PESHAWAR: The never-ending series of bomb attacks has not only disrupted the normal life in the provincial capital, but also changed the city to a heavily barricaded fortress, with walls, check-posts, sand bags and barbed wires. Every now and then rumours of attack force the authorities to block the entry to certain areas, panicking the distressed residents.
On Friday Saddar bazaar was sealed following reports of terrorist attacks in the area, while previously the entry of vehicles had been banned to the famed Qissa Khawni Bazaar on such reports. The street is closed for entry of vehicles with barbed wires at its entry point from Khyber Bazaar in front of Khan Raziq Shaheed Police Station and also from Mohammad Ali Jauhar Road and Misgaran Bazaar on its eastern end.
The narrow lane of Kabari Bazaar, a scene of bomb attack earlier in May this year, has also blocked with steel barriers to check the entry of motorcycles. A similar situation could be seen in the Koochi Bazaar, which starts at the end of Mohammad Ali Jauhar and runs through Meena Bazaar, Shaheen Bazaar and other narrow streets of the city.
In addition, the roped-off portions of the roads in every nook and coroner of the city and its bazaars have also deprived the city of its traditional openness and hospitality.
Following the recent deadly attacks several such blockades have emerged in the Cantonment area, which has been the prime target of terrorists.
Check-posts were set up near Khyber House on Bara Road and on the Mall in front of Peshawar Club and also State Life Building, which has been protected with sandbags on all its sides in addition to a checkpoint on the Mall. A road linking the Mall and Bara Road near Stadium Chowk has been closed and a wall constructed following the deadly attacks.
While on Warsak Road Fata Secretariat is one of such fortified structures, which has been fortified with sand bags and barriers, in addition to barriers and checkpoints on this route.
A similar situation could be seen in front of MPA Hostel on Sher Shah Suri Road near central jail, where a picket is being constructed at the gate, while at some distance barricades have been placed on the main road to protect the newly constructed office of the Governor House.
Similarly, vehicles entry to Liaqat Bazaar and adjacent markets has been restricted with steel bars and chains. Every bomb blast and terrorist attack not only blights a certain part of the city, but also adds to the blighting of the city’s landscape with new barriers, walls, diversions, sand bags and barbed wires. However, there has been no end to this misery, as terrorism again starts to bleed the city after a brief lull and this has become a fait accompli with no possible end in sight for around three million citizens of this city.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Swine flu suspect flees from Peshawar hospital
PESHAWAR: There is a fear of swine flu outbreak in the province, as a suspected swine flu patient has fled from Hayatabad Medical Complex.
Hospital sources told Daily Times on Sunday that Haji Aamir, a resident of Mardan district, fled from the hospital along with his family members in the wee hours of Saturday. He was under observation for swine flu. The NWFP government’s health monitoring cell at Peshawar Airport had referred Haji Aamir, 38, to Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) after showing symptoms of swine flu on return from Haj. He was kept in an isolation ward.
The hospital sources said that the doctors had also sent his blood samples to the National Institute of Health Islamabad. Health Department Executive District Officer (EDO) and in charge of monitoring cell at the airport Dr Abdul Waheed Burki said that the HMC administration was responsible for the escape of the suspected swine flu patient. HMC Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Adil Marjan said that the family members of the suspected swine flu patient had taken him by force. He said the security staff resisted their attempt but of no avail. In the past two months at least six cases of swine flu have been detected in the provincial capital, doctors said. According to Aftab Durrani, HMC Medical Superintendent, the total number of H1N1 cases in NWFP has risen to six, including three staffers of the HMC. On November 7, an Afghan woman Latifa Bibi, 40, from Herat province of Afghanistan had died due to the virus, while one more Afghan patient of swine flu patient is under treatment at the hospital.
Doctors said there were no vaccines available at any of the major hospitals across the province. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), pandemic (H1N1) 2009 is a new influenza virus that was never circulated among humans before. After outbreak in North America early in 2009, the virus spread rapidly around the world. Pandemic influenza is transmitted like seasonal influenza but people have virtually no immunity to it.
Hospital sources told Daily Times on Sunday that Haji Aamir, a resident of Mardan district, fled from the hospital along with his family members in the wee hours of Saturday. He was under observation for swine flu. The NWFP government’s health monitoring cell at Peshawar Airport had referred Haji Aamir, 38, to Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) after showing symptoms of swine flu on return from Haj. He was kept in an isolation ward.
The hospital sources said that the doctors had also sent his blood samples to the National Institute of Health Islamabad. Health Department Executive District Officer (EDO) and in charge of monitoring cell at the airport Dr Abdul Waheed Burki said that the HMC administration was responsible for the escape of the suspected swine flu patient. HMC Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Adil Marjan said that the family members of the suspected swine flu patient had taken him by force. He said the security staff resisted their attempt but of no avail. In the past two months at least six cases of swine flu have been detected in the provincial capital, doctors said. According to Aftab Durrani, HMC Medical Superintendent, the total number of H1N1 cases in NWFP has risen to six, including three staffers of the HMC. On November 7, an Afghan woman Latifa Bibi, 40, from Herat province of Afghanistan had died due to the virus, while one more Afghan patient of swine flu patient is under treatment at the hospital.
Doctors said there were no vaccines available at any of the major hospitals across the province. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), pandemic (H1N1) 2009 is a new influenza virus that was never circulated among humans before. After outbreak in North America early in 2009, the virus spread rapidly around the world. Pandemic influenza is transmitted like seasonal influenza but people have virtually no immunity to it.
Pashto names of Bara operations create drama, and doubts, too
TheNews
PESHAWAR: The dramatic Pashto names of operations in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency have drawn a lot of discussion and debate in civil society circles and intelligentsia.
The first operation against the militants and outlawed groups was launched in the Bara on June 28, 2008 with the codename ‘Sirat-e-Mustaqeem’ (The Righteous Path). It was started by Frontier Corps (FC) and the interior ministry officials claimed that objectives of the operation were achieved.
The second military offensive in Bara was started in December 2008 with the codename ‘Daraghlam’ (Here I Come!). This operation could not achieve much and was stopped before taking it to its logical conclusion.
The defiant Mangal Bagh, a militant leader of banned outfit Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) and his group continued their activities after end to the operation.
Another military offensive began on September 1, 2009 with a theatrical Pashto codename ‘Bya Daraghlam’ (Here I Come Again!). It was as if the troops had to come again to finish the unfinished task in Bara. Critics dismissed both comings of the FC under the codenames ‘Daraghlam’ and ‘Bya Daraghlam’ as half-hearted and incomplete.
Surprisingly enough, the fourth and recently launched operation on November 24, 2009 has a very interesting codename ‘Khwakh Ba De Shum’ which is a Pashto expression meaning ‘I Will teach you a lesson’ or ‘I will fix you!’
The sequence of names more looks like Pashto movie names and definitely trigger a smile on people’s faces when mentioned. While operation Rah-e-Rast in Swat and operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan are very explicit in their meaning with clear intention despite being in Urdu, the names in Bara operations appear non-serious and in a way a mockery of such a serious cause and plan.
The names show that those who name these operations are unaware of the Pakhtun culture or non-serious about their nomenclature. Or they fully understand it but are fond of giving theatrical names to the military action. Most people think that our military is strong enough to control this handful of militants in Bara but the operation has not been totally successful so far, which has raised serious questions.
Talking to The News, Dr Said Alam Mehsud, leader of Paktunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), said the codenames of the military operations seemed like Pashto movies’ names showing the non-seriousness of the planners. “All the operations are a mere drama and the security forces never targeted militants and whenever they hit their homes and hideouts in Khyber Agency that was also with an understanding and there were reports that they were also compensated for the losses,” he said.
He said that a total 19 military operations were carried out but none of them was credible and no tangible achievement made during these adventures.Muhammad Tahir, an educationist, said the codename of military offensive in Bara signifies that the operation was a low priority area for the rulers and the power that be. He further said Bara was an area taht could be very well controlled by a willing army despite Tirah valley depth, but so far no close aide to Mangal Bagh was killed or arrested while the militant leader himself was still at large.
When contacted, Major Fazal, public relations officer of Frontier Corps (FC), said the codenames in itself had a very clear message for the militants. He added that the recent codename of the operation “Khwakh ba de Sham” had a meaning of “ I will fix you” which was a very vivid message to the outlaws.
About progress in the operation, the FC spokesman said the security forces were fast achieving targets by clearing the militancy-hit areas, destroying their hideouts and strongholds. The militants have been dislocated, he claimed. The officer was of the opinion that military operations were not person-specific merely. “We are more concerned about restoring supply routes, protecting civilian population and dismantling the command and control of the militants.
PESHAWAR: The dramatic Pashto names of operations in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency have drawn a lot of discussion and debate in civil society circles and intelligentsia.
The first operation against the militants and outlawed groups was launched in the Bara on June 28, 2008 with the codename ‘Sirat-e-Mustaqeem’ (The Righteous Path). It was started by Frontier Corps (FC) and the interior ministry officials claimed that objectives of the operation were achieved.
The second military offensive in Bara was started in December 2008 with the codename ‘Daraghlam’ (Here I Come!). This operation could not achieve much and was stopped before taking it to its logical conclusion.
The defiant Mangal Bagh, a militant leader of banned outfit Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) and his group continued their activities after end to the operation.
Another military offensive began on September 1, 2009 with a theatrical Pashto codename ‘Bya Daraghlam’ (Here I Come Again!). It was as if the troops had to come again to finish the unfinished task in Bara. Critics dismissed both comings of the FC under the codenames ‘Daraghlam’ and ‘Bya Daraghlam’ as half-hearted and incomplete.
Surprisingly enough, the fourth and recently launched operation on November 24, 2009 has a very interesting codename ‘Khwakh Ba De Shum’ which is a Pashto expression meaning ‘I Will teach you a lesson’ or ‘I will fix you!’
The sequence of names more looks like Pashto movie names and definitely trigger a smile on people’s faces when mentioned. While operation Rah-e-Rast in Swat and operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan are very explicit in their meaning with clear intention despite being in Urdu, the names in Bara operations appear non-serious and in a way a mockery of such a serious cause and plan.
The names show that those who name these operations are unaware of the Pakhtun culture or non-serious about their nomenclature. Or they fully understand it but are fond of giving theatrical names to the military action. Most people think that our military is strong enough to control this handful of militants in Bara but the operation has not been totally successful so far, which has raised serious questions.
Talking to The News, Dr Said Alam Mehsud, leader of Paktunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), said the codenames of the military operations seemed like Pashto movies’ names showing the non-seriousness of the planners. “All the operations are a mere drama and the security forces never targeted militants and whenever they hit their homes and hideouts in Khyber Agency that was also with an understanding and there were reports that they were also compensated for the losses,” he said.
He said that a total 19 military operations were carried out but none of them was credible and no tangible achievement made during these adventures.Muhammad Tahir, an educationist, said the codename of military offensive in Bara signifies that the operation was a low priority area for the rulers and the power that be. He further said Bara was an area taht could be very well controlled by a willing army despite Tirah valley depth, but so far no close aide to Mangal Bagh was killed or arrested while the militant leader himself was still at large.
When contacted, Major Fazal, public relations officer of Frontier Corps (FC), said the codenames in itself had a very clear message for the militants. He added that the recent codename of the operation “Khwakh ba de Sham” had a meaning of “ I will fix you” which was a very vivid message to the outlaws.
About progress in the operation, the FC spokesman said the security forces were fast achieving targets by clearing the militancy-hit areas, destroying their hideouts and strongholds. The militants have been dislocated, he claimed. The officer was of the opinion that military operations were not person-specific merely. “We are more concerned about restoring supply routes, protecting civilian population and dismantling the command and control of the militants.
Gojra report proposes amending blasphemy laws
FAISALABAD: An inquiry report on riots in Gojra in August – which killed several people – proposes amendments to the blasphemy laws.
An inquiry tribunal – headed by Lahore High Court Judge Iqbal Hameedur Rehman and tasked with looking into the tragedy that killed seven people – also warned the government on Sunday that “the Gojra tragedy must be taken seriously and the needful [should] be done on war-footing without further loss of time”.
The violent protests in Gojra triggered ethnic tensions and resulted in the displacement of 96 Christian families.
The inquiry tribunal notes in the report that the country is already facing grave challenges in the form of terrorism and militancy – which, in addition to destroying the economy, have “disfigured our national image all over the world ... we cannot afford any other menace, [such as] sectarian disputes”. It says efforts to control such unrest must begin immediately.
The 258-page report recommends action “without any discrimination against those responsible for commission and omission”.
