US, NATO set to launch massive assault against Taliban-led militants

[yellow people]

U.S. improves security in Afghan province: governor


U.S. improves security in Afghan province: governor

U.S. Marines carry an Afghan Army soldier wounded in an IED blast on to a Medevac helicopter in southern Afghanistan's Helmand Province November 3, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Peter Andrews

By Adrian Croft
LONDON | Wed Nov 3, 2010 10:59pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Security has improved in some areas of Afghanistan's violent Helmand province where U.S. Marines have taken over from British troops, the provincial governor said Wednesday. British troops have turned over parts of Helmand, including Sangin where they suffered heavy losses, to thousands of U.S. reinforcements who moved into southern Afghanistan in the last year as part of U.S. President Barack Obama's "surge" strategy.

Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal said he admired the work British forces had done in Afghanistan "but of course we have to admit that by having the Marines from the United States we have got an improved security now in some areas." Speaking at a London news conference, Mangal put the improvement down to the U.S. forces' greater resources. "Not every country will have the finance, not every country will have the logistics and the equipment (that another country has)," he said, speaking through an interpreter.

Mangal's comments hit a sensitive spot in Britain where the previous Labor government, which lost a May election, faced persistent accusations of failing to supply Britain's 9,500 troops in Afghanistan with adequate equipment. Opposition politicians and former military chiefs criticized a shortage of helicopters and an initial failure to give British troops enough armored vehicles to protect them against roadside bombs.

Britain's six-month-old coalition government has ordered an 8 percent real-terms cut in defense spending over the next four years to curb a big budget deficit, but says British troops in Afghanistan will get all the equipment they need. Mangal said the situation in Helmand, where the bulk of the British force remains based, had improved over the last two years. The Afghan government had extended its presence, law and order had been strengthened and drug cultivation cut by almost half, he said. Prime Minister David Cameron plans to withdraw most of Britain's troops from Afghanistan by 2015.

Mangal said Afghan security forces had a target of taking responsibility for a few areas of Helmand over the next year. He said he believed Afghan forces could meet the 2015 deadline for taking over security in the whole province "provided Afghan national security forces are trained as we are training them right now." He said it was possible the Afghan government could reach a peace settlement with Taliban insurgents, but said Afghan and NATO forces must keep up military pressure at the same time as offering reconciliation to the insurgents.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

 

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U.S. says Afghan handover in 2014 realistic


U.S. says Afghan handover in 2014 realistic

A U.S. Marine from the First Battalion Eighth Marines Alpha Company patrols in the town of Nabuk in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, October 31, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly

MELBOURNE | Mon Nov 8, 2010 6:34am EST

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plans to assume responsibility for his country's security by 2014 is a realistic goal and one that NATO should endorse at a summit in Lisbon, U.S. officials said on Monday. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, both acknowledged a tough fight ahead but added they thought Karzai's target was attainable.

"One of the agenda items of the Lisbon summit is to embrace President Karzai's goal of completing the transfer of security responsibility to Afghanistan by 2014," Gates told reporters during a visit to Australia.
Asked whether he supported its inclusion at the summit and believed it was plausible, Gates said: "Speaking realistically, I would say yes to both questions."

Mullen acknowledged "we're clearly not there" yet. "But as a target at this point that makes sense," Mullen told reporters during a visit to Australia. The November 19-20 summit in Lisbon will bring the war into focus following the most violent year in the nine-year-old conflict. NATO commanders are calling for patience, saying that despite record casualties, real progress is being made in the battle against the Taliban.

President Barack Obama aims to start bringing U.S. troops home next July, the beginning of a transition in which Afghans are intended to increasingly take the lead in security as foreign forces thin out. Opponents of Obama's July deadline say it has emboldened the Taliban, sending a signal that militants need only to wait until the departure of foreign forces before stepping up activities.

"People say 'you picked July 2011 and that lets the Taliban know that there's an end date.' Well, I hope the Taliban think that's an end date because it's not," Gates said. "And they're going to be very surprised come August, September, October and November, when most American forces are still there and still coming after them."

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

 

[yellow people]

Osama bin Laden appoints new commander to spearhead war on West


Osama bin Laden appoints new commander to spearhead war on West

Osama bin Laden has appointed a new commander to spearhead al-Qaeda's offensive of operations against the West.

