serious injuries and was taken to the agency headquarters hospital in Ghalani where he died. Four men of the Lashkar were killed and seven are missing.During the clash 11 militants, a key local commander among them, were killed and seven injured.Both sides used heavy weapons during the clash and security forces also pounded militants’ positions with artillery from Ghalani.
In Spinki Tangi area, a child and two women suffered injuries when an artillery shell fell on a house.
Claims Differ on Pakistani Taliban Struggle
NEW YORK TIMES
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Amid contested claims over a reported falling out among factions struggling for control of the Pakistani Taliban, two bomb explosions Monday in the restive northwest of the country suggested that militants were still active in the region, according to news reports.
The Associated Press quoted intelligence officials as saying Pakistani troops struck back after a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a security checkpoint in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
The events came days after the Pakistan Taliban supreme leader, Baitullah Mehsud was said by aides last Friday to have been killed in an American drone strike in South Waziristan two days earlier.
Mr. Mehsud’s death has not yet been officially confirmed, but American and Pakistani officials have grown increasingly sure that he was killed.
After the latest bombings, the intelligence officials, who spoke in return for anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said troops killed three militants after the bombing. Police said that a second bomb exploded near a local government official’s vehicle in the city of Peshawar, but there were no immediate details on casualties, The A.P. said.
Pakistani officials said Saturday that Hakimullah Mehsud, a young and aggressive commander, had been shot dead in a fight with another leader, Waliur Rehman, during a meeting in a remote area of South Waziristan. The officials said the men were fighting over who would take over the Pakistani Taliban after the apparent death of Baitullah Mehsud.
But on Sunday, Reuters reported that in a phone call, Mr. Rehman denied that any special meeting or fight had occurred, and insisted that Hakimullah Mehsud was still alive.
“He definitely will call you and tell you everything,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
The Reuters reporter, Alamgir Bhitani, said that he was certain that the caller was Mr. Rehman, with whom he had spoken before, but that he waited hours for a call from Mr. Mehsud that never came.
With Baitullah Mehsud’s death also unconfirmed, the United States national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, said on Fox News on Sunday that even without conclusive proof of his death, the evidence all pointed to it.
“I think that if there’s dissention in the ranks and if, in fact, he is, as we think, dead, this is a positive indication that in Pakistan, things are turning for the better,” he said.
But an American adviser in Pakistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing his relationship with the government, cautioned Sunday that even if the Mehsuds are proved to be dead, that would be no guarantee that the Pakistani Taliban would fall apart.
“There is broad recognition that this is no longer an old-fashioned test of wills with troublesome Pashtun warlords and that eliminating Baitullah Mehsud would not end the insurgency in South Waziristan nor its influence on the insurgencies in North-West Frontier Province,” the official wrote in an e-mail message.
The adviser also cast doubt on the idea that the Pakistani military would move quickly to exploit any weaknesses, suggesting instead that the government was more in a mood to come to some negotiated settlement with the Mehsud faction — something that American officials have opposed.
“I think there will be, and probably are right now, furtive negotiations going on, but the military option remains,” the American adviser wrote.
A nearly total information blackout has settled over the remote area in northwestern Pakistan since the airstrike on Wednesday.
The Mehsud tribe, officials say, has gone underground, trying to choose a successor.
The blackout is so complete that even longtime Taliban sources became difficult to reach, indicating some sort of turmoil. Many phone lines in the area have been down altogether.
Those who were reached said they knew little. Speaking by phone on Sunday, a resident in the area said he had been listening to hand-held radio communications among fighters, and that there had been no reports of a struggle.
He also said few people in the area believed that Baitullah Mehsud had been killed.
Early on Saturday, before reports of a gunfight had surfaced, Hakimullah Mehsud talked to the BBC by telephone to claim that Baitullah Mehsud was still alive.
Meanwhile, Pakistani government officials stood by their information that a fight had occurred and that both Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud had been killed in the past few days. And both Pakistani and American officials said Sunday that they had news of a power struggle in the wake of Baitullah Mehsud’s reported death.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Amid contested claims over a reported falling out among factions struggling for control of the Pakistani Taliban, two bomb explosions Monday in the restive northwest of the country suggested that militants were still active in the region, according to news reports.
The Associated Press quoted intelligence officials as saying Pakistani troops struck back after a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a security checkpoint in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
The events came days after the Pakistan Taliban supreme leader, Baitullah Mehsud was said by aides last Friday to have been killed in an American drone strike in South Waziristan two days earlier.
Mr. Mehsud’s death has not yet been officially confirmed, but American and Pakistani officials have grown increasingly sure that he was killed.
After the latest bombings, the intelligence officials, who spoke in return for anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said troops killed three militants after the bombing. Police said that a second bomb exploded near a local government official’s vehicle in the city of Peshawar, but there were no immediate details on casualties, The A.P. said.
Pakistani officials said Saturday that Hakimullah Mehsud, a young and aggressive commander, had been shot dead in a fight with another leader, Waliur Rehman, during a meeting in a remote area of South Waziristan. The officials said the men were fighting over who would take over the Pakistani Taliban after the apparent death of Baitullah Mehsud.
But on Sunday, Reuters reported that in a phone call, Mr. Rehman denied that any special meeting or fight had occurred, and insisted that Hakimullah Mehsud was still alive.
“He definitely will call you and tell you everything,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
The Reuters reporter, Alamgir Bhitani, said that he was certain that the caller was Mr. Rehman, with whom he had spoken before, but that he waited hours for a call from Mr. Mehsud that never came.
With Baitullah Mehsud’s death also unconfirmed, the United States national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, said on Fox News on Sunday that even without conclusive proof of his death, the evidence all pointed to it.
“I think that if there’s dissention in the ranks and if, in fact, he is, as we think, dead, this is a positive indication that in Pakistan, things are turning for the better,” he said.
But an American adviser in Pakistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing his relationship with the government, cautioned Sunday that even if the Mehsuds are proved to be dead, that would be no guarantee that the Pakistani Taliban would fall apart.
“There is broad recognition that this is no longer an old-fashioned test of wills with troublesome Pashtun warlords and that eliminating Baitullah Mehsud would not end the insurgency in South Waziristan nor its influence on the insurgencies in North-West Frontier Province,” the official wrote in an e-mail message.
The adviser also cast doubt on the idea that the Pakistani military would move quickly to exploit any weaknesses, suggesting instead that the government was more in a mood to come to some negotiated settlement with the Mehsud faction — something that American officials have opposed.
“I think there will be, and probably are right now, furtive negotiations going on, but the military option remains,” the American adviser wrote.
A nearly total information blackout has settled over the remote area in northwestern Pakistan since the airstrike on Wednesday.
The Mehsud tribe, officials say, has gone underground, trying to choose a successor.
The blackout is so complete that even longtime Taliban sources became difficult to reach, indicating some sort of turmoil. Many phone lines in the area have been down altogether.
Those who were reached said they knew little. Speaking by phone on Sunday, a resident in the area said he had been listening to hand-held radio communications among fighters, and that there had been no reports of a struggle.
He also said few people in the area believed that Baitullah Mehsud had been killed.
Early on Saturday, before reports of a gunfight had surfaced, Hakimullah Mehsud talked to the BBC by telephone to claim that Baitullah Mehsud was still alive.
Meanwhile, Pakistani government officials stood by their information that a fight had occurred and that both Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud had been killed in the past few days. And both Pakistani and American officials said Sunday that they had news of a power struggle in the wake of Baitullah Mehsud’s reported death.
U.S. to Hunt Down Afghan Drug Lords Tied to Taliban
WASHINGTON — Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, according to a Congressional study to be released this week.
United States military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law. They also said the move is an essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.
In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is releasing the report, two American generals serving in Afghanistan said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the “joint integrated prioritized target list.” That means they have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time.
The generals told Senate staff members that two credible sources and substantial additional evidence were required before a trafficker was placed on the list, and only those providing support to the insurgency would be made targets.
Currently, they said, there are about 50 major traffickers who contribute money to the Taliban on the list.
“We have a list of 367 ‘kill or capture’ targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and the insurgency,” one of the generals told the committee staff. The generals were not identified in the Senate report, which was obtained by The New York Times.
The shift in policy comes as the Obama administration, deep into the war in Afghanistan, makes significant changes to its strategy for dealing with that country’s lucrative drug trade, which provides 90 percent of the world’s heroin and has led to substantial government corruption.
The Senate report’s disclosure of a hit list for drug traffickers may lead to criticism in the United States over the expansion of the military’s mission, and NATO allies have already raised questions about the strategy of killing individuals who are not traditional military targets.
For years the American-led mission in Afghanistan had focused on destroying poppy crops. Pentagon officials have said their new emphasis is on weaning local farmers off the drug trade — including the possibility of paying them to grow nothing — and going after the drug runners and drug lords. But the Senate report is the first account of a policy to actually place drug chieftains aligned with the Taliban on a “kill or capture” list.
Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, would not comment on the Senate report, but said that “there is a positive, well-known connection between the drug trade and financing for the insurgency and terrorism.” Without directly addressing the existence of the target list, he said that it was “important to clarify that we are targeting terrorists with links to the drug trade, rather than targeting drug traffickers with links to terrorism.”
Several individuals suspected of ties to drug trafficking have already been apprehended and others have been killed by the United States military since the new policy went into effect earlier this year, a senior military official with direct knowledge of the matter said in an interview. Most of the targets are in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where both the drug trade and the insurgency are the most intense.
One American military officer serving in Afghanistan described the purpose of the target list for the Senate committee. “Our long-term approach is to identify the regional drug figures,” the unidentified officer is quoted as saying in the Senate report. The goal, he said, is to “persuade them to choose legitimacy, or remove them from the battlefield.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing delicate policy matters.
When Donald H. Rumsfeld was defense secretary, the Pentagon fiercely resisted efforts to draw the United States military into supporting counternarcotics efforts. Top military commanders feared that trying to prevent drug trafficking would only antagonize corrupt regional warlords whose support they needed, and might turn more of the populace against American troops.