The report also proposes amendments to Pakistan Penal Code sections 295, 295-A, 295-B, 295-C, 296, 297, 298, 298-A, 298-B, 298-C, anti-blasphemy laws, relevant provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code and the Police Order 2002.
It recommends that federal intelligence agencies be mandated to provide “first-hand information at the divisional level”. It also calls for the capacity building of the Special Branch, the establishment of a special force for the protection and protocol of VIPs and other vulnerable persons, the exclusion of district nazims in issues related to law and order, the establishment of intelligence and crime prevention branches, rules for effective utilisation of police in terms of Article 112 of Police Order 2002, the constitution of a district religious dispute resolution board, and categorisation of districts on the basis of sensitivity.
The tribunal reached the conclusion that the riots were a result of the “inability of law-enforcement agencies to assess the gravity of the situation, inadequate precautionary and preventive measures taken by law-enforcement agencies, a lukewarm stance by the Toba Tek Singh DPO, the failure of intelligence agencies in providing prompt and correct information, a defective security plan, the irresponsible behaviour of the administration, the complete failure of police while discharging their duties, the non-enforcement of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, omissions to take steps under sections 107 and 151 of the CrPC, the lack of a decision to invoke the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) 1960 – which amounts to letting the miscreants loose to wreak havoc during the course of the riots – and several other factors”.
An inquiry tribunal – headed by Lahore High Court Judge Iqbal Hameedur Rehman and tasked with looking into the tragedy that killed seven people – also warned the government on Sunday that “the Gojra tragedy must be taken seriously and the needful [should] be done on war-footing without further loss of time”.
The violent protests in Gojra triggered ethnic tensions and resulted in the displacement of 96 Christian families.
The inquiry tribunal notes in the report that the country is already facing grave challenges in the form of terrorism and militancy – which, in addition to destroying the economy, have “disfigured our national image all over the world ... we cannot afford any other menace, [such as] sectarian disputes”. It says efforts to control such unrest must begin immediately.
The 258-page report recommends action “without any discrimination against those responsible for commission and omission”.
The report also proposes amendments to Pakistan Penal Code sections 295, 295-A, 295-B, 295-C, 296, 297, 298, 298-A, 298-B, 298-C, anti-blasphemy laws, relevant provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code and the Police Order 2002.
It recommends that federal intelligence agencies be mandated to provide “first-hand information at the divisional level”. It also calls for the capacity building of the Special Branch, the establishment of a special force for the protection and protocol of VIPs and other vulnerable persons, the exclusion of district nazims in issues related to law and order, the establishment of intelligence and crime prevention branches, rules for effective utilisation of police in terms of Article 112 of Police Order 2002, the constitution of a district religious dispute resolution board, and categorisation of districts on the basis of sensitivity.
The tribunal reached the conclusion that the riots were a result of the “inability of law-enforcement agencies to assess the gravity of the situation, inadequate precautionary and preventive measures taken by law-enforcement agencies, a lukewarm stance by the Toba Tek Singh DPO, the failure of intelligence agencies in providing prompt and correct information, a defective security plan, the irresponsible behaviour of the administration, the complete failure of police while discharging their duties, the non-enforcement of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, omissions to take steps under sections 107 and 151 of the CrPC, the lack of a decision to invoke the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) 1960 – which amounts to letting the miscreants loose to wreak havoc during the course of the riots – and several other factors”.
Melting Himalayan glaciers threaten major drought
KATHMANDU: More than a billion people in Asia depend on Himalayan glaciers for water, but experts say they are melting at an alarming rate, threatening to bring drought to large swathes of the continent.
Glaciers in the Himalayas provide headwaters for Asia’s nine largest rivers, lifelines for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream.
But temperatures in the region have increased by between 0.15 and 0.6 degrees Celsius each decade for the last 30 years, dramatically accelerating the rate at which glaciers are shrinking. “Scientists predict that most glaciers will be gone in 40 years as a result of climate change,” said Prashant Singh, leader of environmental group WWF’s Climate for Life campaign.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body regarded as the world’s top authority on climate change, has warned Himalayan glaciers could “disappear altogether by 2035” and experts say the effects of global warming are already being felt in the region.
Experts say the resulting water shortages could hit the economic development of China and India.
Helpless: But research on the impact of global warming on the rugged and inaccessible Himalayas remains sparse, with the IPCC describing the region as a “blank spot” due to a lack of scientific data.
Karzai: U.S. must have patience if Afghanistan not ready
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday the United States and its allies must have patience if his country is not ready to assume control of its own security by July 2011, when U.S. troops would begin leaving under President Obama's plan.
Karzai spoke to CNN's "Amanpour" program, in what was believed to be his first Western television interview since Obama's announcement last week that he will deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Obama also said the U.S. forces would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011.
The date was not "an exit announcement," but instead a goal for Afghan forces to be able to start assuming security control from U.S.-led allied forces, Karzai said in the interview.
"We will try our best as the Afghan people to do it the soonest possible," Karzai said. "But the international community must have also the patience with us and the realization of the realities in Afghanistan. If it takes longer, then they must be with us."
Karzai also offered his own timeline goal, saying Afghanistan wants to be able to assume security control in some parts of the country in two years, and to lead security for the entire country by the end of his five-year term, which just started after his recent re-election.
"We as Afghans will try our very best to reach that goal, and we hope our allies will back us to reach that goal," Karzai said.
Later Sunday, Obama's national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, told CNN's "State of the Union" that the July 2011 date was "not a cliff" for U.S. withdrawal, but instead the start of a gradual slope for turning over security responsibility to Afghanistan.
Obama "has also said that we're not leaving Afghanistan," Jones noted, adding: "We are here to make sure that Afghanistan succeeds."
To prepare his country, Karzai said, he would do all he can to root out corruption and improve governance. He has fired corrupt officials already, he said, adding he is prepared to act against anyone proven to be breaking the law.
However, he warned against other nations using the corruption as a political tool in making decisions about Afghanistan. And he said the United States and its allies also must halt practices that contribute to corruption from outside the country or create what he called "parallel" governance issues.
The main objective for Afghanistan and its allies is to defeat terrorism and return peace to the nation, neighboring Pakistan and the region, Karzai said. That means training Afghan security forces, rebuilding the economy and other nation-building efforts, he said.
"I have fired people and I will be firing people," Karzai said. He seemed to laugh when he was played a video clip of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying the United States would bypass corrupt government officials if necessary.
"Afghanistan is a sovereign country, it has a sovereign government, it's not an occupied country," Karzai said, adding that a foreign power can't undermine or go around the government to deal with whomever it chooses.
Top priorities on a "long list" of reforms include improving the rule of law, improving the judiciary, reducing bureaucracy that forces people to visit dozens of offices to get licenses, and other steps to make the government more transparent and simpler, Karzai said.
He also said the country welcomed Taliban supporters who had no ties to al Qaeda or other terrorist networks.
Eradicating terrorist networks and helping Karzai's government defeat the Taliban insurgency are main goals of the U.S.-led mission.
Approximately 1,000 U.S. Marines are expected to deploy this month as the first wave of the new deployment, military officials say. The Army may not deploy the first soldiers until at least March.
Testifying before a congressional committee last week, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a "significant" number of troops will arrive in the spring and summer, with the final troops moving to Afghanistan by late summer or early fall.
Meanwhile, the White House said Obama would meet with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, on Monday. Both are expected to testify before Congress this week.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday that Britain, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and non-NATO member Georgia are among at least 25 countries offering to send a total of 7,000 additional troops.
At present, there are 68,000 U.S. troops operating under both NATO and U.S. commands in Afghanistan, and around 42,000 non-U.S. forces under NATO.
Karzai spoke to CNN's "Amanpour" program, in what was believed to be his first Western television interview since Obama's announcement last week that he will deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Obama also said the U.S. forces would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011.
The date was not "an exit announcement," but instead a goal for Afghan forces to be able to start assuming security control from U.S.-led allied forces, Karzai said in the interview.
"We will try our best as the Afghan people to do it the soonest possible," Karzai said. "But the international community must have also the patience with us and the realization of the realities in Afghanistan. If it takes longer, then they must be with us."
Karzai also offered his own timeline goal, saying Afghanistan wants to be able to assume security control in some parts of the country in two years, and to lead security for the entire country by the end of his five-year term, which just started after his recent re-election.
"We as Afghans will try our very best to reach that goal, and we hope our allies will back us to reach that goal," Karzai said.
Later Sunday, Obama's national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, told CNN's "State of the Union" that the July 2011 date was "not a cliff" for U.S. withdrawal, but instead the start of a gradual slope for turning over security responsibility to Afghanistan.
Obama "has also said that we're not leaving Afghanistan," Jones noted, adding: "We are here to make sure that Afghanistan succeeds."
To prepare his country, Karzai said, he would do all he can to root out corruption and improve governance. He has fired corrupt officials already, he said, adding he is prepared to act against anyone proven to be breaking the law.
However, he warned against other nations using the corruption as a political tool in making decisions about Afghanistan. And he said the United States and its allies also must halt practices that contribute to corruption from outside the country or create what he called "parallel" governance issues.
The main objective for Afghanistan and its allies is to defeat terrorism and return peace to the nation, neighboring Pakistan and the region, Karzai said. That means training Afghan security forces, rebuilding the economy and other nation-building efforts, he said.
"I have fired people and I will be firing people," Karzai said. He seemed to laugh when he was played a video clip of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying the United States would bypass corrupt government officials if necessary.
"Afghanistan is a sovereign country, it has a sovereign government, it's not an occupied country," Karzai said, adding that a foreign power can't undermine or go around the government to deal with whomever it chooses.
Top priorities on a "long list" of reforms include improving the rule of law, improving the judiciary, reducing bureaucracy that forces people to visit dozens of offices to get licenses, and other steps to make the government more transparent and simpler, Karzai said.
He also said the country welcomed Taliban supporters who had no ties to al Qaeda or other terrorist networks.
Eradicating terrorist networks and helping Karzai's government defeat the Taliban insurgency are main goals of the U.S.-led mission.
Approximately 1,000 U.S. Marines are expected to deploy this month as the first wave of the new deployment, military officials say. The Army may not deploy the first soldiers until at least March.
Testifying before a congressional committee last week, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a "significant" number of troops will arrive in the spring and summer, with the final troops moving to Afghanistan by late summer or early fall.
Meanwhile, the White House said Obama would meet with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, on Monday. Both are expected to testify before Congress this week.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday that Britain, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and non-NATO member Georgia are among at least 25 countries offering to send a total of 7,000 additional troops.
At present, there are 68,000 U.S. troops operating under both NATO and U.S. commands in Afghanistan, and around 42,000 non-U.S. forces under NATO.
Pakistan now putting pressure on Taliban
WASHINGTON — Pakistan has acknowledged a growing threat from within its borders and is changing its attitude toward fighting terrorists, U.S. officials say.
"The Taliban in Pakistan have been attacking Pakistani civilians, Pakistani government officials, military officials, trying to destabilize the government of Pakistan," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, joined on three Sunday talk shows by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Pakistani police have been on high alert since a bombing-grenade attack on a Rawalpindi mosque left 37 people dead, including several senior army officers. On Sunday, police commandos killed one militant and arrested five others in a raid near Peshawar, the gateway city to the Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan. The detained are suspected of involvement in recent bombings and other attacks not only in Peshawar but in Islamabad and its sister city of Rawalpindi, a Pakistani official said.
"They are bringing pressure to bear on the Taliban in Pakistan, and particularly those that are attacking the Pakistani government," Gates said. "Any pressure on the Taliban, whether it's in Pakistan or in Afghanistan is helpful to us because al-Qaida is working with both of them."
Clinton said the change in Pakistan's view has come as its leaders have seen terrorist groups join forces and threaten Pakistan's sovereignty.
"There is a syndicate of terrorism with al-Qaida at the head of it. So, we're doing everything we can to support them in what is a really life-or-death struggle," she said.
Gates said the Taliban's "revival in the safe havens in western Pakistan is a lesson to al-Qaida that they can come back, if they are provided the kind of safe haven that the Taliban were."
Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, is believed to be hiding in Quetta, one of those safe havens in a part of Pakistan that is largely ungoverned by the Pakistani government.
"That's one of the problems they have," said Clinton. "They ceded territory that they're now trying to get back."
An underlying concern is the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Gates said that he is satisfied that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are secure.
"The U.S. has been working with Pakistan to keep their supply safe," Gates said.
Clinton and Gates appeared on ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation" and NBC's "Meet the Press." The interviews were taped Saturday and the networks provided transcripts in advance of the shows' broadcast.