Osama bin Laden Photo: AP

By Praveen Swami, Diplomatic Editor 10:00PM GMT 10 Nov 2010

Known to western intelligence services by the alias Saif al-Adel, or "Sword of the Just", al-Qaeda's new chief of international operations is believed to have conceived of the wave of strikes that set off terror alerts across Europe recently, as well as last week's mid-air parcel-bomb plot.

US and Pakistani sources have told The Daily Telegraph that al-Adel is running several similar operations as part of a war of attrition intended to persuade Western public opinion that the war against terror is unwinnable. This would clear the road for al-Qaeda to capture power in fragile states such as Somalia and Yemen.

"His strategy", said Syed Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani expert on al-Qaeda, "is to stage multiple small terror operations, using the resources of affiliates and allies wherever possible." A US counter-terrorism official said the idea was for "small-but-often attacks" that would hurt the West more than a "one-off terror spectacular". In 2005, al-Adel authored an al-Qaeda planning document that holds clues to his thinking.

The document said that Islamist movements failed because their "actions were mostly random". It called for al-Qaeda to focus on "the greater objective, which is the establishment of a state". The new attrition strategy marks the triumph of a minority faction within al-Qaeda who had opposed the 9/11 attacks, arguing that the inevitable US retaliation against Afghanistan would cost the jihadist movement its only secure base.

In 2002, jihadist internet forums carried a letter purported to have been written by al-Adel, criticising bin Laden's leadership. Little was heard of al-Adel, who was held by Iran with a group of al-Qaeda fugitives, for several years thereafter. The fugitives were housed in villas along Iran's Caspian coast and in Lazivan, north-west of Tehran.

Al-Adel lived there with his five children and wife Wafa, who is the daughter of Mustafa Hamid, another top al-Qaeda figure. But in April this year, he was released from Iranian custody along with Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's son, and top al-Qaeda operatives Suleiman al-Gaith and Mahfouz al-Walid. Iran swapped the terrorists for Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, a Pakistan-based diplomat kidnapped by al-Qaeda last year.

Little is known about the shadowy al-Adel, who is also known by the names Muhammad al-Makkawi and Ibrahim al-Madani. Born in Egypt, al-Adel is said to have served as a colonel in its Special Forces. He was, however, arrested in 1987 along with several jihadists. Egyptian prosecutors claimed that al-Adel's plans included crashing an aircraft into the Egypt's parliament, or driving a bomb-laden truck into the building – both tactics al-Qaeda later used to devastating effect.

Later, documents filed by US prosecutors show, al-Adel worked as an instructor at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Somalia, and participated in several attacks. In 2000, Austrian investigators found he played a key role in a plot to assassinate Joseph "Diamond Joe" Hicks – a mining magnate who is also a leading member of a religious Jewish group.

 

[yellow people]

Taliban mount series of attacks in Afghanistan


Taliban mount series of attacks in Afghanistan

By Rafiq Sherzad
JALALABAD, Afghanistan | Sat Nov 13, 2010 6:03pm EST

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban fighters attacked a foreign military base at the main airport in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, one of four incidents in 24 hours that marked a sudden upswing in violence. Militants mounted attacks in Jalalabad and Kunar in the east and in Kunduz in the north, after an attack in the capital Kabul on Friday, apparently demonstrating their continuing strength despite NATO-led forces stating that they have made gains.

The attacks will send a message to NATO leaders meeting in Lisbon next week that the Taliban remain a formidable enemy. European NATO leaders are under particular pressure because popular support for the drawn-out war is sagging. Saturday is the ninth anniversary of the Taliban's overthrow in Kabul by U.S-backed Afghan forces, a war waged because the Taliban harbored al Qaeda before the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and refused to hand over their leaders. U.S. President Barack Obama is due to review his Afghanistan war strategy next month.

His commanders have been talking up recent successes and he remains committed to starting a gradual troop drawdown in July 2011, but increased violence would add to the Democrats' worries after their mauling in mid-term elections last week. The attacks follow a growing acceptance among NATO allies of the need for a negotiated settlement, though peace talks are being approached gingerly. The Taliban have in the past timed attacks to coincide with important events elsewhere in the world, and a sudden jump in such attacks now would not be surprising, analysts said.

The Taliban may at the same time be looking to position themselves again as a legitimate ruling group after defying the West's military strategy for nine years. "From one side, the Taliban would like to show that the United States could not defeat them militarily in the past nine years and from other side want to introduce themselves as an acceptable political force, too," said Ghulam Jelani Zwak, director of the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Center.