It was only in the last year or two of the Bush administration that the United States began to recognize that the Taliban insurgency was being revived with the help of drug money.
The policy of going after drug lords is likely to raise legal concerns from some NATO countries that have troops in Afghanistan. Several NATO countries initially questioned whether the new policy would comply with international law.
“This was a hard sell in NATO,” said retired Gen. John Craddock, who was supreme allied commander of NATO forces until he retired in July.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the secretary general of NATO until last month, told the Senate committee staff that to deal with the concerns of other nations with troops in Afghanistan, safeguards had been put in place to make sure the alliance remained within legal bounds while pursuing drug traffickers. Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, is also informed before a mission takes place, according to a senior military official.
General Craddock said that some NATO countries were also concerned that the new policy would draw the drug lords closer to the Taliban, because they would turn to them for more protection. “But the opposite is the case, since it weakens the Taliban, so they can’t provide that protection,” General Craddock said. “If we continue to push on this, we will see progress,” he added. “It’s causing them problems.”
In a surprise, the Senate report reveals that the United States intelligence community believes that the Taliban has been getting less money from the drug trade than previous public studies have suggested. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency both estimate that the Taliban obtains about $70 million a year from drugs.
The Senate report found that American officials did not believe that Afghan drug money was fueling Al Qaeda, which instead relies on contributions from wealthy individuals and charities in Persian Gulf countries, as well as aid organizations working inside Afghanistan.
But even with the new, more cautious estimates, the Taliban has plenty of drug money to finance its relatively inexpensive insurgency. Taliban foot soldiers are paid just $10 a day — more if they plant an improvised explosive device.
Not all those suspected of drug trafficking will end up on the Pentagon’s list. Intelligence gathered by the United States and Afghanistan will more often be used for prosecutions, although American officials are frustrated that they still have not been able to negotiate an extradition treaty with the Afghan government.
A major unresolved problem in the counternarcotics strategy is the fact that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains wide open, and the Pakistanis are doing little to close down drug smuggling routes.
A senior American law enforcement official in the region is quoted in the report as saying that cooperation with Pakistan on counternarcotics is so poor that traffickers cross the border with impunity.
“We give them leads on targets,” the official said in describing the Pakistani government’s counternarcotics tactics, adding, “We get smiles, a decent cup of tea, occasional reheated sandwiches and assertions of progress, and we all leave with smiles on our faces.”
United States military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law. They also said the move is an essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.
In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is releasing the report, two American generals serving in Afghanistan said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the “joint integrated prioritized target list.” That means they have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time.
The generals told Senate staff members that two credible sources and substantial additional evidence were required before a trafficker was placed on the list, and only those providing support to the insurgency would be made targets.
Currently, they said, there are about 50 major traffickers who contribute money to the Taliban on the list.
“We have a list of 367 ‘kill or capture’ targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and the insurgency,” one of the generals told the committee staff. The generals were not identified in the Senate report, which was obtained by The New York Times.
The shift in policy comes as the Obama administration, deep into the war in Afghanistan, makes significant changes to its strategy for dealing with that country’s lucrative drug trade, which provides 90 percent of the world’s heroin and has led to substantial government corruption.
The Senate report’s disclosure of a hit list for drug traffickers may lead to criticism in the United States over the expansion of the military’s mission, and NATO allies have already raised questions about the strategy of killing individuals who are not traditional military targets.
For years the American-led mission in Afghanistan had focused on destroying poppy crops. Pentagon officials have said their new emphasis is on weaning local farmers off the drug trade — including the possibility of paying them to grow nothing — and going after the drug runners and drug lords. But the Senate report is the first account of a policy to actually place drug chieftains aligned with the Taliban on a “kill or capture” list.
Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, would not comment on the Senate report, but said that “there is a positive, well-known connection between the drug trade and financing for the insurgency and terrorism.” Without directly addressing the existence of the target list, he said that it was “important to clarify that we are targeting terrorists with links to the drug trade, rather than targeting drug traffickers with links to terrorism.”
Several individuals suspected of ties to drug trafficking have already been apprehended and others have been killed by the United States military since the new policy went into effect earlier this year, a senior military official with direct knowledge of the matter said in an interview. Most of the targets are in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where both the drug trade and the insurgency are the most intense.
One American military officer serving in Afghanistan described the purpose of the target list for the Senate committee. “Our long-term approach is to identify the regional drug figures,” the unidentified officer is quoted as saying in the Senate report. The goal, he said, is to “persuade them to choose legitimacy, or remove them from the battlefield.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing delicate policy matters.
When Donald H. Rumsfeld was defense secretary, the Pentagon fiercely resisted efforts to draw the United States military into supporting counternarcotics efforts. Top military commanders feared that trying to prevent drug trafficking would only antagonize corrupt regional warlords whose support they needed, and might turn more of the populace against American troops.
It was only in the last year or two of the Bush administration that the United States began to recognize that the Taliban insurgency was being revived with the help of drug money.
The policy of going after drug lords is likely to raise legal concerns from some NATO countries that have troops in Afghanistan. Several NATO countries initially questioned whether the new policy would comply with international law.
“This was a hard sell in NATO,” said retired Gen. John Craddock, who was supreme allied commander of NATO forces until he retired in July.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the secretary general of NATO until last month, told the Senate committee staff that to deal with the concerns of other nations with troops in Afghanistan, safeguards had been put in place to make sure the alliance remained within legal bounds while pursuing drug traffickers. Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, is also informed before a mission takes place, according to a senior military official.
General Craddock said that some NATO countries were also concerned that the new policy would draw the drug lords closer to the Taliban, because they would turn to them for more protection. “But the opposite is the case, since it weakens the Taliban, so they can’t provide that protection,” General Craddock said. “If we continue to push on this, we will see progress,” he added. “It’s causing them problems.”
In a surprise, the Senate report reveals that the United States intelligence community believes that the Taliban has been getting less money from the drug trade than previous public studies have suggested. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency both estimate that the Taliban obtains about $70 million a year from drugs.
The Senate report found that American officials did not believe that Afghan drug money was fueling Al Qaeda, which instead relies on contributions from wealthy individuals and charities in Persian Gulf countries, as well as aid organizations working inside Afghanistan.
But even with the new, more cautious estimates, the Taliban has plenty of drug money to finance its relatively inexpensive insurgency. Taliban foot soldiers are paid just $10 a day — more if they plant an improvised explosive device.
Not all those suspected of drug trafficking will end up on the Pentagon’s list. Intelligence gathered by the United States and Afghanistan will more often be used for prosecutions, although American officials are frustrated that they still have not been able to negotiate an extradition treaty with the Afghan government.
A major unresolved problem in the counternarcotics strategy is the fact that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains wide open, and the Pakistanis are doing little to close down drug smuggling routes.
A senior American law enforcement official in the region is quoted in the report as saying that cooperation with Pakistan on counternarcotics is so poor that traffickers cross the border with impunity.
“We give them leads on targets,” the official said in describing the Pakistani government’s counternarcotics tactics, adding, “We get smiles, a decent cup of tea, occasional reheated sandwiches and assertions of progress, and we all leave with smiles on our faces.”
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Three rockets fired at Peshawar police
PESHAWAR: Three rockets were fired in yet another attack on the most vulnerable Arbab Tapu post of Matani Police Station on Kohat Road here Sunday. There was, however, no casualty or damage.
The attack on the post, located on the boundary between Peshawar and Darra Adamkhel tribal region, occurred late Sunday evening. The projectiles landed close to the police post but did not cause any casualty or damage.
Two days earlier, two rockets landed near the Badaber PAF Base while another hit a house in Gulberg No 2, causing no damage or casualty. The Matani Police Station was also attacked with two rockets a couple of days back. The volatile police station is facing frequent attacks from Darra Adamkhel and Khyber Agency.
Last month, three policemen were killed in mortar shelling at the Arbab Tapu police post. One of the deceased, Nooran Shah, was the expert of heavy weapons. Eleven people were killed in a suicide attack on the FC camp near the Arbab Tapu post while two cops were killed in another suicide hit on Sra Khawra post of the Matani Police Station during the past two months.
Numerous rocket attacks on police and FC establishments in the jurisdiction of the police station have been reported as terrorists fire rockets and mortars, targeting Matani police establishments almost thrice a week.
The attack on the post, located on the boundary between Peshawar and Darra Adamkhel tribal region, occurred late Sunday evening. The projectiles landed close to the police post but did not cause any casualty or damage.
Two days earlier, two rockets landed near the Badaber PAF Base while another hit a house in Gulberg No 2, causing no damage or casualty. The Matani Police Station was also attacked with two rockets a couple of days back. The volatile police station is facing frequent attacks from Darra Adamkhel and Khyber Agency.
Last month, three policemen were killed in mortar shelling at the Arbab Tapu police post. One of the deceased, Nooran Shah, was the expert of heavy weapons. Eleven people were killed in a suicide attack on the FC camp near the Arbab Tapu post while two cops were killed in another suicide hit on Sra Khawra post of the Matani Police Station during the past two months.
Numerous rocket attacks on police and FC establishments in the jurisdiction of the police station have been reported as terrorists fire rockets and mortars, targeting Matani police establishments almost thrice a week.
Fear of militants, helicopters still haunts Swat girl students
MINGORA: Around 50 girls, aged between six and 12 years, started running helter-skelter as they spotted a low-flying military helicopter over their makeshift school in an orchard in Maniyar area of Swat.
Majority of the students, whose nearby school building was destroyed by militants with explosives, recently returned to their villages after living in tents and rented houses in Mardan and Swabi districts for nearly three months.
“We are not only scared of Taliban but also afraid of helicopters. The choppers spread so much fear among the recently arrived children that some of them cling to their teachers,” Zeba Begum, headmistress at the school, told The News.
The strength at the school was 290 before May 1. Only 50 of the students have, however, reported so far since the opening of schools on August 1.“Fear of Taliban still haunts children and parents, which is why attendance is thin at the school,” said the headmistress, who complained about lack of security for the female staff and children feeling threatened by militants over the previous six months.