"The Taliban in Pakistan have been attacking Pakistani civilians, Pakistani government officials, military officials, trying to destabilize the government of Pakistan," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, joined on three Sunday talk shows by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Pakistani police have been on high alert since a bombing-grenade attack on a Rawalpindi mosque left 37 people dead, including several senior army officers. On Sunday, police commandos killed one militant and arrested five others in a raid near Peshawar, the gateway city to the Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan. The detained are suspected of involvement in recent bombings and other attacks not only in Peshawar but in Islamabad and its sister city of Rawalpindi, a Pakistani official said.
"They are bringing pressure to bear on the Taliban in Pakistan, and particularly those that are attacking the Pakistani government," Gates said. "Any pressure on the Taliban, whether it's in Pakistan or in Afghanistan is helpful to us because al-Qaida is working with both of them."
Clinton said the change in Pakistan's view has come as its leaders have seen terrorist groups join forces and threaten Pakistan's sovereignty.
"There is a syndicate of terrorism with al-Qaida at the head of it. So, we're doing everything we can to support them in what is a really life-or-death struggle," she said.
Gates said the Taliban's "revival in the safe havens in western Pakistan is a lesson to al-Qaida that they can come back, if they are provided the kind of safe haven that the Taliban were."
Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, is believed to be hiding in Quetta, one of those safe havens in a part of Pakistan that is largely ungoverned by the Pakistani government.
"That's one of the problems they have," said Clinton. "They ceded territory that they're now trying to get back."
An underlying concern is the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Gates said that he is satisfied that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are secure.
"The U.S. has been working with Pakistan to keep their supply safe," Gates said.
Clinton and Gates appeared on ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation" and NBC's "Meet the Press." The interviews were taped Saturday and the networks provided transcripts in advance of the shows' broadcast.
U.S. Believes Pakistan Nuclear Arms Are Secure: Gates
NewYorkTimes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has helped Pakistan improve security arrangements for its nuclear arms and is "comfortable" the weapons are secure, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview aired on Sunday.
The Pakistani government has come under repeated attack from Taliban extremists, most recently on Friday when two suicide bombers eluded security and blew themselves up in a mosque in Rawalpindi, home to the country's military establishment, killing some 40 people.
The attack raised concerns about how the bombers penetrated what should have been one of the country's most secure areas. In light of the blasts, Gates faced questions about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arms.
"We are comfortable with the security of their weapons," he told CBS's "Face the Nation" program.
Asked how he could be sure, given reports the United States does not know where all the arms are located, Gates would only say that based on the information available, U.S. officials were comfortable with their safety.
"We have a good relationship with them. We've actually given them assistance in improving some of their security arrangements over the past number of years. This is not a new relationship. And I think just based on the information available to us that gives us the comfort," he said.
Pakistan, which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, conducted several nuclear tests in 1998. The country is estimated to have at least 60 nuclear warheads, possibly stored in component form, according to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report in October.
Concern about nuclear safety in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington prompted former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to have the country's nuclear arsenal moved to six secret locations, the report said, citing press reports.
Proliferation is a concern with Pakistan. The father of the country's nuclear program, A.Q. Khan, was involved in supplying North Korea, Iran and Libya with materials related to uranium enrichment, the report said, and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden reportedly has tried to make contact with the network.
Kurdish boy who 'died' in Halabja gas attack is reunited with his mother
www.timesonline.co.uk/
For two decades, Fatima Hama Saleh thought that all her children had died in a gas attack carried out by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish town of Halabja — the worst atrocity of the former Iraqi dictator’s rule.
But now she has been reunited with her son, Ali Pour, at a dramatic meeting after DNA tests confirmed that the young man, now aged 21, was the infant she became separated from when chemical weapons rained down on the Kurdish market town in 1988.
“I’m in a dream,” said Mr Pour, as he embraced and comforted his weeping mother. She replied: “I wonder if it is a dream or a gift from God.”
Mother and son were talking to each other through an interpreter because Mr Pour speaks only his adopted tongue farsi and not his native Kurdish or Iraq’s official language, Arabic.
Mrs Saleh revealed his birth name, Zimnaku Mohammed Saleh, and recalled the day Halabja was attacked, including the panic the family felt when their home was enveloped by a deadly cocktail of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX.
“We didn’t know where to go,” Mrs Saleh said. “Zimnaku, the four-month-old, was on my lap and suddenly my older son screamed saying: ‘Mother, I feel like I’m burning’. I tried to help him and my other sons, too. But it was in vain. I saw them dying in front of me. I collapsed and the next thing I remember is lying in a hospital bed in Tehran.”
Mr Pour’s adoptive uncle explained what happened next. “The baby Ali survived for three days,” said Habib Hamid Pour. He was found by the Iranian military, which moved into Halabja after the attack, and took him to Iran along with other survivors.
Eventually he was placed with a family in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad and was raised as an Iranian.
“My adopted mother was nice,” said Mr Pour, dressed in traditional Kurdish clothing of baggy pants, tunic and scarf tucked into his belt. “When I entered primary school at age 6, she told me I am from the Kurdish people of Halabja. She said I should return some day to meet my relatives.”
Four months ago, his adoptive mother was killed in a car accident. “I felt lonely and I felt a strange feeling calling me to return to the arms of my relatives,” he said. “I decided to go back.”
He contacted Iranian officials who kept records on the Halabja survivors brought to Iran. They contacted the Halabja government, which said six families were missing a boy who would now be Mr Pour’s age. A judge ordered a DNA test to be carried out by a medical lab in Jordan.
The massacre in Halabja on March 16, 1988, was part of Saddam’s Anfal Campaign that killed up to 200,000 Kurds. Three-quarters of the 5,000 killed in Halabja were women and children, making it the worst gas attack carried out against civilians.
Four of Mrs Saleh’s five children died in the attack as well as her husband, Mr Pour’s father. After the reunion, she said: “I will not die in sorrow and grief, after all the miseries I have experienced.”
She had learnt from a television report that a surviving child was looking for his family and applied to do the DNA test. At the meeting of the six participating families, shouts of joy eventually broke the silence that had greeted the announcement.
Mrs Saleh stood up and then fell to her seat as she took in what had been said. “Thank you God! You brought back my son Zimnaku,” she cried. “It’s like my whole family has come back to life — my son has returned.”
Clinton seeks to reassure Pakistanis on ties
WASHINGTON: Renewing US commitment to a long-term relationship with Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama Administration has requested a significant increase in economic development assistance for the country, a key partner in curbing violent extremism in the region.
‘We are committed to Pakistan’s security, stability, and sovereignty for the long term,’ said Clinton.
She said President Obama’s strategy, announced this week, reflects the American nation’s commitment to building a broad partnership with the Pakistani people.
This partnership, she remarked, is based on common values and a shared commitment to democratic rule, robust economic development, safety and security of all Pakistanis and the defeat of militants and terrorists who, she claimed, hide along the country’s western border.
‘We’ve already begun to implement elements of President Obama’s strategy. We have requested a significant increase in economic development assistance, including through the landmark Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation,’ Clinton said in a message to the Pakistani people.
The chief American diplomat said the US looks forward to strengthening and continuing the partnership not only between the governments, but between the Pakistani and American people in the months and years to come.
‘We are launching initiatives to help strengthen Pakistan’s infrastructure, especially in energy and water, which is what the Pakistani people have told us you need, so you can have the resources you require in your homes, schools, and businesses.’
President Obama’s strategy is the product of broad consultation, including with many of the partners in Pakistan, Clinton said.
‘We join the people of Pakistan in our deep concern about the threat posed by al-Qaida and its extremist allies. We condemn the violence that has been inflicted on innocent Pakistani people in recent months with bombings and other brutal assaults targeting civilians, your military, and other important aspects of your country and society,’ said Clinton.
The United States and Nato forces, numbering around 100,000 are trying to contain Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, eight years after September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States which led to the US invasion of Afghanistan. Nato allies have also pledged to increase their troops presence in Afghanistan by 7,000 after the American announcement of 30,000 additional troops.
The US and its Nato allies depend on Pakistan not only for transportation of supplies for their mission in landlocked Afghanistan but also to curb militant activity along the porous Pak-Afghan border.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, which has launched major anti-militant operations in its north-western areas, is confronting a wave of retaliatory bombings and is concerned about any spill-over effect of fighting in the Afghan provinces bordering its tribal areas.
Pakistan remains host to the largest population of refugees in the world, with over two million Afghans still living on its soil.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
EDITORIAL: Rawalpindi attack
DAWN.COM
After a brief lull in the attacks against the state and the security apparatus, the violence has picked up again.
Yesterday’s devastating fidayeen-cum-suicide attack on a high-security Rawalpindi mosque frequented by military officers is a sign that while the counter-insurgency operation in South Waziristan may have notched up some military successes, the fight against militancy is far from being won.
Several points need to be made. First, the security forces must launch an enquiry into what appears to be a breakdown in security measures.
That half a dozen militants reportedly entered the premises of the mosque around the Friday afternoon prayer time is inexcusable.
It is not just that there has been a terrible loss of life as a result, but also the fact that the militants execute such operations as much for the psychological impact as the physical toll.
Senior army officers and their relatives being killed in a high-security area sends a terrible signal: nobody anywhere is safe. Fear of that kind can be fatal to long-term success against the militants.
Second, the outside world needs to recognise that Pakistan is locked in a bloody fight against militants and therefore the ‘do more’ refrain needs to be tamped down.
In these columns, we have repeatedly warned the security establishment here that any ‘good Taliban/bad Taliban’ distinction needs to be dropped for the long-term security of the country.
But the outside world must acknowledge the limitations of a sub-optimal state fighting a hydra-headed enemy.
Putting pressure on Pakistan to fight X group of militants when it is already struggling to defeat Y can risk losing the war against both X and Y.
Third, the US needs to think very carefully about the impending expansion of its drone operations inside Pakistan, as reported in The New York Times yesterday.
The potential benefits of Pak-US collaboration on the drone programme to take out militants in Fata causing trouble for both sides are real.
But so are the dangers of the US squeezing Pakistan to accept a rapid escalation in the strikes and expanding the target area from South and North Waziristan to other parts of Fata, and perhaps even Balochistan.
A public and/or political backlash against expanded strikes could create further instability in the country.
And American pressure on the drone programme could affect military cooperation in other areas, further complicating counter-insurgency operations in the two countries.
Frustration and unhappiness in both the American and Pakistani camps should not overshadow a basic reality: the two sides need one another if they are to defeat the militants.
‘Acts of cowardice will not deter our anti-terror resolve’
RAWALPINDI: Funeral prayers for high-ranking officers, including Major-General Bilal Omar, who died in yesterday's Parade Land mosque attack, were held at the Chaklala garrison on Saturday.
Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani attended the funeral prayers.
General Kayani said acts of cowardice will not dent the resolve of the armed forces and the nation to fight against terrorism.
Meanwhile, funeral prayers for three of the victims of yesterday's mosque attack were held at the Racecourse ground in Rawalpindi.
Security was tightened in and around the ground with the military police, Punjab police and Rangers performing the task. Meanwhile, special traffic arrangements were made at the funeral services held in the Westridge-I area of Rawalpindi.
Relatives of the victims as well as high-ranking officers from the armed forces attended the services.
The Peshawar Road area was also put on high alert and cordoned off as intelligence personnel and the military police conducted investigations into yesterday's attacks.
Accidental blast in Peshawar causes casualties
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At least three people are reported to have been killed in an explosion in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Officials initially said the blast, near a KFC restaurant, was caused by a bomb, but later reports suggested it was an accidental explosion.
Local TV showed black smoke rising from a building and burning cars.
The explosion came a day after 35 people were killed in a militant attack on a mosque near the Pakistani army's headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Investigators quoted by the Associated Press said they found no trace of explosives at the scene of the Peshawar blast.
Several people were seen clinging to windows in one building that was on fire, shouting for help.
Police Chief Liaquat Ali Khan told AP it was an accidental explosion that went off in a shop with paint stored inside, although the exact cause remains unclear.
Peshawar has been a frequent target for militant attacks, and initial reports suggested it may have been another such incident.
Soon after the explosion the region's information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, had suggested the explosion was caused by a car bomb, detonated remotely.
Friday, December 4, 2009
NATO and Afghan forces launch Helmand offensive
AFP - More than 1,000 British, Afghan and US troops launched a fresh offensive in a key battleground of southern Afghanistan on Friday, after President Barack Obama unveiled a new strategy to end the war.
NATO said the offensive was designed to crush insurgents around a major town in Helmand in order to allow development to begin and civilians to return -- key elements of Obama's decision to deploy 30,000 new US troops to Afghanistan.