EXPLOSIONS, GUNFIRE

Violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, and civilian and military casualties are at record levels despite the presence of 150,000 foreign troops.

In Jalalabad, near Pakistan, at least eight insurgents, including two suicide bombers, attacked a forward operating base run by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which shares the main airport. Smoke rose from the area and explosions and gunfire were heard, a Reuters witness said. Helicopters flew overhead and the bodies of at least one suicide bomber and one other attacker were seen near the airport.

"We killed six insurgents, two with suicide vests," an ISAF spokesman said. Afghan and ISAF troops responded to small-arms fire, the coalition said, adding that no Afghan or ISAF troops were killed. A Reuters witness said the bodies of three fighters, dressed in Afghan army uniforms and carrying rocket-propelled grenades, small arms and a heavy machinegun, were lying near the base.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location that 14 suicide bombers were involved in the attacks and that as many as 30 foreign soldiers had been killed. The Taliban often exaggerate the details of attacks and play down the number of their own casualties. On October 30, the Taliban attacked a small outpost in nearby Paktika province. ISAF said at least 40 insurgents were killed while Afghan officials put the toll as high as 80.

Just north of Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, Taliban insurgents fought Afghan and ISAF troops in Kunar province for several hours. Three Taliban fighters were killed, ISAF said. In Kunduz, a jumping-off point for attacks in the north over the past year, a bomb hidden on a motorcycle killed at least 10 civilians, including three children, and wounded 18, a district official and the Interior Ministry said.

Three ISAF service members died after an insurgent attack on Saturday in southern Afghanistan, ISAF said in a statement. It gave no details. On Friday, a suicide car bomber hit a convoy of Afghan and ISAF troops on Kabul's outskirts, the first attack in the capital in three months, wounding two soldiers.

(Additional reporting by Fraidoon Elham in KUNDUZ and Hamid Shalizi, Abdul Saboor and Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Tim Pearce)

 

[yellow people]

A father comforts his child who was injured in an explosion during a Medevac mission in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province November 13, 2010.

Medic Sergeant Tyrone Jordan (L) from CCO., 1-214 AVN Dustoff, treats a child wounded in an explosion as the child's father comforts the boy during a Medevac mission in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province November 13, 2010.

A wounded Afghan boy lays on a hospital bed in the Emam Sehab district of Kunduz province November 13, 2010.


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[yellow people]

An Afghan policeman keeps watch at the site of a blast in the Emam Sehab district of Kunduz province November 13, 2010.

Medic Sergeant Tyrone Jordan (R) from CCO., 1-214 AVN Dustoff, frisks a man before he gets on to a Medevac flight in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province November 13, 2010.

U.S. Marines carry an injured Afghan national to a helicopter during a Medevac mission in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province November 13, 2010.

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Karzai wants U.S. to cut back Afghan military operations


Karzai wants U.S. to cut back Afghan military operations

Afghan president Hamid Karzai speaks during his visit to Paktika province November 2, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Omar Sobhani

WASHINGTON | Sat Nov 13, 2010 11:13pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the U.S. military to scale back the visibility and intensity of its operations in Afghanistan and end night raids that he said incited people to join the Taliban insurgency, The Washington Post reported on Saturday. "The time has come to reduce military operations," Karzai told the Post in an interview. "The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan ... to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life."

The Post said his comments put him at odds with General David Petraeus, who has made "capture-and-kill" missions a central part of counterinsurgency strategy. In the past three months, such night raids of Afghan homes by U.S. Special Operations forces had killed or captured 368 insurgency leaders, the Post said. Karzai was quoted as saying his comments were not meant as criticism of Washington, adding that candor could improve what he termed a "grudging" relationship between the two countries.

A senior Afghan official was quoted by the newspaper as saying that Karzai had repeatedly criticized the night raids in meetings with Petraeus and was seeking veto power over the operations. "The raids are a problem always. They were a problem then, they are a problem now. They have to go away," Karzai said in the interview. "The Afghan people don't like these raids, if there is any raid it has to be done by the Afghan government within the Afghan laws. This is a continuing disagreement between us," he said.

The comments came as the Obama administration has begun to play down President Barack Obama's July 2011 deadline for beginning to hand over security to Afghan forces and withdraw U.S. troops as conditions merit. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week they viewed Karzai's plan to assume full responsibility for the country's security by 2014 as a realistic goal NATO should endorse at its summit this month.