According to official figures, more than 200 schools, mostly those of girls, have been destroyed or damaged by militants in Swat in the past two years. They had also warned parents to stop sending their female children to schools as “girls’ education is against Islam.”
Zeba Begum and her five staff members feel unsafe despite disappearance of militants from the area. She says a miscreant may attack the staffers or the children to spread terror. The government should provide security to all the reopened schools, she stressed.
Majority of the displaced persons, who have returned, is scared despite the fact that some kind of normalcy with the opening of music shops, shaving of beards again by barbers and shopping by women in markets. But the presence of barricades set up by security forces in Mingora, night-time curfew and checkpoints on the road leading to upper Swat Valley is shattering the confidence of the common people who are impatient to see their city bustling and tourists returning to Swat.
“We are happy but scared... some people say Taliban may stage comeback after Ramazan as their leadership is still alive,” said Arshad Hussain Khan, president of the Shop Owners Association at the Cheena Bazaar, known for women garments in Mingora.
Sitting with his two children in the market, he said he did not send them to school fearing attack by miscreants. He said the government opened the schools without providing security. “As the situation is still uncertain, I can’t risk the lives of my children by sending them to school,” he said.
Similar concern was expressed by students and teachers at Maniyar, a village close to Qambar, once a stronghold of militants. “Many of my classmates have returned but they don’t come to school fearing attacks from Taliban,” said 10-year-old Shabnam, who said she wept after being told about the destruction of her school while living in a rented house in Mardan.
Demanding early construction of the razed building, majority of the students asked for provision of security, clean drinking water and proper arrangements to save them from the scorching heat.
Swat-based educationist Ziauddin said that around 80,000 girls were at schools till mid-2008. He said their parents removed majority of them after militants threatened the parents and school administration in the valley. He said the attendance was, however, once again on the rise marking landmark improvement in the situation.
Majority of the students, whose nearby school building was destroyed by militants with explosives, recently returned to their villages after living in tents and rented houses in Mardan and Swabi districts for nearly three months.
“We are not only scared of Taliban but also afraid of helicopters. The choppers spread so much fear among the recently arrived children that some of them cling to their teachers,” Zeba Begum, headmistress at the school, told The News.
The strength at the school was 290 before May 1. Only 50 of the students have, however, reported so far since the opening of schools on August 1.“Fear of Taliban still haunts children and parents, which is why attendance is thin at the school,” said the headmistress, who complained about lack of security for the female staff and children feeling threatened by militants over the previous six months.
According to official figures, more than 200 schools, mostly those of girls, have been destroyed or damaged by militants in Swat in the past two years. They had also warned parents to stop sending their female children to schools as “girls’ education is against Islam.”
Zeba Begum and her five staff members feel unsafe despite disappearance of militants from the area. She says a miscreant may attack the staffers or the children to spread terror. The government should provide security to all the reopened schools, she stressed.
Majority of the displaced persons, who have returned, is scared despite the fact that some kind of normalcy with the opening of music shops, shaving of beards again by barbers and shopping by women in markets. But the presence of barricades set up by security forces in Mingora, night-time curfew and checkpoints on the road leading to upper Swat Valley is shattering the confidence of the common people who are impatient to see their city bustling and tourists returning to Swat.
“We are happy but scared... some people say Taliban may stage comeback after Ramazan as their leadership is still alive,” said Arshad Hussain Khan, president of the Shop Owners Association at the Cheena Bazaar, known for women garments in Mingora.
Sitting with his two children in the market, he said he did not send them to school fearing attack by miscreants. He said the government opened the schools without providing security. “As the situation is still uncertain, I can’t risk the lives of my children by sending them to school,” he said.
Similar concern was expressed by students and teachers at Maniyar, a village close to Qambar, once a stronghold of militants. “Many of my classmates have returned but they don’t come to school fearing attacks from Taliban,” said 10-year-old Shabnam, who said she wept after being told about the destruction of her school while living in a rented house in Mardan.
Demanding early construction of the razed building, majority of the students asked for provision of security, clean drinking water and proper arrangements to save them from the scorching heat.
Swat-based educationist Ziauddin said that around 80,000 girls were at schools till mid-2008. He said their parents removed majority of them after militants threatened the parents and school administration in the valley. He said the attendance was, however, once again on the rise marking landmark improvement in the situation.
Taleban in turmoil as rivals draw guns at each other in fight for leadership
www.timesonline.co.uk
The Pakistani Taleban appeared to be in turmoil last night after reports of a fatal gun battle between rivals to replace its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed by a CIA missile strike on Wednesday.
Government and intelligence sources said that Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur Rehman became increasingly angry with each other at a shura, or tribal council, called to choose a new head of Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (Taleban Movement of Pakistan).
Guns were reportedly drawn and sources suggested that Hakimullah Mehsud was killed and Wali-ur Rehman was seriously injured.
However, Taleban commanders denied any infighting and tried to present a united front, while Pakistani officials struggled to confirm local intelligence reports.
One local cleric told The Times that Mr Hakimullah grew angry at the shura when the majority of those there declared their support for Mr Rehman.
Mr Rehman, who is in his early thirties, is a former spokesman for Mehsud and was one of his closest confidants, but he has a reputation for being intelligent and far-sighted rather than aggressive. He also has the advantage of being highly qualified in Islamic teaching.
Intelligence officials said that Afghan Taleban and al-Qaeda figures had been trying to mediate between the two camps at a series of shuras in South Waziristan — apparently to no avail.
A spokesman for a Taleban group opposed to Mehsud also reported that supporters of the former Pakistani Taleban leader were turning on each other.
“Differences have arisen between the followers of Mr Mehsud: that is why they are claiming that he is not dead,” the spokesman, Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud, said.
“They were at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days. God willing, the infighting will get worse.”
However, Mr Rehman telephoned several reporters yesterday to deny personally that the shura, or the shooting, had taken place.
He added that Mr Hakimullah was alive and would soon speak to them.
Mr Hakimullah has not done that, even though he contributed to the confusion on Saturday by telephoning a reporter to deny that Mehsud was dead.
Qari Hussain, another of Mehsud’s key lieutenants, has also denied the militant leader’s death.
Taleban commanders now say that the Government is fabricating reports of dissent within its ranks to try to undermine the movement.
The Government, meanwhile, accuses the Taleban of deliberately sowing confusion and has challenged the commanders to provide evidence supporting their claims.
It is impossible to verify either the Taleban’s or the Government’s version of events as most of the tribal regions are off-limits to journalists and government officials.
“We need to see the dead bodies, we need to do some DNA, and we need to have something solid,” Rehman Malik, the Pakistani Interior Minister, told local television over the weekend.
Nonetheless, the United States is giving greater credence to the reports both of Mehsud’s death and the subsequent Taleban infighting.
Jim Jones, President Obama’s National Security Adviser, told a television news programme yesterday that the White House believed that Mehsud had been killed.
“We think so,” Mr Jones told Fox News Sunday. “The Pakistani Government believes he is, and all the evidence we have suggests that.”
However, Mr Jones said that he could not confirm that there had been a gunfight between Mehsud’s potential successors. “We’ve heard stories about that. I can’t confirm it,” he said. “It certainly appears there is dissension in the ranks. That’s not a bad thing for us.”
Many analysts also say that the Taleban’s denials are probably part of a strategy to maintain unity. In the past, the Taleban has denied the killing of other leaders.
“There is, I think, a struggle going on for the leadership, and Hakimullah Mehsud is one of the contenders,” said Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal regions.
Mr Hakimullah, also a former spokesman for Mehsud, was put in charge of fighters in the Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber tribal regions despite being only in his twenties.
The leader of a faction called Fidayeenal Islam, he burnished his reputation as a ruthless fighter by leading a series of attacks last year on convoys carrying supplies to American and Nato troops in Afghanistan.
He is a cousin of Qari Hussain, who is in charge of training Mehsud’s suicide bombers.
Mr Hakimullah acknowledged on Wednesday that Mehsud, who had been ill with diabetes, had not been in hands-on control of the movement’s affairs for the past three months.
The Pakistani Taleban appeared to be in turmoil last night after reports of a fatal gun battle between rivals to replace its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed by a CIA missile strike on Wednesday.
Government and intelligence sources said that Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur Rehman became increasingly angry with each other at a shura, or tribal council, called to choose a new head of Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (Taleban Movement of Pakistan).
Guns were reportedly drawn and sources suggested that Hakimullah Mehsud was killed and Wali-ur Rehman was seriously injured.
However, Taleban commanders denied any infighting and tried to present a united front, while Pakistani officials struggled to confirm local intelligence reports.
One local cleric told The Times that Mr Hakimullah grew angry at the shura when the majority of those there declared their support for Mr Rehman.
Mr Rehman, who is in his early thirties, is a former spokesman for Mehsud and was one of his closest confidants, but he has a reputation for being intelligent and far-sighted rather than aggressive. He also has the advantage of being highly qualified in Islamic teaching.
Intelligence officials said that Afghan Taleban and al-Qaeda figures had been trying to mediate between the two camps at a series of shuras in South Waziristan — apparently to no avail.
A spokesman for a Taleban group opposed to Mehsud also reported that supporters of the former Pakistani Taleban leader were turning on each other.
“Differences have arisen between the followers of Mr Mehsud: that is why they are claiming that he is not dead,” the spokesman, Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud, said.
“They were at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days. God willing, the infighting will get worse.”
However, Mr Rehman telephoned several reporters yesterday to deny personally that the shura, or the shooting, had taken place.
He added that Mr Hakimullah was alive and would soon speak to them.
Mr Hakimullah has not done that, even though he contributed to the confusion on Saturday by telephoning a reporter to deny that Mehsud was dead.
Qari Hussain, another of Mehsud’s key lieutenants, has also denied the militant leader’s death.
Taleban commanders now say that the Government is fabricating reports of dissent within its ranks to try to undermine the movement.