Many of the new forces are heading south, where Helmand is the heartland of Afghanistan's massive opium production and a stronghold for the eight-year Taliban insurgency seeking to overthrow the Western-backed government.
The extra US soldiers, coupled with at least 7,000 more pledged by NATO allies, will boost to over 150,000 the number of troops serving in the US-led coalition and the NATO-run International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
"More than 1,000 ISAF personnel partnered with Afghan national security forces began a long-planned operation in northern Helmand province to clear insurgent forces from a key area," the military said.
Around 900 US Marines and sailors, British troops and more than 150 Afghan soldiers and police were taking part in Operation Khareh Cobra, or "Cobra's Anger" in the valley of Now Zad, it added.
"So far, four Taliban dead bodies were left behind on the battlefield. But enemy casualties could be higher," Helmand governor spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP, adding that scores of mines and a cache of explosives were seized.
Yusuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed the militia was fighting back and claimed that the insurgents had inflicted losses on the soldiers.
The operation was launched as NATO nations in Brussels pledged at least 7,000 troops to back the new drive against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Eight years after driving the Taliban out of power, more than 40 nations are launching a new effort to end the increasingly unpopular war, which has this year claimed record numbers of Western military casualties.
Around 300 US and 99 British troops have died in Afghanistan so far this year, compared to 295 foreign military deaths for all of 2008.
"This is a crucial test for NATO, which has been the greatest and most successful military alliance in history," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned NATO and its partners in Brussels.
"At least 25 countries will send more forces to the mission in 2010," said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
More pledges are expected, some after a conference on Afghanistan in London on January 28, he told reporters. Washington welcomed the "hefty" contribution.
Helmand produces about 50 percent of the world's opium. Its largely unguarded southern border with Pakistan is both a route for the illicit drug trade and for a steady supply of Taliban recruits and supplies.
"Now Zad was once Helmand's second-largest city, but is now empty due to years of fighting," ISAF said.
Insurgents have heavily mined the area. A goal of the operation is to provide enough security for the Afghan government and aid groups to begin clearing mines and improvised explosive devices, enabling citizens to return.
Friday's operation is smaller than that launched in July by 4,000 US Marines in Helmand, where British troops have struggled for years to rein in an increasingly virulent Taliban insurgency.
The Washington Post has reported that the United States will deploy up to 9,000 Marines to Helmand -- doubling the US presence in the province -- as part of a US strategy designed to start bringing troops home from 2011.
On Friday, suspected Taliban fired at least one rocket into western Afghanistan's biggest airport, disrupting flights but causing no casualties, a sign the insurgency is spreading into once peaceful parts of the country.
People flee as army steps up operation in Orakzai
KOHAT: Exodus of people from the Orakzai Agency is gaining momentum as the military intensified air and ground assaults on hideouts of militants.
Security forces have entered upper and lower Orakzai from Shahu Khel in the Hangu district and Chappri Feroze Khel on the border with the Khyber Agency, respectively. Inaccessible parts are being regularly pounded by jets, gunship helicopters and artillery fire for 10 days.
Hundreds of displaced families who did not possess registration cards faced problems and remained stranded at different checkposts in Hangu and Kohat. These families were reportedly harassed at the Ustarzai police station located on the Hangu highway in Kohat and were sent back to Hangu with instructions to bring registration cards.
The government has established registration camps for the displaced people in Hangu, but has not made any arrangements to educate the tribesmen about the procedure. Most of the people are illiterate and unable to understand the compulsion of registration cards as they used to move freely in the region in the past.
They complained that the government should have dropped leaflets through helicopters and made announcements in mosques to tell them about the registration procedure.
Fazal Amin, the head of a displaced family from the Dabori area of upper Orakzai which was not being allowed to enter Kohat by police in Ustarzai, said they had left their home to take shelter with their relatives in Kohat and were not terrorists. He complained that the attitude of police and the civil administration had multiplied their woes.
Transporters also fleeced the people by raising the fare to Kohat by Rs100 and by Rs150 to Peshawar.
The displaced people demanded that the government should set up registration camps on Sumari and Ustarzai routes.
Contrary to the claims of the political administration of the Orakzai Agency that 1,100 families had left the tribal area, independent sources told Dawn at least 10,000 families had shifted to other areas since the start of the military operation 10 days ago.
The district administration has set up a small camp at the Government High School, Mohammad Khawaja, where only eight families have been registered, who are being provided with food items, except for sugar.
Security forces have entered upper and lower Orakzai from Shahu Khel in the Hangu district and Chappri Feroze Khel on the border with the Khyber Agency, respectively. Inaccessible parts are being regularly pounded by jets, gunship helicopters and artillery fire for 10 days.
Hundreds of displaced families who did not possess registration cards faced problems and remained stranded at different checkposts in Hangu and Kohat. These families were reportedly harassed at the Ustarzai police station located on the Hangu highway in Kohat and were sent back to Hangu with instructions to bring registration cards.
The government has established registration camps for the displaced people in Hangu, but has not made any arrangements to educate the tribesmen about the procedure. Most of the people are illiterate and unable to understand the compulsion of registration cards as they used to move freely in the region in the past.
They complained that the government should have dropped leaflets through helicopters and made announcements in mosques to tell them about the registration procedure.
Fazal Amin, the head of a displaced family from the Dabori area of upper Orakzai which was not being allowed to enter Kohat by police in Ustarzai, said they had left their home to take shelter with their relatives in Kohat and were not terrorists. He complained that the attitude of police and the civil administration had multiplied their woes.
Transporters also fleeced the people by raising the fare to Kohat by Rs100 and by Rs150 to Peshawar.
The displaced people demanded that the government should set up registration camps on Sumari and Ustarzai routes.
Contrary to the claims of the political administration of the Orakzai Agency that 1,100 families had left the tribal area, independent sources told Dawn at least 10,000 families had shifted to other areas since the start of the military operation 10 days ago.
The district administration has set up a small camp at the Government High School, Mohammad Khawaja, where only eight families have been registered, who are being provided with food items, except for sugar.
US condemns mosque attack in Pakistan
WASHINGTON: The United States condemned Friday's deadly attack on a mosque in Pakistan, saying it highlights the need for Washington to support Islamabad in fighting a "common" enemy.
"These attacks highlight the vicious and inhuman nature of this enemy whose true target is the democratically elected government of Pakistan and the security of all Pakistanis," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
The "awful attacks" underscore the "need for us to support the government of Pakistan as they fight this... common enemy and this common challenge that we have," he added. "We will continue to support them as... they fight this terrible scourge."
Kelly expressed sympathy for the attack's victims, as well as for the friends and family of those killed. He said the State Department had no information of any Americans hurt in the attack.
Suicide bombers stormed a mosque frequented by army officers in Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi, leaving 40 people dead in an onslaught of gunfire, grenades and explosions.
Four militants launched the attack, opening fire, tossing grenades and then detonating suicide vests in a crowd gathered for Friday prayers in the city adjoining the capital Islamabad, witnesses and officials said.
Rawalpindi is home to the military's headquarters and is a frequent target of Taliban insurgents, who have staged a wave of fierce attacks in recent months to avenge military offensives against them across the northwest, along the border with Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama's administration is seeking to win firmer backing from Islamabad in fighting extremism by pledging to sharply step up support for Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation wary of US actions.
Peshawar: Security beefed up in provincial capital
PESHAWAR: Due to unsatisfactory law and order situation here, the stringent security measures have been taken in the Provincial capital on Friday and extra contingents of police were deployed at various sensitive areas and outside mosques besides sealing city and cantonment areas to avert any possibility of mishap. People offered Friday prayers amid tight security and the police allowed the Nimazees (worshippers) to enter the mosques after thorough body search. The police had secret information on Friday about the possibility of terror incident in the Provincial capital. All the roads leading to Saddar Bazaar were blocked whereas Bara Road, Mall Road, FC Plaza roads were sealed besides banning the entry of vehicles on all roads leading to cantonment area. Similarly, car parking was not allowed outside mosques in order to ensure safety of the worshippers. Moreover, apart from checking vehicles the security personnel were also conducting body search of people on foot that panicked the commoners. The fear and panic returned to the capital city after a break of few days and most of the markets and bazaars remained closed whereas people confined themselves inside their houses. Security put on high alert in City after Thursday’s blast in Regi area and intelligence reports regarding terror incident during Friday prayers. On the special directives, additional contingents of security forces have been deployed at sensitive points in the city. Strict directives have been issued for night patrolling and checking of suspects. It is reported that numbers of roads have been closed for traffic, whereas more contingents of police have been deputed for ensuring the security of the building. The police have declared many areas of the provincial metropolis as most sensitive and they were put in ‘High Alert or Red Zone’ where security was further tightened. It is also reported that once again threats received to educational institutions of the City and local administration directed such institutions to enhance security steps and ensure protection to the students. The Afghan migrants are also being closely monitored as per the latest development in this respect, sources said.
C.I.A. to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan
New York Times
WASHINGTON — Two weeks ago in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency sharpshooters killed eight people suspected of being militants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and wounded two others in a compound that was said to be used for terrorist training.
Then, the job in North Waziristan done, the C.I.A. officers could head home from the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters, facing only the hazards of the area’s famously snarled suburban traffic.
It was only the latest strike by the agency’s covert program to kill operatives of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their allies using Hellfire missiles fired from Predator aircraft controlled from half a world away.
The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president’s decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. American officials are talking with Pakistan about the possibility of striking in Baluchistan for the first time — a controversial move since it is outside the tribal areas — because that is where Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to hide.
By increasing covert pressure on Al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan, while ground forces push back the Taliban’s advances in Afghanistan, American officials hope to eliminate any haven for militants in the region.
One of Washington’s worst-kept secrets, the drone program is quietly hailed by counterterrorism officials as a resounding success, eliminating key terrorists and throwing their operations into disarray. But despite close cooperation from Pakistani intelligence, the program has generated public anger in Pakistan, and some counterinsurgency experts wonder whether it does more harm than good.
Assessments of the drone campaign have relied largely on sketchy reports in the Pakistani press, and some have estimated several hundred civilian casualties. Saying that such numbers are wrong, one government official agreed to speak about the program on the condition of anonymity. About 80 missile attacks from drones in less than two years have killed “more than 400” enemy fighters, the official said, offering a number lower than most estimates but in the same range. His account of collateral damage, however, was strikingly lower than many unofficial counts: “We believe the number of civilian casualties is just over 20, and those were people who were either at the side of major terrorists or were at facilities used by terrorists.”
That claim, which the official said reflected the Predators’ ability to loiter over a target feeding video images for hours before and after a strike, is likely to come under scrutiny from human rights advocates. Tom Parker, policy director for counterterrorism at Amnesty International, said he found the estimate “unlikely,” noting that reassessments of strikes in past wars had usually found civilian deaths undercounted. Mr. Parker said his group was uneasy about drone attacks anyway: “Anything that dehumanizes the process makes it easier to pull the trigger.”
Yet with few other tools to use against Al Qaeda, the drone program has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress and was escalated by the Obama administration in January. More C.I.A. drone attacks have been conducted under President Obama than under President George W. Bush. The political consensus in support of the drone program, its antiseptic, high-tech appeal and its secrecy have obscured just how radical it is. For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war.
In the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, C.I.A. officials were not eager to embrace killing terrorists from afar with video-game controls, said one former intelligence official. “There was also a lot of reluctance at Langley to get into a lethal program like this,” the official said. But officers grew comfortable with the program as they checked off their hit list more than a dozen notorious figures, including Abu Khabab al-Masri, a Qaeda expert on explosives; Rashid Rauf, accused of being the planner of the 2006 trans-Atlantic airliner plot; and Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban.
The drone warfare pioneered by the C.I.A. in Pakistan and the Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan is the leading edge of a wave of push-button combat that will raise legal, moral and political questions around the world, said P. W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and author of the book “Wired for War.”
Forty-four countries have unmanned aircraft for surveillance, Mr. Singer said. So far, only the United States and Israel have used the planes for strikes, but that number will grow.
“We’re talking about a technology that’s not going away,” he said.
There is little doubt that “warheads on foreheads,” in the macho lingo of intelligence officers, have been disruptive to the militants in Pakistan, removing leaders and fighters, slowing movement and sowing dissension as survivors hunt for spies who may be tipping off the Americans. Yet the drones are unpopular with many Pakistanis, who see them as a violation of their country’s sovereignty — one reason the United States refuses to officially acknowledge the attacks. A poll by Gallup Pakistan last summer found only 9 percent of Pakistanis in favor of the attacks and 67 percent against, with a majority ranking the United States as a greater threat to Pakistan than its archrival, India, or the Pakistani Taliban.