An independent U.S. task force cautioned Obama on Friday about the high cost of the Afghanistan war and said he should consider a narrow military mission if his December review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan finds the current strategy is not working. Karzai told the Post the United States "should and could" draw down its forces next year and that U.S. soldiers should confine themselves more to their bases and to necessary operations along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

(Writing by Peter Cooney; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

 

[yellow people]

Britain's top soldier says al-Qaeda cannot be beaten


Britain's top soldier says al-Qaeda cannot be beaten

The new head of Britain's armed forces, Gen Sir David Richards, has warned that the West cannot defeat al-Qaeda and militant Islam.

General Sir David Richards, new head of Britain's armed forces, said the threat posed by 'al-Qaeda and its affiliates' meant Britain's national security would be at risk for at least 30 years Photo: DAVID ROSE

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 9:30PM GMT 13 Nov 2010

He said defeating Islamist militancy was "unnecessary and would never be achieved". However, he argued that it could be "contained" to allow Britons to lead secure lives. Gen Richards, 58, said the threat posed by "al-Qaeda and its affiliates" meant Britain's national security would be at risk for at least 30 years.

The general, who will tomorrow lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in memory of Britain's war dead, said the West's war against what he described as a "pernicious ideology" had parallels with the fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the general disclosed that Prince William was unlikely to serve in Afghanistan but suggested that his brother Harry, training to be an Apache helicopter pilot, could return to front-line duty in Helmand province.

He said the British military and the Government had been "guilty of not fully understanding what was at stake" in Afghanistan and admitted that the Afghan people were beginning to "tire" of Nato's inability to deliver on its promises. However, he said the sacrifice being made by the Armed Forces in Afghanistan, where 343 soldiers have been killed since 2001, "has been worth it". Progress was being made and Nato was "in the right parish".

He said: "Don't give up folks, it's all to play for." The general also dismissed suggestions that troops badly injured fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan would ever be "forced" to leave the Armed Forces, but said most of those seriously wounded wanted to leave to begin new careers.

He rejected claims by former senior Royal Navy chiefs who said scrapping the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the Harrier force would jeopardise the security of the Falkland Islands. But it is the general's assertion that victory against militant Islam cannot be achieved that is likely to prove most contentious.

The general said: "In conventional war, defeat and victory is very clear cut and is symbolised by troops marching into another nation's capital. First of all you have to ask: do we need to defeat it [Islamist militancy] in the sense of a clear cut victory? I would argue that it is unnecessary and would never be achieved.

"But can we contain it to the point that our lives and our children's lives are led securely? I think we can." He also said the real weapon in the war against al-Qaeda was the use of "upstream prevention" as well as "education and democracy".

The problems that gave rise to militant Islamism were unlikely to be solved soon, he added. On the issue of future wars, the general said he could see no case for military intervention in other countries "at the moment" but added that he would be "barmy to say that one day we wouldn't be back in that position".

 

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U.S. missile strike kills 20 militants in Pakistan


U.S. missile strike kills 20 militants in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan | Tue Nov 16, 2010 1:24am EST

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Unmanned U.S. drone aircraft Tuesday fired four missiles into North Waziristan, a major sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan, killing at least 20 insurgents, local officials said. The missiles struck a fortress-like compound and a vehicle in Ghulam Khan village on the Afghan border early in the morning. "Some of the militants were on foot. They had just returned from Afghanistan when they were hit," an intelligence official in the region said.

"So far, the death toll is 20." There was no independent confirmation of the incident as the war zone is located in a remote part of Pakistan. Militant groups often dispute officials' account of such attacks and casualties. North Waziristan is the main base of Afghan militants fighting Western forces across the border. The United States has stepped up missile strikes there in recent months as it struggles to stabilize war-ravaged Afghanistan.

The United States has long demanded Pakistan launch a military offensive in North Waziristan, but Islamabad is reluctant to do so, and says it needs to consolidate gains made in earlier offensives before opening a new front. But critics says Pakistan's reluctance stems from its desire to use the Afghan Taliban as bargaining chips in a final settlement with Kabul once foreign forces leave.

(Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Sanjeev Miglani)

 

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Afghan handover could run past 2015 in some areas: NATO


Afghan handover could run past 2015 in some areas: NATO

By Ian Simpson KABUL | Wed Nov 17, 2010 4:41am EST

KABUL (Reuters) - The military handover from NATO-led forces to Afghans could run past an end-2014 target date in some areas because of lingering security problems, a senior NATO official in Afghanistan said on Wednesday. The exit of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from Afghanistan will be among priorities to be discussed when NATO leaders gather for an annual summit in Lisbon on Friday and Saturday.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made 2014 the target for Afghan forces to assume total security responsibility from foreign forces. Others doubt sufficient Afghan forces will be ready in time but U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have called the target realistic. Mark Sedwill, the top NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, said transition could run "to 2015 and beyond" in some areas that could still face security problems.