The Government, meanwhile, accuses the Taleban of deliberately sowing confusion and has challenged the commanders to provide evidence supporting their claims.
It is impossible to verify either the Taleban’s or the Government’s version of events as most of the tribal regions are off-limits to journalists and government officials.
“We need to see the dead bodies, we need to do some DNA, and we need to have something solid,” Rehman Malik, the Pakistani Interior Minister, told local television over the weekend.
Nonetheless, the United States is giving greater credence to the reports both of Mehsud’s death and the subsequent Taleban infighting.
Jim Jones, President Obama’s National Security Adviser, told a television news programme yesterday that the White House believed that Mehsud had been killed.
“We think so,” Mr Jones told Fox News Sunday. “The Pakistani Government believes he is, and all the evidence we have suggests that.”
However, Mr Jones said that he could not confirm that there had been a gunfight between Mehsud’s potential successors. “We’ve heard stories about that. I can’t confirm it,” he said. “It certainly appears there is dissension in the ranks. That’s not a bad thing for us.”
Many analysts also say that the Taleban’s denials are probably part of a strategy to maintain unity. In the past, the Taleban has denied the killing of other leaders.
“There is, I think, a struggle going on for the leadership, and Hakimullah Mehsud is one of the contenders,” said Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal regions.
Mr Hakimullah, also a former spokesman for Mehsud, was put in charge of fighters in the Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber tribal regions despite being only in his twenties.
The leader of a faction called Fidayeenal Islam, he burnished his reputation as a ruthless fighter by leading a series of attacks last year on convoys carrying supplies to American and Nato troops in Afghanistan.
He is a cousin of Qari Hussain, who is in charge of training Mehsud’s suicide bombers.
Mr Hakimullah acknowledged on Wednesday that Mehsud, who had been ill with diabetes, had not been in hands-on control of the movement’s affairs for the past three months.
45,000 US troops needed in Afghanistan, military adviser says
www.timesonline.co.uk
The United States should send up to 45,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, a senior adviser to the American commander in Kabul has told The Times.
Anthony Cordesman, an influential American academic who is a member of a team that has been advising General Stanley McChrystal, now in charge of Nato forces in Afghanistan, also said that to deal with the threat from the Taleban the size of the Afghan National Army might have to increase to 240,000.If Mr Cordesman’s recommendation reflects the view of General McChrystal, who recently presented the findings of a 60-day review of Afghanistan strategy to Washington, it would mean sending another nine combat brigades, comprising 45,000 American troops, in addition to the 21,000 already approved by President Obama. This would bring the total American military presence in Afghanistan to about 100,000, considerably closer to the force that was deployed for the counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq.If General McChrystal believes that America should send nine more brigades — Mr Cordesman suggested it should be between three and nine brigades — there is bound to be pressure on Britain to send reinforcements as well. The British strength now is 9,000.Writing in The Times, Mr Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: “The insurgents may have lost virtually every tactical clash [against Nato troops], but they have expanded their areas of influence from a presence in some 30 of Afghanistan’s 364 districts in 2003 to one in some 160 districts by the end of 2008, while insurgent attacks increased by 60 per cent during October 2008 to April 2009 alone.“Nato must change its strategy and tactics after years in which member countries, particularly the United States, failed to react to the seriousness of the emerging insurgency,” he added.The US reinforcements already approved by Mr Obama include 8,000 Marines of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade who have arrived in Helmand province, replacing the British troops in the south of the province, and 4,000 US Army soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade, who are also arriving in the region.Mr Cordesman appeared to confirm the strategy expected to be outlined by General McChrystal relating to the Afghan National Army. He says that the existing plan to increase numbers to 134,000 soldiers is inadequate. He says that it should be doubled to 240,000 by 2014, and the Afghan National Police should rise from 82,000 to 160,000.To reach such levels, however, Nato would need to contribute thousands more troops to train the Afghans.On Saturday in The Times, General Sir David Richards, who becomes Chief of the General Staff — the head of the British Army — on August 28, said he thought that Britain’s commitment to Afghanistan could last between 30 and 40 years, although he envisaged that troops would have to stay only for the medium term. He is expected to repeat the call made by General Sir Richard Dannatt, whom he is succeeding, for more British troops for Helmand.Tonight a former head of the British Army said it would not be possible for Britain to meet its commitment to support Afghanistan for decades if ministers approved a proposal to cut three infantry battalions.As part of a current internal Ministry of Defence review, a reduction in the size of the infantry, from 36 to 33 battalions, has not yet been ruled out, because of the short-term savings that would ensue from cutting back on manpower — a total of £60 million a year for the loss of the three battalions.However, General Sir Roger Wheeler, Chief of the General Staff from 1997 to 2000, said that it was illogical to reduce the size of the infantry at a time when there were so many casualties in Afghanistan and when it was now accepted that the mission in Helmand province was going to continue for decades. “And the MoD would be saving peanuts,” he said.
The United States should send up to 45,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, a senior adviser to the American commander in Kabul has told The Times.
Anthony Cordesman, an influential American academic who is a member of a team that has been advising General Stanley McChrystal, now in charge of Nato forces in Afghanistan, also said that to deal with the threat from the Taleban the size of the Afghan National Army might have to increase to 240,000.If Mr Cordesman’s recommendation reflects the view of General McChrystal, who recently presented the findings of a 60-day review of Afghanistan strategy to Washington, it would mean sending another nine combat brigades, comprising 45,000 American troops, in addition to the 21,000 already approved by President Obama. This would bring the total American military presence in Afghanistan to about 100,000, considerably closer to the force that was deployed for the counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq.If General McChrystal believes that America should send nine more brigades — Mr Cordesman suggested it should be between three and nine brigades — there is bound to be pressure on Britain to send reinforcements as well. The British strength now is 9,000.Writing in The Times, Mr Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: “The insurgents may have lost virtually every tactical clash [against Nato troops], but they have expanded their areas of influence from a presence in some 30 of Afghanistan’s 364 districts in 2003 to one in some 160 districts by the end of 2008, while insurgent attacks increased by 60 per cent during October 2008 to April 2009 alone.“Nato must change its strategy and tactics after years in which member countries, particularly the United States, failed to react to the seriousness of the emerging insurgency,” he added.The US reinforcements already approved by Mr Obama include 8,000 Marines of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade who have arrived in Helmand province, replacing the British troops in the south of the province, and 4,000 US Army soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade, who are also arriving in the region.Mr Cordesman appeared to confirm the strategy expected to be outlined by General McChrystal relating to the Afghan National Army. He says that the existing plan to increase numbers to 134,000 soldiers is inadequate. He says that it should be doubled to 240,000 by 2014, and the Afghan National Police should rise from 82,000 to 160,000.To reach such levels, however, Nato would need to contribute thousands more troops to train the Afghans.On Saturday in The Times, General Sir David Richards, who becomes Chief of the General Staff — the head of the British Army — on August 28, said he thought that Britain’s commitment to Afghanistan could last between 30 and 40 years, although he envisaged that troops would have to stay only for the medium term. He is expected to repeat the call made by General Sir Richard Dannatt, whom he is succeeding, for more British troops for Helmand.Tonight a former head of the British Army said it would not be possible for Britain to meet its commitment to support Afghanistan for decades if ministers approved a proposal to cut three infantry battalions.As part of a current internal Ministry of Defence review, a reduction in the size of the infantry, from 36 to 33 battalions, has not yet been ruled out, because of the short-term savings that would ensue from cutting back on manpower — a total of £60 million a year for the loss of the three battalions.However, General Sir Roger Wheeler, Chief of the General Staff from 1997 to 2000, said that it was illogical to reduce the size of the infantry at a time when there were so many casualties in Afghanistan and when it was now accepted that the mission in Helmand province was going to continue for decades. “And the MoD would be saving peanuts,” he said.
One million evacuated as Typhoon Morakot hits east China
At least one person has been killed and three others injured as Typhoon Morakot slammed into southeast China’s Fujian and Zhejiang provinces yesterday, one day after it pounded Taiwan with torrential rains that caused the worst flooding on the island in 50 years and left dozens missing and feared dead.
The eighth Typhoon of this year made landfall in Xiapu county at about 4:20 pm, packing winds of close to 119 kilometers per hour and slicing its way north at a speed of 12 kph at its eye, the National Meteorological Center said, adding that Morokot is expected to weaken to a tropical storm.
Four adults and a 4-year-old boy were buried in debris as five houses collapsed in Wenzhou city in Zhejiang Province after 8 am yesterday, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
The child died during the afternoon after emergency treatment failed, the city’s flood-control headquarters said.
Some 1 million people were evacuated in coastal areas of eastern provinces by early Sunday – more than 490,000 people in Zhejiang and 480,000 others in neighboring Fujian.
In Zhejiang, approximately 35,440 ships have been called back to port, the provincial flood-control headquarters said Sunday morning, while authorities in Fujian urged 48,000 boats to return to harbor.
Flood-control and drought-relief headquarters in the province had raised the emergency alert from Level-II to Level-I with Wenzhou likely to become the worst-hit area.
As of 8 am yesterday, as many as 220,000 residents in Wenzhou were relocated to safety, 8,997 boats had returned to port and 331 houses had collapsed, incurring direct economic losses of 229 million yuan. Wenzhou City airport had canceled 39 domestic flights.
Chen Lianjin, a 20-year-old resident of Pingyang, Wenzhou, said the deepest water level was up to three meters in some low-lying areas, and his family has had to live on pickles after runing out of vegetables.
“It has rained continuously and heavily since Thursday, and wind strength has reached Level 14 at most,” an official at the Wenzhou Meteorological Bureau told the Global Times.
Water flows yesterday past a damaged bridge previously linking Pingtung and Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. The government mobilized troops to rescue tens of thousands of residents trapped in the island’s worst flooding in 50 years, officials said, as Typhoon Morakot pounded Taiwan over the weekend with powerful winds and rain. Photo: AFP
Officials in some Zhejiang villages were riding bicycles to distribute drinking water and instant noodles to households stranded amid deep water, Xinhua reported.