Interestingly, residents of the tribal areas where the attacks actually occur, who bitterly resent the militants’ brutal rule, are far less critical of the drones, said Farhat Taj, an anthropologist with the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. A study of 550 professional people living in the tribal areas was conducted late last year by the institute, a Pakistani research group. About half of those interviewed called the drone strikes “accurate,” 6 in 10 said they damaged militant organizations, and almost as many denied they increased anti-Americanism.
Dr. Taj, who lived at the edge of the tribal areas until 2002, said residents would prefer to be protected by the Pakistani Army. “But they feel powerless toward the militants and they see the drones as their liberator,” she said.
In an interview this week with the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Pakistani prime minister, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, said the drone strikes “do no good, because they boost anti-American resentment throughout the country.” American officials say that despite such public comments, Pakistan privately supplies crucial intelligence, proposes targets and allows the Predators to take off from a base in Baluchistan.
Pakistan’s public criticism of the drone attacks has muddied the legal status of the strikes, which United States officials say are justified as defensive measures against groups that have vowed to attack Americans. Philip Alston, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions and a prominent critic of the program, has said it is impossible to judge whether the program violates international law without knowing whether Pakistan permits the incursions, how targets are selected and what is done to minimize civilian casualties.
A spokesman for the C.I.A., Paul Gimigliano, defended the program without quite acknowledging its existence. “While the C.I.A. does not comment on reports of Predator operations, the tools we use in the fight against Al Qaeda and its violent allies are exceptionally accurate, precise and effective,” he said. “Press reports suggesting that hundreds of Pakistani civilians have somehow been killed as a result of alleged or supposed U.S. activities are — to state what should be obvious under any circumstances — flat-out false.”
From 2004 to 2007, the C.I.A. carried out only a handful of strikes. But pressure from the Congressional intelligence committees, greater confidence in the technology and reduced resistance from Pakistan led to a sharp increase starting in the summer of 2008.
Former C.I.A. officials say there is a rigorous protocol for identifying militants, using video from the Predators, intercepted cellphone calls and tips from Pakistani intelligence, often originating with militants’ resentful neighbors. Operators at C.I.A. headquarters can use the drones’ video feed to study a militant’s identity and follow fighters to training areas or weapons caches, officials say. Targeters often can see where wives and children are located in a compound or wait until fighters drive away from a house or village before they are hit.
Mr. Mehsud’s wife and parents-in-law were killed with him, but that was an exceptional decision prompted by the rare chance to attack him, the official said.
The New America Foundation, a policy group in Washington, studied press reports and estimated that since 2006 at least 500 militants and 250 civilians had been killed in the drone strikes. A separate count, by The Long War Journal, found 885 militants’ deaths and 94 civilians’.
But the government official insisted on the accuracy of his far lower figure of approximately 20 civilian deaths, noting that the Pakistani press rarely reported local protests about civilian deaths, routine occurrences when bombs in Afghanistan have gone astray.
Daniel S. Markey, who studies South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the comments of two anti-Taliban tribal leaders he spoke with on a recent trip to Pakistan seemed to capture the paradox of the drones.
The tribal leaders told him that the strikes were eliminating dangerous militants while causing few civilian deaths. But they pleaded for a halt to the attacks, saying the strikes stirred up anger toward the United States and the Pakistani Army, and “made them look like puppets,” he said.
“It gave the lie,” Mr. Markey said, “to the argument we’ve made for a long time: that this fight is theirs, too.”
40 including 17 children killed in mosque attack
RAWALPINDI: 40 people were killed Friday when suicide bombers stormed a packed mosque in Rawalpindi, firing on worshippers and detonating explosives, according to an ISPR statement.
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Militants targeted a mosque inside an officers’ residential colony in Parade Lane, Rawalpindi Saddar, during Friday prayers. According to the report, four terrorists carried out the attack; grenades were first hurled into the mosque, before two of the terrorists went inside and blew themselves up. The remaining terrorists then opened indiscriminate fire outside the mosque.
The dead include 17 children, 10 civilians and nine army personnel.
Witnesses reported at least five blasts, while Interior Minister Rehman Malik told a private television channel that the bombers disguised themselves as worshippers before launching their attack.
‘There were two suicide bombers and the roof of the mosque collapsed...they are taking revenge for the Pakistan army’s successful operations in Swat and Waziristan regions,’ Malik said.
Pakistan is in the grip of a fierce insurgency, with more than 2,570 people killed in attacks in the last two-and-a-half years.
Suicide bombs and attacks have intensified this year as the military pursues offensives against Taliban strongholds across the lawless northwest.
An AFP reporter at the scene said that security forces had set up a secure perimeter around the site, with helicopters circling overhead and security forces preparing to enter the area to flush out any remaining militants.
Abdul Waheed, an official at a nearby traffic police office, said their building was shaken by a huge blast at around noon.
‘We rushed out and saw that the blast was inside the mosque. A few moments later five more blasts were heard,’ Waheed told AFP.
‘According to our estimate, some people had attacked the mosque and a few of them were hiding in a different area of Parade Lane,’ Waheed said, referring to the area where the mosque is located.
Another eye witness, Ishtiaq, told a private television station that he was inside the mosque when he heard several blasts.
‘There were about 200 or 300 worshippers in the hall. Army officials mostly offer their Friday prayers in this mosque,’ he said.
In October, militants stormed the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, sparking a day-long siege which left 22 people dead.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Congress worries about Obama's plan for Pakistan
WASHINGTON – Facing the prospect of more American deaths in Afghanistan as the war escalates, lawmakers lashed out at neighboring Pakistan on Thursday as an unreliable ally that could spare the U.S. its bruising fight with al-Qaida if it wanted.
"They don't seem to want a strategic relationship," New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez said of the government in Islamabad. "They want the money. They want the equipment. But at the end of the day, they don't want a relationship that costs them too much."
A crucial ally in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network, Pakistan is also a major recipient of U.S. aid. President Barack Obama and Congress recently approved a $7.5 billion aid package for economic and social programs in Pakistan in a bid to strengthen the civilian government there.
But many in Congress have grown skeptical that Islamabad is doing all it can to drive out al-Qaida forces hiding along its mountainous Afghan border. Those doubts reached a new pitch this week after Obama's announcement that he will send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall, with the anticipation that they would start coming home in July 2011.
Obama has not said whether or how the troop buildup would accelerate attacks on the terrorist network hiding in Pakistan. The U.S. has previously relied on drone-launched missile strikes, and those operations are classified.
"It is not clear how an expanded military effort in Afghanistan addresses the problem of Taliban and al-Qaida safe havens across the border in Pakistan," said Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, a leading conservative Democrat, said Obama's strategy was the nation's best shot but that Pakistan could end the war if it wanted.
"Conversely, if Pakistan were to return to old habits of supporting the Afghan Taliban, the war may be almost impossible to win," he said.
Obama has sought to assure lawmakers — and the rest of the world — that he sees Pakistan inextricably linked to Afghanistan. In his speech on Tuesday, the president said both governments were "endangered" because of al-Qaida.
"The stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that al-Qaida and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them," he said in his speech from West Point.
Testifying for the second day on Obama's new war plan, the president's chief military and diplomatic advisers said Pakistan was a critical component of the strategy.
"We have a lot of work to do in trying to convince them that we're not trying to take over their country, that we're not trying to take control of their nuclear weapons, and that we are actually interested in a long-term partnership with them," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Several Democrats, including Menendez and Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, have threatened to withhold their support for more money for the war, although lawmakers said it was unlikely that Congress would try to block the deployments. Instead, members from both parties say they want to find a way to pay for the troop increase that won't add to the deficit.
In a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she did not support a proposal by Wisconsin Democratic Rep. David Obey that would have imposed a war tax on most Americans.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said the first step should be an all-hands briefing to Congress by Obama's top advisers.
"We have to handle it with care, listen to what they present, and then members will make their decision," she said.
The results of the billions in U.S. aid to Pakistan have been mixed. While the army has taken on the Pakistani Taliban, it has failed to go after Afghan Taliban leaders who base their operations in the tribal areas in the border region. At the same time, anti-Western sentiment in Pakistan has grown.
Many Western officials and analysts believe Pakistan is playing both sides — accepting U.S. money to crack down on militants while tolerating the Afghan Taliban in case the radical Islamic movement gains control in Afghanistan once the American troops withdraw.
Officials estimate there are 500 al-Qaida fighters and 50,000 Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For its part, Pakistan has been cautious in its response to Obama's plan. In London on Thursday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declined to endorse the U.S.-led troop increase and said his government needs more information.
Gates said he initially opposed the idea of a troop increase because he feared it would make the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan too heavy. He said he also was hesitant to set a timeline on when troop withdrawals would begin.
But he said he was ultimately convinced by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, that the size of the force was less important than the mission troops would be given. His colleagues also convinced him that setting a date to start withdrawals would help encourage the Afghans to take more responsibility, Gates said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday will take the administration's case for escalating the war to NATO's top council, where McChrystal will attend a foreign ministers meeting. Clinton said she expects the allies to make new troop contributions in the 5,000 to 7,000 range.
"They don't seem to want a strategic relationship," New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez said of the government in Islamabad. "They want the money. They want the equipment. But at the end of the day, they don't want a relationship that costs them too much."
A crucial ally in fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network, Pakistan is also a major recipient of U.S. aid. President Barack Obama and Congress recently approved a $7.5 billion aid package for economic and social programs in Pakistan in a bid to strengthen the civilian government there.
But many in Congress have grown skeptical that Islamabad is doing all it can to drive out al-Qaida forces hiding along its mountainous Afghan border. Those doubts reached a new pitch this week after Obama's announcement that he will send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall, with the anticipation that they would start coming home in July 2011.
Obama has not said whether or how the troop buildup would accelerate attacks on the terrorist network hiding in Pakistan. The U.S. has previously relied on drone-launched missile strikes, and those operations are classified.
"It is not clear how an expanded military effort in Afghanistan addresses the problem of Taliban and al-Qaida safe havens across the border in Pakistan," said Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, a leading conservative Democrat, said Obama's strategy was the nation's best shot but that Pakistan could end the war if it wanted.
"Conversely, if Pakistan were to return to old habits of supporting the Afghan Taliban, the war may be almost impossible to win," he said.
Obama has sought to assure lawmakers — and the rest of the world — that he sees Pakistan inextricably linked to Afghanistan. In his speech on Tuesday, the president said both governments were "endangered" because of al-Qaida.
"The stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that al-Qaida and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them," he said in his speech from West Point.
Testifying for the second day on Obama's new war plan, the president's chief military and diplomatic advisers said Pakistan was a critical component of the strategy.
"We have a lot of work to do in trying to convince them that we're not trying to take over their country, that we're not trying to take control of their nuclear weapons, and that we are actually interested in a long-term partnership with them," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Several Democrats, including Menendez and Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, have threatened to withhold their support for more money for the war, although lawmakers said it was unlikely that Congress would try to block the deployments. Instead, members from both parties say they want to find a way to pay for the troop increase that won't add to the deficit.
In a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she did not support a proposal by Wisconsin Democratic Rep. David Obey that would have imposed a war tax on most Americans.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said the first step should be an all-hands briefing to Congress by Obama's top advisers.
"We have to handle it with care, listen to what they present, and then members will make their decision," she said.
The results of the billions in U.S. aid to Pakistan have been mixed. While the army has taken on the Pakistani Taliban, it has failed to go after Afghan Taliban leaders who base their operations in the tribal areas in the border region. At the same time, anti-Western sentiment in Pakistan has grown.
Many Western officials and analysts believe Pakistan is playing both sides — accepting U.S. money to crack down on militants while tolerating the Afghan Taliban in case the radical Islamic movement gains control in Afghanistan once the American troops withdraw.
Officials estimate there are 500 al-Qaida fighters and 50,000 Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For its part, Pakistan has been cautious in its response to Obama's plan. In London on Thursday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declined to endorse the U.S.-led troop increase and said his government needs more information.
Gates said he initially opposed the idea of a troop increase because he feared it would make the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan too heavy. He said he also was hesitant to set a timeline on when troop withdrawals would begin.
But he said he was ultimately convinced by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, that the size of the force was less important than the mission troops would be given. His colleagues also convinced him that setting a date to start withdrawals would help encourage the Afghans to take more responsibility, Gates said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday will take the administration's case for escalating the war to NATO's top council, where McChrystal will attend a foreign ministers meeting. Clinton said she expects the allies to make new troop contributions in the 5,000 to 7,000 range.