"We expect to have strategic overwatch in large parts of the country by that time," Sedwill said, as U.S.-led NATO forces gradually hand off security to Afghan forces, followed by civil administration. "The end of 2014 does not mean that the mission is over, but the mission changes. It's the inflection point, if you like," Sedwill told reporters in Kabul.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who will review his Afghanistan war strategy in December, has set July 2011 as the start of a gradual drawdown of U.S. forces, with European leaders following a similar timetable. Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. An increase in attacks over the past week will likely send an even more sobering message to NATO leaders in Lisbon.

Sedwill said the timetable for transition would vary across Afghanistan and depend on conditions. He declined to give details on what areas could see handovers, citing security issues. He said he and General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, had their own assessment of what areas could be handed over and would discuss the transition with an Afghan ministerial committee in February. "The theme of Afghanistan is that we want to build Afghan leadership but we realize that it needs support," he said.

Sedwill said that, although gains remained fragile, NATO and Afghan government forces had regained the initiative in the fight against the Taliban-led insurgency. "We think we are in a different mode than where we were in the last few years," he said, given additional NATO resources, including 30,000 extra U.S. troops. That would be the "critical judgment" of an assessment he and Petraeus would deliver in Lisbon, he said.

(Editing by Paul Tait)

 

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Afghan sweep may have killed 40 insurgents: NATO


Afghan sweep may have killed 40 insurgents: NATO

By Ian Simpson KABUL | Thu Nov 18, 2010 8:51am EST

KABUL (Reuters) - Allied forces may have killed more than 40 insurgents in a sweep in eastern Afghanistan this week, the military said on Thursday, an operation that saw the worst allied loss in a single battle in six months. Afghan troops and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) wrapped up the four-day operation in the Pech River valley of volatile Kunar province, not far from the Pakistan border, on Thursday, ISAF said in a statement.

"Reports indicate more than 40 insurgents may have been killed in the security sweep of the area," it said. The raid, called Operation Bulldog Bite, came amid an upsurge in fighting ahead of the two-day summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) starting in Lisbon on Friday. The pace and scope for foreign troop withdrawals will be a priority topic at the summit as NATO members look for an exit to the war, now in its 10th year.

The Pech Valley sweep was aimed at rooting out Taliban insurgents and seizing weapons stores in the area about 200 km (125 miles) east of Kabul. Most allied troops in the area are American. Five ISAF troops taking part in the sweep were killed on Sunday in several hours of fighting with Taliban insurgents, the coalition said. The military death toll was the highest in one incident since a suicide car bomber killed six troops, including five Americans, on May 18 in Kabul along with 12 Afghan civilians.

A British soldier was killed on Wednesday by insurgent gunfire on Wednesday in the southern province of Helmand, the British Defense Ministry said. A homemade bomb also killed an ISAF service member in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, ISAF said. A total of seven ISAF troops were killed on Sunday, the worst single day for foreign troops in a month.

(Editing by Paul Tait and Sugita Katyal)

 

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Nato escorts Taliban chief to secret talks


Nato escorts Taliban chief to secret talks

Afghan and American official have been holding secret talks with the second ranking figure in the Taliban in the firmest indication yet that substantive peace talks have begun.

Mr Baradar is said to have helped Mullah Omar escape across the Afghan border after the US invasion in 2001 on motorcycle, with his chief riding pillion dressed in an all-enveloping Burka

By Praveen Swami, Diplomatic Editor, and Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor 7:48PM BST 20 Oct 2010

The Daily Telegraph has learned that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was released from Pakistani custody.

Baradar was the Taliban's overall military commander until he was arrested in Karachi last February by Pakistani security forces in what was seen as a blow to the insurgents. Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, opposes any dialogue until the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) withdraws from Afghanistan, but Baradar was seen to be open to talks that may have excluded the hard-liners.

Highly-placed sources have told The Telegraph that Baradar has been meeting with Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with security guarantees from both governments and the US. Four other Pakistan-based Taliban leaders supportive of Baradar are also thought to have been contact with US authorities, and are reported to have travelled into Afghanistan under Nato escort on several occasions.