Chinese airlines have canceled flights to Fujian and Jiangsu. Fujian government stated on its website that 128 flights have been canceled and a dozen highways have been closed due to safety concerns.
Torrential rainfall also swept through Rongtuo, Xiapu, Fuding and Fu’an in Ningde City, state media reported.
In Ningde, 23 roads have partially collapsed, while the water level of the city’s reservoirs has reached alert level, and water was discharged as a precaution.
“The danger increases shortly after the typhoon’s landfall. Some dilapidated houses have collapsed in some mountainous areas, and crops have been drowned,” said Zhou Qiuqi, director of the Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters in Ningde City.
“The sea route from Xiamen to Jinmen has been totally suspended with no time set for its reopening,” an official surnamed Chen at the Dongdu ferry station of Xiamen told the Global Times.
Fujian Province registered its highest precipitation of 800 mm in Taishun County, while the Cangnan Flood Control Office said Morakot has caused power cuts in 11 areas including Lingyan and Shiping.
A cargo ship, Daqing 254, was also stranded amid strong winds, and rescuers were trying to safeguard its eight sailors, after it was reported adrift at 2:30 am Sunday.
China Central Television reported that Fujian will be under Morakot’s onslaught for the next 20 hours. Other areas in East China, such as Jiangsu and Shanghai, are all on high alert. In Shanghai, the World Expo venues still under construction have been reinforced.
Marokot slammed into Taiwan with torrential rains yesterday, causing the worst flooding on the island in 50 years.
Taiwan’s Disaster Relief Center said a woman was killed when her vehicle plunged into a ditch in Kaohsiung county in heavy rain Friday, and two men drowned in Pingtung and Tainan, respectively. It said that 31 people were missing and feared dead.
Television footage showed a six-story hotel in Taipung, south Taiwan, collapse into floodwater. People inside the hotel were evacuated beforehand, reports said.
Obama in Mexico for North American summit
MEXICO CITY-- President Obama arrived Sunday evening in Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city, for a day and a half of talks with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
A broad range of issues is expected to be discussed -- including the economy, drug violence and the environment -- but no major announcements are expected, officials said in the days leading up the North American Leaders' Summit.
Obama will meet with Calderon before the three leaders gather at a working dinner Sunday evening, according to the White House.
"The themes of this summit are: one, economic recovery and competitiveness; two, citizen safety and security; and three, clean energy and climate change. All are core priorities of this administration," National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said in a briefing last week.
More than 4,000 policemen and soldiers were maintaining a security perimeter around the building where the meetings would take place. As with previous summits, demonstrators were expected.
A key issue expected to lead the talks is the economy, as the U.S. economic downturn has affected its neighbors.
In May, the Mexican government announced that its GDP had shrunk by 5.9 percent in the first quarter. Exports to the United States and the rest of the world, a key component of Mexico's GDP, was down considerably because of decreased global demand, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
Canada has complained about "Buy American" provisions in parts of the U.S. economic stimulus package, which it says can harm trade between the two partners. Harper is likely to raise the topic during talks.
The summit follows one of Mexico's deadliest months in its fight against drug cartels.
More than 10,000 people, including more than 1,000 police officers, have been killed since Calderon began an offensive against the cartels in 2006. But reports of human rights abuses by soldiers fighting the drug traffickers have recently attracted attention in the United States, and about $1 million of counternarcotics aid could be withheld as a result.
Calderon is also expected to press the issue of the long-stalled permission for Mexican trucks to roll on U.S. highways, officials said. Despite a stipulation in the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. officials have not allowed Mexican trucks into the United States. A pilot program was canceled by Congress last year, and Mexico retaliated with $2.4 billion in tariffs on select American products.
"The bottom line is that what affects our bordering neighbors has the potential to affect us all, so we want to be certain that we have the tightest and best possible cooperation," Jones told reporters.
A broad range of issues is expected to be discussed -- including the economy, drug violence and the environment -- but no major announcements are expected, officials said in the days leading up the North American Leaders' Summit.
Obama will meet with Calderon before the three leaders gather at a working dinner Sunday evening, according to the White House.
"The themes of this summit are: one, economic recovery and competitiveness; two, citizen safety and security; and three, clean energy and climate change. All are core priorities of this administration," National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said in a briefing last week.
More than 4,000 policemen and soldiers were maintaining a security perimeter around the building where the meetings would take place. As with previous summits, demonstrators were expected.
A key issue expected to lead the talks is the economy, as the U.S. economic downturn has affected its neighbors.
In May, the Mexican government announced that its GDP had shrunk by 5.9 percent in the first quarter. Exports to the United States and the rest of the world, a key component of Mexico's GDP, was down considerably because of decreased global demand, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
Canada has complained about "Buy American" provisions in parts of the U.S. economic stimulus package, which it says can harm trade between the two partners. Harper is likely to raise the topic during talks.
The summit follows one of Mexico's deadliest months in its fight against drug cartels.
More than 10,000 people, including more than 1,000 police officers, have been killed since Calderon began an offensive against the cartels in 2006. But reports of human rights abuses by soldiers fighting the drug traffickers have recently attracted attention in the United States, and about $1 million of counternarcotics aid could be withheld as a result.
Calderon is also expected to press the issue of the long-stalled permission for Mexican trucks to roll on U.S. highways, officials said. Despite a stipulation in the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. officials have not allowed Mexican trucks into the United States. A pilot program was canceled by Congress last year, and Mexico retaliated with $2.4 billion in tariffs on select American products.
"The bottom line is that what affects our bordering neighbors has the potential to affect us all, so we want to be certain that we have the tightest and best possible cooperation," Jones told reporters.
Keep pressure on militants: US
NEW YORK - US President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Gen James Jones said Sunday the United States believes that Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s top Taliban leader, is no longer in this world despite conflicting reports to the contrary.
Gen James Jones told “Fox News Sunday” that Baitullah Mehsud, whom he called a “real thug”, was killed and Pakistan’s Taliban leadership is now fighting within its top ranks to name its successor.
Claims and counter-claims about Baitullah Mehsud’s fate have swirled since a CIA missile strike last Wednesday on his father-in-law’s house in South Waziristan.
“Mehsud was a very bad individual, a real thug,” said Jones, who appeared on three Sunday talk shows. He said the US was 90 per cent confident that Mehsud was dead.
Jones congratulated the Pakistan Army for pressing the fight against the branch of the Taliban that lives inside Pakistan. The US insists some of the worst violence in Afghanistan is directed from across the border in Pakistan.
“If there is dissension in the ranks and if in fact he is, as we think, dead, this is a positive indication that in Pakistan things are turning for the better,” Jones said.
He did not give details about the strike, which is part of a US policy of cross-border attacks that is deeply unpopular with the Pakistani public. The Obama administration has continued the strikes even while trying to improve both the US relationship with Pakistan’s leaders and the image of the US and its fight against terrorism.
US officials regularly point out that terrorism is a large and growing danger inside Pakistan that the country’s own military is best placed to combat.
Jones called Mehsud “public enemy No. 1” in his own country.
Monitoring Desk adds: Jones said the US is nearly certain that Mehsud is dead, and there now is a leadership struggle within the “terrorist” group. He said the militant ranks are roiled by dissension.
He noted that Mehsud’s ouster and dissension within the Taliban represents an important moment in the struggle against extremism in Pakistan.
Pakistan should abolish blasphemy law: HRCP
KARACHI: Pakistan should immediately move to abolish controversial blasphemy laws after the killing of seven Christians to prevent copycat riots from opening a new front of religious unrest, activists say.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan and although no one has been sent to the gallows for the crime, the legislation is too arbitrary analysts say, and is often exploited for personal enmity and encourages Islamist extremism.
When an angry mob of Muslims torched 40 houses and a church in the remote village of Gojra in Pakistan's heartland province of Punjab recently, two children, their parents and 75-year-old grandfather were burnt to death.
Three days later, two people were killed in another Punjab town in what was a private employee dispute against a Muslim factory boss, but coloured by unfounded allegations that the businessman desecrated the Qoran.
'It's an arbitrary law, which has been badly misused by extremists and influentials and should be abolished,' said Iqbal Haider, co-chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
'There is no option but to abolish this law. More than that, the government should revive the secular nature of the state as our founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah envisaged, otherwise it will aggravate religious unrest,' he said.
The country is battling Taliban militants in the northwest. Bomb attacks across the country have killed around 2,000 people in two years, having a detrimental effect on the economy and national image.
HRCP said the Gojra attacks were 'planned in advance' and that mosque announcements urged local Muslims to 'make mincemeat of the Christians'.
'A police contingent present in the neighbourhood did not try to stop the mob... The attackers seemed to be trained for carrying out such activities.'
The rights group quoted witnesses as saying that a number of attackers were from the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and other militant organisations.
Pakistan's blasphemy law was introduced by former military ruler Zia ul-Haq, who passed tough Islamic legislation, whose 1977-1988 rule was seen as a critical point in the development of extremist Islam in parts of Pakistan.
The civilian administration in Pakistan moved quickly to try to limit the fallout of the anti-Christian killings, offering compensation but cabinet ministers have stopped short of pledging to scrap the blasphemy laws.
'A committee will see the laws which are detrimental to religious harmony to sort out how they could be made better,' Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Christians during a solidarity visit to Gojra.
Just one witness is enough to incriminate a 'heretic'. Anyone accused of blasphemy is immediately arrested and charged, before an investigation begins.
In many cases, people take the law in their own hands and go for killing the alleged blasphemer and rights groups say this trend is increasing.
But religious affairs minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi said the government could not risk a 'full-fledged review' inciting an Islamic backlash.
'Any move for a major amendment in the law will generate another controversy that will benefit militants and harm the cause of our Christian brothers.'
Hindus, Christians and other minorities make up less than five per cent of Pakistan's 167 million population, generally impoverished and marginalised.
Evarist Pinto, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Karachi, said the law means religious minorities live in constant danger.
'Militant groups constantly threaten religious minorities with false allegations of blasphemy and often use these laws against them,' said Pinto.