Karzai praises Obama's deadline
KABUL – President Hamid Karzai put a brave face Thursday on President Barack Obama's decision to start pulling out troops in mid-2011, telling The Associated Press in his first public response that it will push Afghans to take control of their own destiny.
But he blamed the United States for stalling peace overtures in the past and offered to talk directly with the Taliban's top leader.
Karzai appeared relaxed and confident throughout the exclusive AP interview — the Afghan president's first remarks since Obama's announcement Tuesday that he will send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall with the anticipation that they would start coming home in July 2011.
Karzai said the deadline, just 18 months away, is "not a concern for us — it is rather an impetus."
"For Afghans it's good that we are facing a deadline," he said. "We must begin to stand on our own feet. Even if it is with our own meager means — whatever those means may be. And we must begin to defend our own country.
"If we, the Afghan people, cannot defend our country, ourselves, against an aggressor from within or without, then no matter what the rest of the world does with us, it will not produce the desired results," he said during the one-hour interview at the turreted brick palace in the heavily guarded heart of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Republicans have objected to the setting of a hard deadline for withdrawing troops for fear it would encourage the Taliban to play a waiting game and say Obama must be willing to delay the start of a pullout if security deteriorates.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that the July 2011 date is flexible. The White House said Obama set this date to make sure Karzai's government knows it has limited time to reform itself and take charge of security.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a timetable for training Afghan security forces, battling police corruption and appointing nearly 400 provincial and district governors.
Karzai called Brown's remarks "very unfortunate and very artificial."
"It is extremely insulting," he said. "But it doesn't affect me and it doesn't affect the Afghan people."
The president offered talks with the Taliban, including its one-eyed leader, Mullah Omar, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head. Yet Karzai said overtures stood little chance of success without the support of the United States and its international partners.
He said his previous attempts to negotiate with insurgents were not fruitful because "sections of the international community undermined — not backed — our efforts."
On Tuesday, Obama said the U.S. must "open the door" to Taliban members who abandon violence as a way to turn the tide of an eight-year war that has killed more than 850 members of the U.S. military.
In Brussels on Thursday, Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said reconciliation had been "on the back burner (but) it's now moving to the front burner."
But Karzai said he wants guarantees that those who are lured away from the Taliban aren't subjected to intimidation and their homes not raided by international forces or their Afghan partners.
Karzai also said he was fed up with the relentless criticism by world leaders of his government and the contentious August elections that returned him to power for another five years.
He said the allegations of corruption were exaggerated and that the criticism was motivated by political considerations. He accused "Western political circles" of trying to deny him re-election.
Karzai was forced to accept a runoff election after U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of his votes in the first ballot. Karzai was declared the winner last month after his sole challenger dropped out of the race, claiming a second ballot would be as fraudulent as the first.
"The Afghan elections were the best under the circumstances," he said. "We had no security in the south of the country. European observers called for the elections to be canceled even before the votes were counted.
"I am very sorry that the vote was insulted. I am very, very sorry and it angers me a lot that some Western political circles are still insulting the Afghans and calling this election fraudulent in order to weaken me or to weaken the Afghan government."
Karzai said he had no problems dealing with Holbrooke, with whom he reportedly had a heated meeting the day after the first round of the presidential election.
"I work government to government," Karzai said. "I don't work based on personal friendships. I want to have personal friendships. I have some personal friendships. I have no problem at all with Mr. Holbrooke, or any other official in any other government."
On other issues, he said the United States should promote good relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan — both of which face challenges from the Taliban and other Islamic extremist movements. Obama said a partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan was essential to bringing peace to the region.
Karzai also brushed off a remark by Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, who said last month: "Hamid Karzai knows very well that if U.S. troops leave, he'll be leaving shortly thereafter, or find himself probably assassinated."
"If Karzai is the leader of the Afghan people through a genuine election ... he should have no fear for his life once the foreign forces leave," Karzai said.
And the president said he had exhausted the discussion about Ahmed Wali Karzai, his controversial half brother who leads the provincial council in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Ahmed Wali Karzai has denied a raft of allegations, including that he is on the CIA payroll and is involved in drug trafficking.
"I have spoken to Western officials in the last five years repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. I have written to them and they all come back to say they have nothing. They have nothing on him," Karzai said.
Karzai noted the irony of being urged to improve the rule of law in Afghanistan at the same time as being asked to oust his brother from his post.
"We're trying to make the president of Afghanistan behave like an absolute ruler," Karzai said. "The constitution does not allow the Afghan president to expel people from their districts."
But he blamed the United States for stalling peace overtures in the past and offered to talk directly with the Taliban's top leader.
Karzai appeared relaxed and confident throughout the exclusive AP interview — the Afghan president's first remarks since Obama's announcement Tuesday that he will send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall with the anticipation that they would start coming home in July 2011.
Karzai said the deadline, just 18 months away, is "not a concern for us — it is rather an impetus."
"For Afghans it's good that we are facing a deadline," he said. "We must begin to stand on our own feet. Even if it is with our own meager means — whatever those means may be. And we must begin to defend our own country.
"If we, the Afghan people, cannot defend our country, ourselves, against an aggressor from within or without, then no matter what the rest of the world does with us, it will not produce the desired results," he said during the one-hour interview at the turreted brick palace in the heavily guarded heart of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Republicans have objected to the setting of a hard deadline for withdrawing troops for fear it would encourage the Taliban to play a waiting game and say Obama must be willing to delay the start of a pullout if security deteriorates.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that the July 2011 date is flexible. The White House said Obama set this date to make sure Karzai's government knows it has limited time to reform itself and take charge of security.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a timetable for training Afghan security forces, battling police corruption and appointing nearly 400 provincial and district governors.
Karzai called Brown's remarks "very unfortunate and very artificial."
"It is extremely insulting," he said. "But it doesn't affect me and it doesn't affect the Afghan people."
The president offered talks with the Taliban, including its one-eyed leader, Mullah Omar, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head. Yet Karzai said overtures stood little chance of success without the support of the United States and its international partners.
He said his previous attempts to negotiate with insurgents were not fruitful because "sections of the international community undermined — not backed — our efforts."
On Tuesday, Obama said the U.S. must "open the door" to Taliban members who abandon violence as a way to turn the tide of an eight-year war that has killed more than 850 members of the U.S. military.
In Brussels on Thursday, Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said reconciliation had been "on the back burner (but) it's now moving to the front burner."
But Karzai said he wants guarantees that those who are lured away from the Taliban aren't subjected to intimidation and their homes not raided by international forces or their Afghan partners.
Karzai also said he was fed up with the relentless criticism by world leaders of his government and the contentious August elections that returned him to power for another five years.
He said the allegations of corruption were exaggerated and that the criticism was motivated by political considerations. He accused "Western political circles" of trying to deny him re-election.
Karzai was forced to accept a runoff election after U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of his votes in the first ballot. Karzai was declared the winner last month after his sole challenger dropped out of the race, claiming a second ballot would be as fraudulent as the first.
"The Afghan elections were the best under the circumstances," he said. "We had no security in the south of the country. European observers called for the elections to be canceled even before the votes were counted.
"I am very sorry that the vote was insulted. I am very, very sorry and it angers me a lot that some Western political circles are still insulting the Afghans and calling this election fraudulent in order to weaken me or to weaken the Afghan government."
Karzai said he had no problems dealing with Holbrooke, with whom he reportedly had a heated meeting the day after the first round of the presidential election.
"I work government to government," Karzai said. "I don't work based on personal friendships. I want to have personal friendships. I have some personal friendships. I have no problem at all with Mr. Holbrooke, or any other official in any other government."
On other issues, he said the United States should promote good relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan — both of which face challenges from the Taliban and other Islamic extremist movements. Obama said a partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan was essential to bringing peace to the region.
Karzai also brushed off a remark by Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, who said last month: "Hamid Karzai knows very well that if U.S. troops leave, he'll be leaving shortly thereafter, or find himself probably assassinated."
"If Karzai is the leader of the Afghan people through a genuine election ... he should have no fear for his life once the foreign forces leave," Karzai said.
And the president said he had exhausted the discussion about Ahmed Wali Karzai, his controversial half brother who leads the provincial council in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Ahmed Wali Karzai has denied a raft of allegations, including that he is on the CIA payroll and is involved in drug trafficking.
"I have spoken to Western officials in the last five years repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. I have written to them and they all come back to say they have nothing. They have nothing on him," Karzai said.
Karzai noted the irony of being urged to improve the rule of law in Afghanistan at the same time as being asked to oust his brother from his post.
"We're trying to make the president of Afghanistan behave like an absolute ruler," Karzai said. "The constitution does not allow the Afghan president to expel people from their districts."
Centre’s Fata policy fails to satisfy ANP
PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party has expressed dissatisfaction over federal government’s policy on the tribal areas and claimed that militants are regrouping in Bajaur and Waziristan agencies after fleeing settled parts of the Frontier province.
Although provincial party president Senator Afrasiab Khattak appreciated the ongoing military operation in the Mehsud-dominated territory of South Waziristan, he said militants had sneaked into the neighbouring North Waziristan Agency where they had formed a parallel government.
‘Terrorists are regrouping in Bajaur and Waziristan tribal agencies,’ he said while talking to journalists after Qurankhwani held for slain ANP MPA Shamsher Ali at Bacha Khan Markaz here on Wednesday. ‘We are not satisfied with federal government’s policy towards Fata,’ he added.
Mr Khattak said his party being a coalition partner in the government had time and again demanded complete elimination of hideouts of militants in the tribal areas. ‘The NWFP government extended full support to security forces in their drive against militancy in the Malakand division and other parts of the province,’ he said and added the provincial government could not step in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in pursuit of militants.
About deployment of more US troops in the neighbouring Afghanistan, the ANP leader said Pakistan’s establishment and secret agencies should shun their ‘traditional role’ in dealing with terrorism, otherwise the tribal areas could turn into a battlefield for international war-gamers. ‘We could not see further bloodshed on our soil,’ he said, adding a peaceful Afghanistan was not only in the interest of Pakistan but also of the whole region.
He said non-local militants, including Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens, had made their abodes in the tribal belt from where they were carrying out terrorist activities. He said peace-loving tribesmen in Fata were the ultimate victims of these terrorist activities.
Senator Afrasiab welcomed the announcement of gradual withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and said foreign troops could not stay for longer in any independent country. ‘Military option is no solution to any problem,’ he said and added that political settlement was the ultimate end of any crisis.
Paying tribute to the slain MPA Shamsher Ali, he said militants could not deter the Pakhtun nationalists in their fight against terrorism, calling upon political and religious forces to join their hands against terrorism. ‘Religious political parties should stop their dual standards because militants have been exposed before the whole nation,’ he added.
Answering a question, he said the ANP had called upon the federal government for drastic political and administrative reforms in the tribal areas and full rights and autonomy to the provinces. According to him, there was no deadlock over constitutional amendments, including renaming of the NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa.
Although provincial party president Senator Afrasiab Khattak appreciated the ongoing military operation in the Mehsud-dominated territory of South Waziristan, he said militants had sneaked into the neighbouring North Waziristan Agency where they had formed a parallel government.
‘Terrorists are regrouping in Bajaur and Waziristan tribal agencies,’ he said while talking to journalists after Qurankhwani held for slain ANP MPA Shamsher Ali at Bacha Khan Markaz here on Wednesday. ‘We are not satisfied with federal government’s policy towards Fata,’ he added.
Mr Khattak said his party being a coalition partner in the government had time and again demanded complete elimination of hideouts of militants in the tribal areas. ‘The NWFP government extended full support to security forces in their drive against militancy in the Malakand division and other parts of the province,’ he said and added the provincial government could not step in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in pursuit of militants.
About deployment of more US troops in the neighbouring Afghanistan, the ANP leader said Pakistan’s establishment and secret agencies should shun their ‘traditional role’ in dealing with terrorism, otherwise the tribal areas could turn into a battlefield for international war-gamers. ‘We could not see further bloodshed on our soil,’ he said, adding a peaceful Afghanistan was not only in the interest of Pakistan but also of the whole region.
He said non-local militants, including Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens, had made their abodes in the tribal belt from where they were carrying out terrorist activities. He said peace-loving tribesmen in Fata were the ultimate victims of these terrorist activities.
Senator Afrasiab welcomed the announcement of gradual withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and said foreign troops could not stay for longer in any independent country. ‘Military option is no solution to any problem,’ he said and added that political settlement was the ultimate end of any crisis.
Paying tribute to the slain MPA Shamsher Ali, he said militants could not deter the Pakhtun nationalists in their fight against terrorism, calling upon political and religious forces to join their hands against terrorism. ‘Religious political parties should stop their dual standards because militants have been exposed before the whole nation,’ he added.