"Baradar isn't acting on our behalf but our understanding is that he is meeting with people in his organisation to build a consensus that will let the Taliban come to the dialogue table," an Afghan official said. Gen David Petraeus, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, disclosed that Taliban figures had been granted safe passage to talks in Afghanistan.

The admission came amid a flurry of claims that senior Taliban leaders, including members of its ruling Quetta Shura and the feared Haqqani Network, were involved in talks. Until now, contacts between President Hamid Karzai's government and the Taliban-led insurgency have been low-level and regarded as inconsequential by diplomats. Washington remains sceptical about talks and the disclosure that Baradar is involved may be designed to marginalise hard-liners close to Mullah Omar.

Taliban commanders have conceded that Baradar is now in Afghanistan. A Pakistani diplomatic official said Baradar was "to the best of my knowledge, no longer in our custody". A statement published on the Taliban's website early this week was ambigious on talks. It said: "Nobody would believe such talk unless foreign troops in Afghanistan act honestly, [and] announce clear and transparent plans for addressing the issue." Baradar was among the earliest Afghanistan fighters to swear allegiance to Mullah Omar in 1994 after the organisation was formed.

He rose to be the Taliban's deputy chief after the 2004 death of its one-legged military commander, Mullah Dadullah. Michael Semple, a former European Union envoy, said many hurdles remained before an agreement could be reached. "If this signals that the US and Nato are starting to take a more creative approach to the Taliban leadership and thinking of them as potential partners for peace in Afghanistan, then it's a step forward," he said.

The Taliban were blamed yesterday for a roadside bomb that killed eight people in a vehicle in Delaram district of south-western Nimroz province. Six people were wounded, the provincial police chief Abdul Jabar Purdeli said. Meanwhile, last month's Afghan parliamentary election result was thrown into disarray when the country's election commissioner rejected 1.3 million votes - 23 per cent of those cast – as fraudulent.

 

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Senior Taliban leader 'an imposter'


Senior Taliban leader 'an imposter'

A senior Taliban leader flown secretly to Kabul and paid a large sum of money to open negotiations with Nato and President Hamid Karzai's government was an impostor, it has been disclosed.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the Nato summit in Lisbon Photo: AP

By Ben Farmer in Kabul and Rob Crilly in Islamabad 5:32PM GMT 23 Nov 2010

The man claiming to be Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was more likely a shopkeeper from the Pakistani city of Quetta and may have been planted by Pakistan's intelligence service, Afghan officials conceded. His masquerade was allegedly not spotted until his third meeting with international and Afghan representatives. "It's not him", said a Western diplomat in Kabul, "And we gave him a lot of money."

Intelligence sources in Islamabad immediately dismissed accusations of involvement as "preposterous", saying the country's ISI spy service was being used as a scapegoat for the debacle. Mr Karzai, who yesterday described Nato as a "naughty friend" for not providing enough equipment and training for Afghan security forces, sought to limit the political embarrassment by saying accounts of the misadventure were "propaganda".

Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said he was not surprised about the reports, adding there was scepticism "all along, and it may well be that that scepticism was well founded". The disclosure undermined recent Western claims that promising channels of communication had been opened between the two sides as a prelude to negotiation.

The Taliban have always publicly rejected any prospect of political settlement with Mr Karzai's government while foreign troops remain in Afghanistan. Mullah Mansour is one of the movement's most senior commanders. He held the ministry of civil aviation during the Taliban government and rose via the shadow governorship of Kandahar to be one of the Taliban leader's most senior lieutenants.

An Afghan official said the man claiming to be Mullah Mansour had been given to Nato and the government by "one of our partners with a long history with the Taliban". He was flown from Pakistan to meetings in Kabul and Kandahar. "We met him three times. We always had our suspicions. It seems he was more likely a shopkeeper or something, sent by the ISI.

On the last meeting he was met by someone who knew Mullah Mansour well, who could tell it wasn't him," the official said. The British embassy in Kabul would not comment on reports the man had been ferried to meetings in a British military plane. A spokesman said: "The UK does not comment on intelligence or operational matters."

The Taliban's ruling Quetta Council is given safe haven by Islamabad, while its fighters operate from sanctuaries inside Pakistan's territory, Afghan and Western intelligence agencies say. Islamabad has sought to control nascent talks, after arresting senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in February when he appeared ready to talk with Mr Karzai. Any allegation of planting the impostor was "preposterous" an ISI official said.