But a top cleric who heads the board running about 12,000 Islamic seminaries in the country defended the laws as vital in Pakistan, a Muslim republic.
'The laws have been misused, mostly by the Muslims against the Muslims, but it does not mean that the laws should be abolished. Instead the authorities should take steps to stop its misuse,' said Qari Hanif Jalandhari.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan and although no one has been sent to the gallows for the crime, the legislation is too arbitrary analysts say, and is often exploited for personal enmity and encourages Islamist extremism.
When an angry mob of Muslims torched 40 houses and a church in the remote village of Gojra in Pakistan's heartland province of Punjab recently, two children, their parents and 75-year-old grandfather were burnt to death.
Three days later, two people were killed in another Punjab town in what was a private employee dispute against a Muslim factory boss, but coloured by unfounded allegations that the businessman desecrated the Qoran.
'It's an arbitrary law, which has been badly misused by extremists and influentials and should be abolished,' said Iqbal Haider, co-chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
'There is no option but to abolish this law. More than that, the government should revive the secular nature of the state as our founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah envisaged, otherwise it will aggravate religious unrest,' he said.
The country is battling Taliban militants in the northwest. Bomb attacks across the country have killed around 2,000 people in two years, having a detrimental effect on the economy and national image.
HRCP said the Gojra attacks were 'planned in advance' and that mosque announcements urged local Muslims to 'make mincemeat of the Christians'.
'A police contingent present in the neighbourhood did not try to stop the mob... The attackers seemed to be trained for carrying out such activities.'
The rights group quoted witnesses as saying that a number of attackers were from the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and other militant organisations.
Pakistan's blasphemy law was introduced by former military ruler Zia ul-Haq, who passed tough Islamic legislation, whose 1977-1988 rule was seen as a critical point in the development of extremist Islam in parts of Pakistan.
The civilian administration in Pakistan moved quickly to try to limit the fallout of the anti-Christian killings, offering compensation but cabinet ministers have stopped short of pledging to scrap the blasphemy laws.
'A committee will see the laws which are detrimental to religious harmony to sort out how they could be made better,' Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Christians during a solidarity visit to Gojra.
Just one witness is enough to incriminate a 'heretic'. Anyone accused of blasphemy is immediately arrested and charged, before an investigation begins.
In many cases, people take the law in their own hands and go for killing the alleged blasphemer and rights groups say this trend is increasing.
But religious affairs minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi said the government could not risk a 'full-fledged review' inciting an Islamic backlash.
'Any move for a major amendment in the law will generate another controversy that will benefit militants and harm the cause of our Christian brothers.'
Hindus, Christians and other minorities make up less than five per cent of Pakistan's 167 million population, generally impoverished and marginalised.
Evarist Pinto, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Karachi, said the law means religious minorities live in constant danger.
'Militant groups constantly threaten religious minorities with false allegations of blasphemy and often use these laws against them,' said Pinto.
But a top cleric who heads the board running about 12,000 Islamic seminaries in the country defended the laws as vital in Pakistan, a Muslim republic.
'The laws have been misused, mostly by the Muslims against the Muslims, but it does not mean that the laws should be abolished. Instead the authorities should take steps to stop its misuse,' said Qari Hanif Jalandhari.
War not won despite 'death' of Taliban chief: Islamabad
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's media and civil society on Saturday welcomed the suspected death of Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, saying it will dent extremists' efforts despite warnings it does not equal victory.
Pakistan said Friday it believed Mehsud, the charismatic commander of the Pakistani Taliban, had been killed in a US drone attack in a major blow for the Islamist militants.
Senior officials in Pakistan's powerful security establishment who supervise operations in Mehsud's Waziristan stronghold said the warlord was dead, but the government said it was seeking verification.
"Mehsud's elimination will leave a positive impact on terror-stricken people," leading Pakistani rights activist Farzana Bari told AFP.
Bari, head of the Gender Studies department at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam university, said the government and the military needed to completely eliminate the country's terrorist infrastructure.
"Mehsud's death will quadruple people's confidence in the government and the armed forces, which are already engaged in an offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest," Bari said.
The US Central Intelligence Agency, with the tacit cooperation of Islamabad, has carried out dozens of attacks in Pakistan using unmanned Predator and Reaper drones over the past year, but declines to discuss the strikes publicly.
Islamabad and Washington had said liquidating Mehsud was a strategic aim in the fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked extremists whom the United States has accused of posing an existential threat to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
"I believe that Mehsud's death will greatly help improve (the) law and order situation but the overall impact will not be lasting," said Rakhshanda Naz, another rights activist, who runs non-governmental organization the Aurat Foundation.
"Mehsud's death will pose a setback for the TTP but it will be temporary and the group is to step back with a new leader."
She said that the problem could not simply be solved by eliminating one individual, saying: "We have to strike at their roots to rid our society of terrorism and extremism."
Mehsud, who had a five-million-dollar US bounty on his head after Washington branded him "a key Al-Qaeda facilitator," had reportedly narrowly escaped previous attacks.
"His death is a success but does not represent a war won, which is yet far off and perhaps years away," Pakistani newspaper The News said in its editorial.
"The greatest battle will to be to win back the predominantly youthful hearts and minds that his perverted view of the world and of Islam had turned to dark thoughts and dark ways."
"Win that battle and we will truly have won the war," the paper added.
Another local English-language newspaper, Dawn, said: "If he is indeed dead -- and many credible sources have independently suggested that he is in fact dead -- then a devastating blow has been struck right at the heart of the TTP." "The state must assess whether an immediate full-fledged operation in the Waziristan will degrade a demoralised TTP to the point that revival will be all but impossible," it added.
Taliban commanders have neither confirmed nor denied Mehsud's demise. But top militants in his umbrella group Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) gathered in his South Waziristan stronghold on Friday ahead of an expected announcement.
"According to our information, Taliban commanders held two rounds of meetings on Friday to elect their new chief," one local official said on condition of anonymity.
Confirming the meetings, another official said there still didn't seem to be an agreement amongst commanders on who should succeed Mehsud.
Pakistan said Friday it believed Mehsud, the charismatic commander of the Pakistani Taliban, had been killed in a US drone attack in a major blow for the Islamist militants.
Senior officials in Pakistan's powerful security establishment who supervise operations in Mehsud's Waziristan stronghold said the warlord was dead, but the government said it was seeking verification.
"Mehsud's elimination will leave a positive impact on terror-stricken people," leading Pakistani rights activist Farzana Bari told AFP.
Bari, head of the Gender Studies department at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam university, said the government and the military needed to completely eliminate the country's terrorist infrastructure.
"Mehsud's death will quadruple people's confidence in the government and the armed forces, which are already engaged in an offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest," Bari said.
The US Central Intelligence Agency, with the tacit cooperation of Islamabad, has carried out dozens of attacks in Pakistan using unmanned Predator and Reaper drones over the past year, but declines to discuss the strikes publicly.
Islamabad and Washington had said liquidating Mehsud was a strategic aim in the fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked extremists whom the United States has accused of posing an existential threat to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
"I believe that Mehsud's death will greatly help improve (the) law and order situation but the overall impact will not be lasting," said Rakhshanda Naz, another rights activist, who runs non-governmental organization the Aurat Foundation.
"Mehsud's death will pose a setback for the TTP but it will be temporary and the group is to step back with a new leader."
She said that the problem could not simply be solved by eliminating one individual, saying: "We have to strike at their roots to rid our society of terrorism and extremism."
Mehsud, who had a five-million-dollar US bounty on his head after Washington branded him "a key Al-Qaeda facilitator," had reportedly narrowly escaped previous attacks.
"His death is a success but does not represent a war won, which is yet far off and perhaps years away," Pakistani newspaper The News said in its editorial.
"The greatest battle will to be to win back the predominantly youthful hearts and minds that his perverted view of the world and of Islam had turned to dark thoughts and dark ways."
"Win that battle and we will truly have won the war," the paper added.
Another local English-language newspaper, Dawn, said: "If he is indeed dead -- and many credible sources have independently suggested that he is in fact dead -- then a devastating blow has been struck right at the heart of the TTP." "The state must assess whether an immediate full-fledged operation in the Waziristan will degrade a demoralised TTP to the point that revival will be all but impossible," it added.
Taliban commanders have neither confirmed nor denied Mehsud's demise. But top militants in his umbrella group Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) gathered in his South Waziristan stronghold on Friday ahead of an expected announcement.
"According to our information, Taliban commanders held two rounds of meetings on Friday to elect their new chief," one local official said on condition of anonymity.
Confirming the meetings, another official said there still didn't seem to be an agreement amongst commanders on who should succeed Mehsud.
Peshawar people hopes Baitullah’s death to end terrorism
PESHAWAR: People of Peshawar have termed the killing of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud great news for the whole nation and were confident that his death would end terrorism in the province and tribal areas. A crowd was seen on newspaper stalls in the city who wanted to know whether Baitullah was dead or alive. Newspaper buyers told Daily Times it was great news for the whole country, especially for the people of NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. They said the TTP chief was not only wanted to the government but also through anti-state activities, he had turned the whole tribal belt and NWFP into insecure places. NWFP NFC Support Unit PRO Sarir Ahmed said due to Taliban’s anti-state activities, the province had not only suffered losses of more than Rs 35 billion in the form of destroyed infrastructure and homes but also the provincial industries and markets had suffered a great loss. He said the military operations against the Taliban in Malakand division, Bajaur, Mohmand and Waziristan agencies, peace was being gradually restored in the NWFP and tribal areas.
Pakistan cannot afford Christian controversy
KARACHI — Pakistan should immediately move to abolish controversial blasphemy laws after the killing of seven Christians to prevent copycat riots from opening a new front of religious unrest, activists say.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan and although no one has been sent to the gallows for the crime, the legislation is too arbitrary analysts say, and is often exploited for personal enmity and encourages Islamist extremism.
When an angry mob of Muslims torched 40 houses and a church in the remote village of Gojra in Pakistan's heartland province of Punjab recently, two children, their parents and 75-year-old grandfather were burnt to death.