Answering a question, he said the ANP had called upon the federal government for drastic political and administrative reforms in the tribal areas and full rights and autonomy to the provinces. According to him, there was no deadlock over constitutional amendments, including renaming of the NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Bilour for declaring NWFP(PUKHTUNKHWA) as war- hit
PESHAWAR : Chairman Standing Committee of Senate for Commerce and leader Businessmen Forum Senator Ilyas Ahmad Bilour has expressed grave concern over unnecessary delay in declaring NWFP a war hit Province. In a press statement issued here on Wednesday, Senator Ilyas Bilour said that despite repeated assurances by Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Tareen delay in declaring NWFP a war hit Province was beyond his comprehension. He said that NWFP should be declared as war affected Province forthwith and special developmental package should be announced for it in order to remove the sense of despondency and despair in the business community and the people of the area. Senator Ilyas Bilour said that similar package like that of the Balochistan Package should also be announced for NWFP in view of its economic condition due to the law and order situation. “ NWFP was fighting the war of the country’s stability and solidarity that has crippled its economy and therefore deserve special incentives to counter the growing frustration in the business community and common people”, he suggested. He warned that any further delay in this regard could be harmful and demanded early resolution of the problems being faced by the people of NWFP.
Pakistan a key factor in U.S. Afghan policy
cnn.com
Washington -- When President Obama took to the world stage to detail U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, he hammered home a key foreign policy principle: Success in Afghanistan is "inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan."
"We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country," he said in his Tuesday night speech at West Point. "But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."
The United States says Pakistan looms large because Taliban and al Qaeda militants operating in Afghanistan also have had a presence in Pakistan's northwestern region near the Afghan border and have threatened the governments and troops in both countries.
One U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN the Afghan Taliban has bolstered its ranks, stepped up its attacks and increased its territory. In Pakistan, al Qaeda and other militants persist in planning strikes against U.S. interests in the region, the official said.
"They've suffered some major losses, but no one should think for a second that they're down and out for good," the official said. "They remain intent on harming the United States and our allies, including Pakistan, so keeping up the pressure on them is critical. That's exactly what we're doing."
Islamabad-based political analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy said if the Taliban should prevail in Afghanistan, it will be a disaster.
"That is because the local Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, are the ideological brothers of the Afghan Taliban, and they will gain enormous strength if the Taliban in Afghanistan sweep across the country."
Because of this scenario, Obama has from the start of his presidency linked the fight in Afghanistan with the effort to combat militants in Pakistan.
When Obama announced his policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, he outlined an extensive plan for Pakistan that included bolstering Afghanistan-Pakistan cooperation, helping the security forces fight militants, increasing economic assistance and improving Pakistan's governmental capacity and performance.
He reiterated those points in his Tuesday speech and said Pakistanis understand the gravity of the fight.
"In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned," Obama said.
While there's no agreement between the United States and Pakistan to deploy U.S. troops into that country, there have been drone strikes against militant targets in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas near the Afghan border. CIA director Leon Panetta said in May that airstrikes aimed at al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan have been "very effective."
The U.S. military in neighboring Afghanistan does not comment on the attacks, which typically target Islamic militants in the border region. But the United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the capability to launch missiles from remote-controlled aircraft.
The New York Times on Wednesday said Obama now "has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan," a report denied by the Pakistani government.
The newspaper reported "the CIA delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the CIA's budget for operations inside the country."
The dispatch said the "expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan."
Without getting into specifics and not commenting directly on the New York Times story, a U.S. official told CNN that it "stands to reason" that an expanded military presence in Afghanistan "will lead to an intensification of intelligence efforts in the region to support U.S. strategic goals."
The Pakistani government haled Obama's strategy in Afghanistan on Wednesday, saying that the president "correctly mentioned that the struggle against violent extremism extends well beyond the region" and that Pakistan is committed to "uprooting terrorism" and working with the United States. Also, the government is confident that a troop surge in Afghanistan won't prompt a militant spillover into Pakistan.
This year Pakistan has responded to the Taliban presence, launching military offensives this year against militants in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan.
David S. Sedney, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Central Asia, said the Pakistani military will be facing challenges in South Waziristan, such as "counter attacks and additional pressure," but said the military and government have been engaged in an "impressive" campaign against the militants.
"It is going to be hard for them. but they are a sovereign country with a proud military, and we really expect they will be able to control their entire territory with a continuation of that effort they have already shown," Sedney said.
Washington -- When President Obama took to the world stage to detail U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, he hammered home a key foreign policy principle: Success in Afghanistan is "inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan."
"We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country," he said in his Tuesday night speech at West Point. "But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."
The United States says Pakistan looms large because Taliban and al Qaeda militants operating in Afghanistan also have had a presence in Pakistan's northwestern region near the Afghan border and have threatened the governments and troops in both countries.
One U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN the Afghan Taliban has bolstered its ranks, stepped up its attacks and increased its territory. In Pakistan, al Qaeda and other militants persist in planning strikes against U.S. interests in the region, the official said.
"They've suffered some major losses, but no one should think for a second that they're down and out for good," the official said. "They remain intent on harming the United States and our allies, including Pakistan, so keeping up the pressure on them is critical. That's exactly what we're doing."
Islamabad-based political analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy said if the Taliban should prevail in Afghanistan, it will be a disaster.
"That is because the local Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, are the ideological brothers of the Afghan Taliban, and they will gain enormous strength if the Taliban in Afghanistan sweep across the country."
Because of this scenario, Obama has from the start of his presidency linked the fight in Afghanistan with the effort to combat militants in Pakistan.
When Obama announced his policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, he outlined an extensive plan for Pakistan that included bolstering Afghanistan-Pakistan cooperation, helping the security forces fight militants, increasing economic assistance and improving Pakistan's governmental capacity and performance.
He reiterated those points in his Tuesday speech and said Pakistanis understand the gravity of the fight.
"In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned," Obama said.
While there's no agreement between the United States and Pakistan to deploy U.S. troops into that country, there have been drone strikes against militant targets in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas near the Afghan border. CIA director Leon Panetta said in May that airstrikes aimed at al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan have been "very effective."
The U.S. military in neighboring Afghanistan does not comment on the attacks, which typically target Islamic militants in the border region. But the United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the capability to launch missiles from remote-controlled aircraft.
The New York Times on Wednesday said Obama now "has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan," a report denied by the Pakistani government.
The newspaper reported "the CIA delivered a plan for widening the campaign of strikes against militants by drone aircraft in Pakistan, sending additional spies there and securing a White House commitment to bulk up the CIA's budget for operations inside the country."
The dispatch said the "expanded operations could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, officials said. It is from there that they direct many of the attacks on American troops, attacks that are likely to increase as more Americans pour into Afghanistan."
Without getting into specifics and not commenting directly on the New York Times story, a U.S. official told CNN that it "stands to reason" that an expanded military presence in Afghanistan "will lead to an intensification of intelligence efforts in the region to support U.S. strategic goals."
The Pakistani government haled Obama's strategy in Afghanistan on Wednesday, saying that the president "correctly mentioned that the struggle against violent extremism extends well beyond the region" and that Pakistan is committed to "uprooting terrorism" and working with the United States. Also, the government is confident that a troop surge in Afghanistan won't prompt a militant spillover into Pakistan.
This year Pakistan has responded to the Taliban presence, launching military offensives this year against militants in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan.
David S. Sedney, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Central Asia, said the Pakistani military will be facing challenges in South Waziristan, such as "counter attacks and additional pressure," but said the military and government have been engaged in an "impressive" campaign against the militants.
"It is going to be hard for them. but they are a sovereign country with a proud military, and we really expect they will be able to control their entire territory with a continuation of that effort they have already shown," Sedney said.
Hamid Karzai offers to 'spare no effort' in implementing the revamped strategy, but says little about fighting corruption in his government.
L.A.TIMES
President Hamid Karzai today pledged to "spare no effort" to help implement the revamped American war strategy but did not directly respond to U.S. demands that he root out corruption in his government.
The Taliban, meanwhile, scoffed at the goals laid out by President Obama in a major speech on Tuesday night, insisting that the insurgency would grow only stronger in the face of an American troop buildup that is to begin within weeks.
Some senior officials in Karzai's government expressed misgivings as to whether the Afghan army and police could be adequately strengthened in time to accommodate a drawdown of foreign troops beginning in July 2011, the goal set by Obama.
"In 18 months we will not be able to grow [the security forces] as much as required given the security needs of the country," said Interior Minister Mohamad Hanif Atmar, who met with the top American commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, shortly after Obama delivered his speech.
However, Atmar and other Afghan officials expressed hopes that the timetable laid out by the U.S. administration would help provide momentum for building up Afghanistan's police and army, and noted Obama's assurances that the American drawdown would be a phased one, tied to conditions on the ground.
McChrystal also met today with Karzai and described him as "very upbeat, very resolute" about implementing the Obama plan.
But the Afghan leader was largely silent in response to Obama's crisp demand for reforms in his government -- a refrain that has been sounded repeatedly by senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who traveled to Afghanistan last month for Karzai's inauguration to a second term.
In a statement issued a full 12 hours after Obama's speech, the presidential palace said the Karzai administration would work toward "strengthening of the Afghan government in law enforcement" but said nothing else about promised efforts to crack down on graft and bribery.
Corruption has been a highly charged issue between Karzai's administration and the West. The Afghan president is expected to name his Cabinet in the next 10 days.
Western officials have said the lineup of ministers will give an indication as to whether the Karzai is ready to withhold key posts from those implicated in past wrongdoing.
Many Afghans expressed relief over Obama's commitment to send 30,000 more American soldiers, saying the country is under serious threat from the insurgency.
"Sending more troops is a good idea, because they have to help curb Al Qaeda and the Taliban," Kabul businessman Abdul Kafil said. "Otherwise they will recapture the country."
Obama's Afghanistan Plan Won't Work Without Afghan Help
American military commanders in Afghanistan have warned that President Obama's new strategy, announced Tuesday night during his speech at West Point -- even though it will mean a commitment of another 30,000 troops -- will fail unless backed by dramatic action by President Karzai's government.
As Taliban are driven from their strongholds by U.S. and allied troops in the country's most war-torn provinces in the south, U.S. troops insist these gains will be pointless without trained Afghan soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats ready to fight beside them and to take charge of the areas when they are secured.
As I saw on a recent four-week trip to southwest Afghanistan's Helmand Province, one of the more dangerous areas of the country, an influx of more than 10,000 Marines this summer has already dramatically altered this war -- taking thousands of people out of rebel hands and bringing the return of schools, health clinics, refurbishment of canals, and a program to provide an alternative crop to illegal opium poppy.
But from junior soldiers to senior generals, the military were clear to me that these short-term gains had no purpose and would ultimately result in failure unless the Afghan government led by President Karzai took decisive action to take charge of these "liberated" districts.
And American forces are facing an enemy that is using more sophisticated tactics of attrition to its own minimize losses and maximize pain for the occupiers. The insurgents have learned to fight from a distance, compensating for the Americans' massive advantage in firepower. The insurgents have mastered the IED (improvised explosive device), using explosives made from fertilizer. Their next best choice is a stand-off weapon like a mortar or a rocket.
At the end of October, I joined a group of Marines from the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance on a raid on a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, the most dangerous province in Afghanistan. The Marines were hitting a town known as Safar Bazaar, once the largest drug markets in the area. A year ago, a strike like this into the Taliban's heartland would have led to a firefight. This time, it led to a deadly waiting game, of a type that has become increasingly common in Afghanistan.
The Marines were operating out of Camp Payne, a forward operating base, east of newly captured Khan Neshin. Camp Payne is the most southerly combat post in Afghanistan.
When I joined them, it was clear the area had been transformed since the summer. The Marines and civilian agencies have in four months opened a school, funded the rebuilding of long-derelict canals, held shuras (town meetings) with elders, opened a radio station, funded a job creation scheme and are doling out cheap loans to tradesmen. All this has helped to prove the value of evicting the Taliban.
U.S. Leader Says More Afghan Forces Needed
But Lt Col Tim Grattan, the battalion commander, said it would take further forces to really secure Helmand. "There is no doubt we can interdict and deny the Taliban a route in from Pakistan," said Grattan, "but we need the forces to do it."
Grattan had deployed to Helmand with just two companies of infantry, under 40 percent of his battalion's strength. He blamed what he called an "artificial cap" on troop numbers set back in Washington.
But Grattan said the most critical shortage was the lack of Afghan forces. While the centerpiece of NATO commander General Stan McChrystal's strategy to win this war has been to partner with the Afghans, Grattan's battalion in Khan Neshin had to work with no Afghan soldiers at all, and could work only with a few dozen border guards and barely a dozen policemen, although others are in training.