"Pakistan was kept totally out of these talks," he said. "Nothing was shared with us. Now that they have made a mess of things they need a scapegoat, and who better than the ISI to blame?" Mullah Mansour was well known among Afghanistan's reconciled Taliban figures and should have been easy to recognise said Abdul Hakim Mujahed, the Taliban's former envoy to the United Nations.

 

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Nato mission in Afghanistan as long as Soviet occupation


Nato mission in Afghanistan as long as Soviet occupation

The Nato-led mission in Afghanistan has now lasted as long as the Soviet army's doomed occupation during the 1980s.

A British soldier secures the site of the blast in front of the NATO headquarters in Kabul Photo: REUTERS

By Ben Farmer, Kabul 2:06PM GMT 26 Nov 2010

Coalition troops, including 9,500 British, will on Saturday surpass the nine years and fifty days which the Red Army spent unsuccessfully trying to build a socialist state. The milestone comes as Nato has 140,000 troops deployed in the country and levels of violence are at their highest since the US-backed ousting of the Taliban in October 2001.

Russian troops invaded Afghanistan on December 27, 1979, to prop up a communist regime facing a popular uprising. On February 15, 1989, the last armoured convoy of wearied Russian forces retreated north across the Amu Darya river into Uzbekistan after failing to quell a CIA-backed resistance which Mikhail Gorbachev had labelled "our bleeding wound".

Mohammad Najibullah, the puppet leader the Soviet's left behind, clung onto power for another three years until he was ousted by the Mujahideen rebels. Nato's special forces-led mission in the wake of the September 11 attacks to topple the Taliban and kill or capture their al Qaeda terrorist guests, has grown into a vast counter-insurgency campaign.

Nine years after the Taliban fled to their Pakistan havens, the resurgent movement controls swathes of the south and Nato is losing on average 50 to 60 troops a month. Generals say they have this summer finally reversed the insurgents' momentum, but a Pentagon assessment this week said progress was patchy.

Wadir Safi, a professor at Kabul University and minister in the Najibullah government, said "the Americans never reached the goal for which they came." "If they don't change their policy, if they don't reach their goals, if they don't reach agreement with the armed opposition and with the government, then it is not a far time that the Afghan people will be fed up with the presence of these foreign forces."

Nader Nadery, an Afghan analyst who has studied the both invasions, said the Nato presence could not be compared with the brutality of the Red Army occupation. As the Soviets lost control of the countryside to rebels backed by hundreds of millions of pounds from America and the Gulf states, they resorted to indiscriminate campaigns of bombing and massacre. More than a million civilians died.

He said: "There was indiscriminate mass bombardment of villages for the eviction of Mujahideen. Civilian casualties are not at all comparable."

 

[yellow people]

'Rogue Afghan policeman' kills six Nato troops


'Rogue Afghan policeman' kills six Nato troops

Six Nato troops have been killed by a man wearing an Afghan police uniform during a training session in eastern Afghanistan.

Nato troops share bases with Afghan soldiers and police, leaving coalition forces vulnerable to attacks by infiltrators Photo: AP

1:12PM GMT 29 Nov 2010

The man was also killed in the incident and a joint Afghan-Nato team is investigating, the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) announced in a short statement. ISAF did not disclose the casualties' nationalities, in line with its policy, but Americans make up most of the foreign troops based in eastern Afghanistan, one of the worst flashpoints in the nine-year Taliban insurgency.

The deaths brings the toll coalition forces lost this year to 668, according to statistics from AFP, the highest annual toll since the US-led invasion in late 2001. Last year 521 Nato soldiers died. The United States is bankrolling a massive programme – $9.2 billion in fiscal 2010 – to build Afghanistan's army and police so they can take over responsibility for security by 2014, as pledged by Nato in Lisbon a week ago.

But the programme has been troubled by a series of shootings, either by insurgents dressed in Afghan security uniforms or rogue officers. This month, Nato said it was investigating whether an Afghan soldier killed two coalition troops on a military base in the volatile town of Sangin in southern Helmand province. Nato troops share bases with Afghan soldiers and police, leaving coalition forces vulnerable to attacks by infiltrators.

In July, an Afghan soldier killed two American contractors inside a military base in north Afghanistan. A week later, another Afghan solider killed three British Gurkha soldiers. In 2009, five British soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman. Police are seen as central to the goal of getting Afghans to take the lead in the fight against the Taliban, who were ousted by the US-led invasion in late 2001 but who wage an increasingly deadly guerrilla war.