Three days later, two people were killed in another Punjab town in what was a private employee dispute against a Muslim factory boss, but coloured by unfounded allegations that the businessman desecrated the Koran.
"It's an arbitrary law, which has been badly misused by extremists and influentials and should be abolished," said Iqbal Haider, co-chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
"There is no option but to abolish this law. More than that, the government should revive the secular nature of the state as our founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah envisaged, otherwise it will aggravate religious unrest," he said.
Almost from inception, Pakistani spies and soldiers have actively armed, sponsored, encouraged or turned a blind eye as Islamist-inspired militant outfits turned their guns on India to the east and Afghanistan to the west.
The country is battling Taliban radicals in the northwest. Islamist bomb attacks across the country have killed around 2,000 people in two years, having a detrimental effect on the economy and national image.
HRCP said the Gojra attacks were "planned in advance" and that mosque announcements urged local Muslims to "make mincemeat of the Christians".
"A police contingent present in the neighbourhood did not try to stop the mob... The attackers seemed to be trained for carrying out such activities."
The rights group quoted witnesses as saying that a number of attackers were from the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and other militant organisations.
Pakistan's blasphemy law was introduced by former military ruler Zia ul-Haq, who passed tough Islamic legislation, whose 1977-1988 rule was seen as a critical point in the development of extremist Islam in parts of Pakistan.
The civilian administration in Pakistan moved quickly to try to limit the fallout of the anti-Christian killings, offering compensation but cabinet ministers have stopped short of pledging to scrap the blasphemy laws.
"A committee will see the laws which are detrimental to religious harmony to sort out how they could be made better," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Christians during a solidarity visit to Gojra.
Just one witness is enough to incriminate a "heretic". Anyone accused of blasphemy is immediately arrested and charged, before an investigation begins.
In many cases, people take the law in their own hands and go for killing the alleged blasphemer and rights groups say this trend is increasing.
But religious affairs minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi said the government could not risk a "full-fledged review" inciting an Islamist backlash.
"Any move for a major amendment in the law will generate another controversy that will benefit militants and harm the cause of our Christian brothers."
Hindus, Christians and other minorities make up less than five percent of Pakistan's 167 million population, generally impoverished and marginalised.
Evarist Pinto, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Karachi, said the law means religious minorities live in constant danger.
"Militant groups constantly threaten religious minorities with false allegations of blasphemy and often use these laws against them, said Pinto.
But a top cleric who heads the board running about 12,000 Islamic seminaries in the country defended the laws as vital in Pakistan, a Muslim republic.
"The laws have been misused, mostly by the Muslims against the Muslims, but it does not mean that the laws should be abolished. Instead the authorities should take steps to stop its misuse," said Qari Hanif Jalandhari.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan and although no one has been sent to the gallows for the crime, the legislation is too arbitrary analysts say, and is often exploited for personal enmity and encourages Islamist extremism.
When an angry mob of Muslims torched 40 houses and a church in the remote village of Gojra in Pakistan's heartland province of Punjab recently, two children, their parents and 75-year-old grandfather were burnt to death.
Three days later, two people were killed in another Punjab town in what was a private employee dispute against a Muslim factory boss, but coloured by unfounded allegations that the businessman desecrated the Koran.
"It's an arbitrary law, which has been badly misused by extremists and influentials and should be abolished," said Iqbal Haider, co-chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
"There is no option but to abolish this law. More than that, the government should revive the secular nature of the state as our founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah envisaged, otherwise it will aggravate religious unrest," he said.
Almost from inception, Pakistani spies and soldiers have actively armed, sponsored, encouraged or turned a blind eye as Islamist-inspired militant outfits turned their guns on India to the east and Afghanistan to the west.
The country is battling Taliban radicals in the northwest. Islamist bomb attacks across the country have killed around 2,000 people in two years, having a detrimental effect on the economy and national image.
HRCP said the Gojra attacks were "planned in advance" and that mosque announcements urged local Muslims to "make mincemeat of the Christians".
"A police contingent present in the neighbourhood did not try to stop the mob... The attackers seemed to be trained for carrying out such activities."
The rights group quoted witnesses as saying that a number of attackers were from the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and other militant organisations.
Pakistan's blasphemy law was introduced by former military ruler Zia ul-Haq, who passed tough Islamic legislation, whose 1977-1988 rule was seen as a critical point in the development of extremist Islam in parts of Pakistan.
The civilian administration in Pakistan moved quickly to try to limit the fallout of the anti-Christian killings, offering compensation but cabinet ministers have stopped short of pledging to scrap the blasphemy laws.
"A committee will see the laws which are detrimental to religious harmony to sort out how they could be made better," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Christians during a solidarity visit to Gojra.
Just one witness is enough to incriminate a "heretic". Anyone accused of blasphemy is immediately arrested and charged, before an investigation begins.
In many cases, people take the law in their own hands and go for killing the alleged blasphemer and rights groups say this trend is increasing.
But religious affairs minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi said the government could not risk a "full-fledged review" inciting an Islamist backlash.
"Any move for a major amendment in the law will generate another controversy that will benefit militants and harm the cause of our Christian brothers."
Hindus, Christians and other minorities make up less than five percent of Pakistan's 167 million population, generally impoverished and marginalised.
Evarist Pinto, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Karachi, said the law means religious minorities live in constant danger.
"Militant groups constantly threaten religious minorities with false allegations of blasphemy and often use these laws against them, said Pinto.
But a top cleric who heads the board running about 12,000 Islamic seminaries in the country defended the laws as vital in Pakistan, a Muslim republic.
"The laws have been misused, mostly by the Muslims against the Muslims, but it does not mean that the laws should be abolished. Instead the authorities should take steps to stop its misuse," said Qari Hanif Jalandhari.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Secret deal to keep Karzai in power
www.independent.co.uk
With less than two weeks to go until national elections, the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, is trying to cut a secret deal with one of his rivals to knock out his leading contender and ensure a decisive victory to avoid the chaos that a tight result might unleash.
Afghanistan's second democratic polls threaten to split the country along sectarian lines. That would risk undermining US and British-led peace efforts which are already under pressure from a resurgent Taliban.
Mr Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, hail from different ethnic groups and different regions. If neither wins outright in round one on 20 August, officials fear Afghanistan could be engulfed by violence reminiscent of the civil war of the 1990s.
"The whole country is armed. Everybody has weapons. You have to keep everyone happy," an Afghan analyst said. Mr Abdullah's campaign staff have threatened to hold demonstrations should Mr Karzai win, insisting that he could only do so fraudulently.
Mr Abdullah's supporters, who are largely Tajik, have warned of Iranian-style protests, but "with Kalashnikovs", should the President win a second term. Although Mr Karzai, a Pashtun, is still the favourite, his supporters fear that a third candidate, Ashraf Ghani, could split the Pashtun vote, depriving the President of the 51 per cent share he needs to win, and opening the door to Mr Abdullah.
Yesterday, details emerged of how the President was trying to join forces with Mr Ghani to unite the Pashtun vote and knock Mr Abdullah out of the race. Officials said the President had offered Mr Ghani a job as chief executive – a new post described as similar to prime minister. "If Ghani agrees to the terms, Karzai will dump his team and move forward, with Karzai as President and Ghani as chief executive," a campaign official told The Independent last night.
Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador, are understood to have discussed the proposal with Mr Ghani late last month. "It makes sense," a policy analyst with close links to the US administration said. "Holbrooke likes Ghani, and he has come round to the fact that Karzai will probably win."
The idea of a chief executive was hatched in Washington as a way of handing the responsibility of running the government to a skilled technocrat. Mr Ghani has an impressive pedigree as a former university professor and finance minister. Two years ago, he was a contender to head the World Bank. What he lacks – and what might make the deal attractive to him – is the grassroots support that Mr Karzai and Mr Abdullah enjoy.
Sources close to the President's inner circle confirmed that they had made an offer to Mr Ghani two weeks ago and the President's brother, Qayum Karzai, had made the first approach.
"For Karzai it's logical," said a businessman with friends in the President's team. "He doesn't want to divide the Pashtun vote, and if it goes to a second round he's going to lose."
US embassy officials have denied any involvement in back-room deals. Foreign diplomats are desperate to avoid being seen to be influencing the election but the international community is equally keen to avoid bloodshed when the results are announced.
Last night, Mr Ghani's staff said he was campaigning as usual and had no plans to pull out of the race. They said the Mr Karzai's offer was proof of their own candidate's strength.
The President, who has been in power since US-led troops overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001, has been criticised for his lack of control outside of the capital, the slow pace of development and endemic government corruption, but many people admire him for weaving friends and enemies together. "He has always played a game with the Northern Alliance, the Hazaras and the warlords," said the Afghan analyst. "Giving people positions and promises, he was very clever keeping everyone together."
During this election campaign, Mr Karzai has made deals with tribal leaders and local strongmen, promising them positions and patronage in exchange for the votes they control. International officials believe as many as 20 cabinet positions have already been pledged. It is unclear what would happen to these deals if Mr Ghani came on board. However, some observers believe the deal could signal the emergence of a unity government. "Everyone realises that winner takes all won't work," said one.
Violence, already at its worst since the Taliban were ousted after the September 11 attacks, has increased in the run-up to the poll. Yesterday brought news of a bomb attack on a family heading to a wedding in Garmsir, in Helmand province. Five people were reported killed. In a separate attack, in Naad Ali, five policemen died when a bomb exploded near their vehicle.
In western Afghanistan, a roadside bomb killed four US Marines, bringing the death toll of Western troops for the first week of August to at least 15.
Bomb blast outside school wounds six
PESHAWAR: Police say a bomb outside a school in Pakistan's northwest has wounded six people.Local police officer Marjan Khan says the blast hit a parking area outside the school for boys and girls shortly before classes ended Saturday in Charsadda district northeast of Peshawar city.Five of those injured were motorcycle-rickshaw drivers who were waiting to take children home.Khan says no one claimed responsibility, and that the attack was aimed at terrorizing local people.The school is close to Pakistan's northwestern tribal region, where Taliban militants have sought to impose their harsh brand of Islam on the population, often targeting schools, particularly those for girls.