Since parts of Helmand remain in Taliban hands, the Marines combine their work in holding the ground they have secured with raids into enemy territory.
On the way to raid Safaar Bazaar, 20 miles northeast of Khan Neshin, Grattan rode in an armored vehicle flying the Jolly Roger. His goal was to disrupt a Taliban haven. "They can't be left thinking any place is safe."
The raid began with a convoy of 40-plus vehicles fording the Helmand river. In a ruse, the Marines pushed west into the desert until darkness fell. Then they turned and looped north, stopping only to dig out bogged-down vehicles. Staying hidden, they reached an attack position just after 2 a.m. They swooped in at dawn on Thursday.
For all the deception, the Taliban had still known the Marines were coming. Rather than fight in the open, they chose to fight from a distance and tie down the Marines. They slipped away from Safar Bazaar -- and left behind a deadly ghost town pocked with IEDs.
Bomb disposal technicians moved through the silent marketplace, lined by squat brick buildings. The metal shutters had all been pulled down.
Then one Marine lay down in the dirt in the middle of a street and began to brush the dust from a pressure plate linked to a massive bomb. Other Marines took shelter where they could at the edges of the street. Everyone but a wandering donkey and a handful of Kuchi, Afghan nomads, had disappeared.
The Taliban Strikes
For all the technical expertise involved, the work still comes down to one brave man, alone and exposed, face to face with a bomb. The man I was watching asked not to be named.
"I am just glad to be helping save lives," he told me. Since July, two of the battalion's disposal technicians have died while defusing bombs.
As I sheltered with some Marines beneath an awning of thatched twigs, some used black humor to break the tension.
"I wish they'd get back to shooting at us, rather than this s***," said a Marine. As two Cobra attack helicopters flew over, one man joked: "Shoot the road! Shoot up the bazaar!"
After an eternity, we watched as the lonely man in the street disarmed the pressure plate and placed a charge to blow the bomb apart. "Get back into cover. Watch out for secondaries!" he yelled. "Controlled det! Two mikes!" he warned, meaning that a controlled explosion was due in two minutes. Then came the blast. When the debris settled there was a six-foot crater in the tan dirt of the street.
As the Marines resumed clearing the town, cutting open locked metal shutters, searching buildings, the Taliban struck. At 12.40 p.m. two mortars slammed into homes beside the market. They seemed to be coming from beyond some fields to the left.
The Marines began to fire back, and soon I heard the deep sound of cannons from the light armored vehicles (LAV) nearby on my left.
The Marines saw men piling their mortar tube into a truck and escaping. After six hours the soldiers had cleared about 100 yards of the town's main street.
An order came not to bother trying to recover any more IEDS -- to destroy them instead. There were six more in the town, and the technicians destroyed them.
By now help had arrived to search for the Taliban firing team. Choppers were circling, jets were overhead, and above them a Predator drone scanned the terrain.
Finally, the crew of an armored vehicle on a hill saw men hiding in a clump of trees, unloading a rocket from a truck. The Americans unleashed hell mortars, explosive rounds and artillery. When the thuds and explosions had subsided, orange flame and smoke covered the fields.
Obama Will Rapidly Expand Forces in Afghanistan
It was hard to imagine anyone could have survived, but from a distance no one could tell. The Taliban disappeared, the smoke cleared and the silence returned. Before sundown the Marines finished clearing the marketplace, jumped back into their trucks and drove back to Camp Payne.
Via such raids, and their work around Khan Neshin, Grattan's battalion has established a 20-mile security zone along the Helmand River. But the American drive south is still 70 miles short of Pakistan and a chain of smuggling towns that dot the border. It has also left pockets of Taliban strength, including the 30 mile stretch of riverside that separates Grattan's bases in the district of Khan Neshin from other Marine units based farther north. And when the Americans are not in Safar Bazaar, the Taliban return.
To sustain gains on the ground in a country of more than 250,000 square miles, even an augmented American force will clearly need the help of Afghan troops. In Helmand, the offensive launched in July by just over 5,000 Marines was backed by only 700 Afghan troops. But brigadier general Larry Nicholson told aides that, for an effective counter-insurgency campaign, he would rather have 700 Marines and 5,000 Afghan troops.
"It is not enough just to send in the troops," one senior commander told me. "We will be wasting the lives of our fallen servicemen unless Karzai and his government match our commitment."
This week, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said he had won a promise from Karzai to dispatch a brigade of 5,000 Afghan soldiers down to Helmand. And Obama's plan includes a commitment to a rapid expansion of Afghan forces.
"We must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government," said the president Tuesday night, "so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future."
On the ground, many troops are skeptical that such promises will be delivered; many believe much more radical measures are needed -- like the training of a reliable police force, recruited from local tribes, that could garner support from the mainly Pushtun people from which the Taliban draw their fighters.
"This part of the world is fiercely suspicious of outsiders," said one U.S. military intelligence officer, who was personally skeptical the military campaign could ever succeed. "Simply sending more troops from the north of the country is not going to subdue the revolt."
As Taliban are driven from their strongholds by U.S. and allied troops in the country's most war-torn provinces in the south, U.S. troops insist these gains will be pointless without trained Afghan soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats ready to fight beside them and to take charge of the areas when they are secured.
As I saw on a recent four-week trip to southwest Afghanistan's Helmand Province, one of the more dangerous areas of the country, an influx of more than 10,000 Marines this summer has already dramatically altered this war -- taking thousands of people out of rebel hands and bringing the return of schools, health clinics, refurbishment of canals, and a program to provide an alternative crop to illegal opium poppy.
But from junior soldiers to senior generals, the military were clear to me that these short-term gains had no purpose and would ultimately result in failure unless the Afghan government led by President Karzai took decisive action to take charge of these "liberated" districts.
And American forces are facing an enemy that is using more sophisticated tactics of attrition to its own minimize losses and maximize pain for the occupiers. The insurgents have learned to fight from a distance, compensating for the Americans' massive advantage in firepower. The insurgents have mastered the IED (improvised explosive device), using explosives made from fertilizer. Their next best choice is a stand-off weapon like a mortar or a rocket.
At the end of October, I joined a group of Marines from the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance on a raid on a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, the most dangerous province in Afghanistan. The Marines were hitting a town known as Safar Bazaar, once the largest drug markets in the area. A year ago, a strike like this into the Taliban's heartland would have led to a firefight. This time, it led to a deadly waiting game, of a type that has become increasingly common in Afghanistan.
The Marines were operating out of Camp Payne, a forward operating base, east of newly captured Khan Neshin. Camp Payne is the most southerly combat post in Afghanistan.
When I joined them, it was clear the area had been transformed since the summer. The Marines and civilian agencies have in four months opened a school, funded the rebuilding of long-derelict canals, held shuras (town meetings) with elders, opened a radio station, funded a job creation scheme and are doling out cheap loans to tradesmen. All this has helped to prove the value of evicting the Taliban.
U.S. Leader Says More Afghan Forces Needed
But Lt Col Tim Grattan, the battalion commander, said it would take further forces to really secure Helmand. "There is no doubt we can interdict and deny the Taliban a route in from Pakistan," said Grattan, "but we need the forces to do it."
Grattan had deployed to Helmand with just two companies of infantry, under 40 percent of his battalion's strength. He blamed what he called an "artificial cap" on troop numbers set back in Washington.
But Grattan said the most critical shortage was the lack of Afghan forces. While the centerpiece of NATO commander General Stan McChrystal's strategy to win this war has been to partner with the Afghans, Grattan's battalion in Khan Neshin had to work with no Afghan soldiers at all, and could work only with a few dozen border guards and barely a dozen policemen, although others are in training.
Since parts of Helmand remain in Taliban hands, the Marines combine their work in holding the ground they have secured with raids into enemy territory.
On the way to raid Safaar Bazaar, 20 miles northeast of Khan Neshin, Grattan rode in an armored vehicle flying the Jolly Roger. His goal was to disrupt a Taliban haven. "They can't be left thinking any place is safe."
The raid began with a convoy of 40-plus vehicles fording the Helmand river. In a ruse, the Marines pushed west into the desert until darkness fell. Then they turned and looped north, stopping only to dig out bogged-down vehicles. Staying hidden, they reached an attack position just after 2 a.m. They swooped in at dawn on Thursday.
For all the deception, the Taliban had still known the Marines were coming. Rather than fight in the open, they chose to fight from a distance and tie down the Marines. They slipped away from Safar Bazaar -- and left behind a deadly ghost town pocked with IEDs.
Bomb disposal technicians moved through the silent marketplace, lined by squat brick buildings. The metal shutters had all been pulled down.
Then one Marine lay down in the dirt in the middle of a street and began to brush the dust from a pressure plate linked to a massive bomb. Other Marines took shelter where they could at the edges of the street. Everyone but a wandering donkey and a handful of Kuchi, Afghan nomads, had disappeared.
The Taliban Strikes
For all the technical expertise involved, the work still comes down to one brave man, alone and exposed, face to face with a bomb. The man I was watching asked not to be named.
"I am just glad to be helping save lives," he told me. Since July, two of the battalion's disposal technicians have died while defusing bombs.
As I sheltered with some Marines beneath an awning of thatched twigs, some used black humor to break the tension.
"I wish they'd get back to shooting at us, rather than this s***," said a Marine. As two Cobra attack helicopters flew over, one man joked: "Shoot the road! Shoot up the bazaar!"
After an eternity, we watched as the lonely man in the street disarmed the pressure plate and placed a charge to blow the bomb apart. "Get back into cover. Watch out for secondaries!" he yelled. "Controlled det! Two mikes!" he warned, meaning that a controlled explosion was due in two minutes. Then came the blast. When the debris settled there was a six-foot crater in the tan dirt of the street.
As the Marines resumed clearing the town, cutting open locked metal shutters, searching buildings, the Taliban struck. At 12.40 p.m. two mortars slammed into homes beside the market. They seemed to be coming from beyond some fields to the left.
The Marines began to fire back, and soon I heard the deep sound of cannons from the light armored vehicles (LAV) nearby on my left.
The Marines saw men piling their mortar tube into a truck and escaping. After six hours the soldiers had cleared about 100 yards of the town's main street.
An order came not to bother trying to recover any more IEDS -- to destroy them instead. There were six more in the town, and the technicians destroyed them.
By now help had arrived to search for the Taliban firing team. Choppers were circling, jets were overhead, and above them a Predator drone scanned the terrain.
Finally, the crew of an armored vehicle on a hill saw men hiding in a clump of trees, unloading a rocket from a truck. The Americans unleashed hell mortars, explosive rounds and artillery. When the thuds and explosions had subsided, orange flame and smoke covered the fields.
Obama Will Rapidly Expand Forces in Afghanistan
It was hard to imagine anyone could have survived, but from a distance no one could tell. The Taliban disappeared, the smoke cleared and the silence returned. Before sundown the Marines finished clearing the marketplace, jumped back into their trucks and drove back to Camp Payne.
Via such raids, and their work around Khan Neshin, Grattan's battalion has established a 20-mile security zone along the Helmand River. But the American drive south is still 70 miles short of Pakistan and a chain of smuggling towns that dot the border. It has also left pockets of Taliban strength, including the 30 mile stretch of riverside that separates Grattan's bases in the district of Khan Neshin from other Marine units based farther north. And when the Americans are not in Safar Bazaar, the Taliban return.
To sustain gains on the ground in a country of more than 250,000 square miles, even an augmented American force will clearly need the help of Afghan troops. In Helmand, the offensive launched in July by just over 5,000 Marines was backed by only 700 Afghan troops. But brigadier general Larry Nicholson told aides that, for an effective counter-insurgency campaign, he would rather have 700 Marines and 5,000 Afghan troops.
"It is not enough just to send in the troops," one senior commander told me. "We will be wasting the lives of our fallen servicemen unless Karzai and his government match our commitment."
This week, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said he had won a promise from Karzai to dispatch a brigade of 5,000 Afghan soldiers down to Helmand. And Obama's plan includes a commitment to a rapid expansion of Afghan forces.
"We must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government," said the president Tuesday night, "so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future."
On the ground, many troops are skeptical that such promises will be delivered; many believe much more radical measures are needed -- like the training of a reliable police force, recruited from local tribes, that could garner support from the mainly Pushtun people from which the Taliban draw their fighters.
"This part of the world is fiercely suspicious of outsiders," said one U.S. military intelligence officer, who was personally skeptical the military campaign could ever succeed. "Simply sending more troops from the north of the country is not going to subdue the revolt."
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