Pakistan’s No. 1 Enemy: Ex-Ally Bent by Al Qaeda
NEW YORK TIMES
KABUL, Afghanistan — Baitullah Mehsud is perhaps the most prominent example of a tribal Taliban fighter who at first fought in Afghanistan and cooperated with the Pakistani Army, but then turned against his own country, unleashing a vicious campaign of violence in the name of spreading the rule of Islam.
The most wanted terrorist in Pakistan by the time of his apparent death on Wednesday in his mid-30s, he rocketed to notoriety in just three years as the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and became a key figure in Al Qaeda’s regional operations.
His turn against the Pakistan state, intelligence analysts say, was seen as a direct result of his close alliance with Al Qaeda, in particular with Ayman al-Zawahri, the second in command, as well as the powerful Afghan Taliban leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who also has a close working connection to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Mehsud, whose death in a missile strike was yet to be officially confirmed, was accused of being behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, in a suicide bombing in December 2007, among scores of other attacks. These include last year’s bombing of the Marriott Hotel in the capital, Islamabad.
But it was the attack on Ms. Bhutto that served as a wake-up call for Pakistan’s security services and political circles, which had for years supported those fighting in Afghanistan as Muslim heroes.
After Ms. Bhutto’s death, when Pakistan’s Interior Ministry released a telephone intercept implicating Mr. Mehsud in her assassination, the liberal newspaper Daily Times wrote, “Al Qaeda is now as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it is an Arab or foreign element.”
Mr. Mehsud was once a minor figure in the small Shabi Khel branch of the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, an inhospitable mountainous territory that fiercely resisted efforts by the armies of the British empire to conquer it. The son of a prayer leader, he had a basic religious education where he grew up in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan. It was probably there that he was first recruited to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban during their period in government in the late 1990s.
He served with the Taliban at the Kabul airport, according to a senior Afghan security official. After the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, he returned to his native Waziristan, accompanied by thousands of Afghan Taliban and hundreds of foreign Qaeda fighters who settled in North and South Waziristan.
As the Pakistani Army began operations in Waziristan in 2004, Mr. Mehsud was promoted by the Taliban leadership to command the fighters from the Mehsud tribe.
But Pakistani officials still considered him someone they could deal with, and in February 2005 they signed a much-criticized peace deal under which the army pulled back its forces, giving Mr. Mehsud freedom to operate in South Waziristan.
He quickly expanded his forces and power, and by December 2007 he had been named the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, the umbrella movement that commands most of the Taliban groups throughout Pakistan’s tribal areas and the adjoining Swat Valley.
His growth had brought Mr. Mehsud back into confrontation with the Pakistani military. In 2007, he took about 250 Pakistani Army soldiers hostage when they tried to pass through his tribal territory.
The hostage-taking came just days after the government laid siege to militants in the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July 2007, and was apparently in retaliation for the government’s crackdown.
Mr. Mehsud began attacking Pakistani military and intelligence targets in the tribal areas and beyond, and was behind almost all of the scores of suicide bombings that have occurred in Pakistan’s cities since then, according to Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the commander of the Pakistani Army.
Afghan security officials said that Mr. Mehsud had also sent suicide bombers to Afghanistan and to Iraq since 2006, as the number of suicide bombings soared in those countries.
He hosted many foreign fighters in his territory, including Uzbeks and others from Central Asia, and he ran training camps to indoctrinate suicide bombers, weapons he once called his own atom bombs. Working closely with him in training suicide bombers were two Pakistani militants, named Qari Zafar and Qari Hussain.
Mr. Mehsud also ran private jails and held dozens of kidnapped hostages, trading them for money or for his own fighters caught by the Pakistani authorities. Among those who fell into his hands was the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who was held for three months and met Mr. Mehsud twice, according to Pakistani officials.
Mr. Mehsud already then complained that he had to be constantly on the move, to avoid the surveillance of C.I.A.-operated drones, which were striking targets in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the officials said. By this year he was moving every 30 minutes to avoid detection, according to a Taliban fighter.
Yet he survived two large-scale operations against his fighters by the Pakistani military, one in January 2008 and another in June 2009.
Both times the Pakistani military seemed to pull back before finishing off Mr. Mehsud and his forces, prompting suspicions that he was still regarded as an asset by the military establishment, which has long supported militant groups to fight proxy wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
But his attacks inside Pakistan escalated with complex attacks on government buildings and five-star hotels, which were seen as a threat to the nation.
Last March, the United States put a $5 million reward on his head. In June, Pakistan declared him its “enemy No. 1.”
KABUL, Afghanistan — Baitullah Mehsud is perhaps the most prominent example of a tribal Taliban fighter who at first fought in Afghanistan and cooperated with the Pakistani Army, but then turned against his own country, unleashing a vicious campaign of violence in the name of spreading the rule of Islam.
The most wanted terrorist in Pakistan by the time of his apparent death on Wednesday in his mid-30s, he rocketed to notoriety in just three years as the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and became a key figure in Al Qaeda’s regional operations.
His turn against the Pakistan state, intelligence analysts say, was seen as a direct result of his close alliance with Al Qaeda, in particular with Ayman al-Zawahri, the second in command, as well as the powerful Afghan Taliban leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who also has a close working connection to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Mehsud, whose death in a missile strike was yet to be officially confirmed, was accused of being behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister, in a suicide bombing in December 2007, among scores of other attacks. These include last year’s bombing of the Marriott Hotel in the capital, Islamabad.
But it was the attack on Ms. Bhutto that served as a wake-up call for Pakistan’s security services and political circles, which had for years supported those fighting in Afghanistan as Muslim heroes.
After Ms. Bhutto’s death, when Pakistan’s Interior Ministry released a telephone intercept implicating Mr. Mehsud in her assassination, the liberal newspaper Daily Times wrote, “Al Qaeda is now as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it is an Arab or foreign element.”
Mr. Mehsud was once a minor figure in the small Shabi Khel branch of the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, an inhospitable mountainous territory that fiercely resisted efforts by the armies of the British empire to conquer it. The son of a prayer leader, he had a basic religious education where he grew up in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan. It was probably there that he was first recruited to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban during their period in government in the late 1990s.
He served with the Taliban at the Kabul airport, according to a senior Afghan security official. After the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, he returned to his native Waziristan, accompanied by thousands of Afghan Taliban and hundreds of foreign Qaeda fighters who settled in North and South Waziristan.
As the Pakistani Army began operations in Waziristan in 2004, Mr. Mehsud was promoted by the Taliban leadership to command the fighters from the Mehsud tribe.
But Pakistani officials still considered him someone they could deal with, and in February 2005 they signed a much-criticized peace deal under which the army pulled back its forces, giving Mr. Mehsud freedom to operate in South Waziristan.
He quickly expanded his forces and power, and by December 2007 he had been named the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, the umbrella movement that commands most of the Taliban groups throughout Pakistan’s tribal areas and the adjoining Swat Valley.
His growth had brought Mr. Mehsud back into confrontation with the Pakistani military. In 2007, he took about 250 Pakistani Army soldiers hostage when they tried to pass through his tribal territory.
The hostage-taking came just days after the government laid siege to militants in the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July 2007, and was apparently in retaliation for the government’s crackdown.
Mr. Mehsud began attacking Pakistani military and intelligence targets in the tribal areas and beyond, and was behind almost all of the scores of suicide bombings that have occurred in Pakistan’s cities since then, according to Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the commander of the Pakistani Army.
Afghan security officials said that Mr. Mehsud had also sent suicide bombers to Afghanistan and to Iraq since 2006, as the number of suicide bombings soared in those countries.
He hosted many foreign fighters in his territory, including Uzbeks and others from Central Asia, and he ran training camps to indoctrinate suicide bombers, weapons he once called his own atom bombs. Working closely with him in training suicide bombers were two Pakistani militants, named Qari Zafar and Qari Hussain.
Mr. Mehsud also ran private jails and held dozens of kidnapped hostages, trading them for money or for his own fighters caught by the Pakistani authorities. Among those who fell into his hands was the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who was held for three months and met Mr. Mehsud twice, according to Pakistani officials.
Mr. Mehsud already then complained that he had to be constantly on the move, to avoid the surveillance of C.I.A.-operated drones, which were striking targets in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the officials said. By this year he was moving every 30 minutes to avoid detection, according to a Taliban fighter.
Yet he survived two large-scale operations against his fighters by the Pakistani military, one in January 2008 and another in June 2009.
Both times the Pakistani military seemed to pull back before finishing off Mr. Mehsud and his forces, prompting suspicions that he was still regarded as an asset by the military establishment, which has long supported militant groups to fight proxy wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
But his attacks inside Pakistan escalated with complex attacks on government buildings and five-star hotels, which were seen as a threat to the nation.
Last March, the United States put a $5 million reward on his head. In June, Pakistan declared him its “enemy No. 1.”
Rocket hits Peshawar locality, no casualties
PESHAWAR: A rocket fired by suspected militants from an unknown location damaged two houses in the city’s Gulberg-II locality on Friday but caused no casualties.
One of the houses reportedly belongs to a Frontier Corps officer. But his brother Malik Ashraf told the media that the officer was residing somewhere else.
The family living in the house said it had shifted from Hangu and taken up residence only two days ago. It had no idea who could be the attackers.
Residents of the area, who had gathered at the site, said the rocket landed with a bang and created panic among the people. ‘We heard the blast and people inside the house started crying,’ said one resident. It was the first incident of its kind in the locality.
Police have recovered shell of the rocket and asked the people to stay away from the damaged walls. SSP (operations) Abdul Ghafoor Afridi said it was not clear from where the rocket was fired.
Meanwhile, a police spokesman stated that at least 20 suspected people had been arrested in Peshawar in raids on hideouts on Friday. He did not disclose their names, saying that they were under interrogation.
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