There are currently about 80,000 police officers and US and Nato forces hope to bring that number up to 134,000 by October next year, alongside the 170,000 personnel planned for the army by the same date. On Sunday, leading think tank the International Crisis Group (ICG) issued a damning review of the war and said Afghan security forces "have proven a poor match for the Taliban".

The ICG said the police were "corrupt, brutal and predatory", the army was being manipulated by various strongmen, while both forces suffered from a lack of training and low retention among the ranks.

 

[Guile]

No hiding place from new U.S. Army rifles that use radio-controlled smart bullets


No hiding place from new U.S. Army rifles that use radio-controlled smart bullets

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:25 AM on 30th November 2010

• Weapon hailed as a game-changer that can fire up and over barriers and down into trenches
• Soldiers will start using them in Afghanistan later this month
  

The U.S. army is to begin using a futuristic rifle that fires radio-controlled 'smart' bullets in Afghanistan for the first time, it has emerged. The XM25 rifle uses bullets that be programmed to explode when they have travelled a set distance, allowing enemies to be targeted no matter where they are hiding.

The rifle also has a range of 2,300 feet making it possible to hit target which are well out of the reach of conventional rifles. The XM25 is being developed specially for the U.S. army and will be deployed with troops from later this month, it was revealed today.

The XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System has a range of roughly 2,300 feet - and is to be deployed in Afghanistan this month

The rifle's gunsight uses a laser rangefinder to determine the exact distance to the obstruction, after which the soldier can add or subtract up to 3 metres from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target. Soldiers will be able to use them to target snipers hidden in trenches rather than calling in air strikes.

The 25-millimetre round contains a chip that receives a radio signal from the gunsight as to the precise distance to the target. Lt. Col. Christopher Lehner, project manager for the system, described the weapon as a ‘game-changer’ that other nations will try and copy.

He expects the Army to buy 12,500 of the XM25 rifles this year, enough for every member of the infantry and special forces. Lehner told FoxNews: ‘With this weapon system, we take away cover from [enemy targets] forever. ‘Tactics are going to have to be rewritten. The only thing we can see [enemies] being able to do is run away.’

Experts say the rifle means that enemy troops will no longer be safe if they take cover

The XM25 appears perfect weapon for street-to-street fighting that troops in Afghanistan have to engage in, with enemy fighters hiding behind walls and only breaking cover to fire ocasionally. The weapon's laser finder would work out how far away the enemy was and then the U.S. soldier would add one metre using a button near the trigger.

When fired, the explosive round would carry exactly one metre past the wall and explode with the force of a hand grenade above the Taliban fighter. The army's project manager for new weapons, Douglas Tamilio, said: ''This is the first leap-ahead technology for troops that we've been able to develop and deploy.'

A patent granted to the bullet's maker, Alliant Techsystems, reveals that the chip can calculate how far it has travelled. Mr Tamilio said: 'You could shoot a Javelin missile, and it would cost £43,000. These rounds will end up costing £15.50 apiece. They're relatively cheap. Lehner added: ‘This is a game-changer. The enemy has learned to get cover, for hundreds if not thousands of years.

‘Well, they can't do that anymore. We're taking that cover from them and there's only two outcomes: We're going to get you behind that cover or force you to flee.’ The rifle will initially use high-explosive rounds, but its makers say that it might later use versions with smaller explosive charges that aim to stun rather than kill.

One of the revolutionary bullets which can be pre-programmed to explode to hit troops that are hiding

 

[Guile]

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​

 

[OA Asser]

What stupid thread are you starting now?

Have you licked yr balls today?

US, NATO set to launch massive assault against Taliban-led militants
Posted: 08 February 2010 0121 hrs
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KABUL: The commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan said on Sunday a major offensive will send a "strong signal" and clear insurgents from their southern stronghold, as residents fled ahead of the assault.

A huge force of US Marines leading NATO and Afghan soldiers is expected to launch the offensive - said by commanders to be the largest assault against Taliban-led militants since the war began - in Helmand province within days.

Operation Mushtarak ("Together") will "send a strong signal that the Afghan government is expanding its security control," said US General Stanley McChrystal, who leads 113,000 US and NATO forces fighting the militants.

The operation is to be centred on the Marjah plain in the central Helmand River valley, home to around 80,000 people and said by military officials to be the last bastion of Taliban control. As part of his counter-insurgency strategy emphasising development and governance, McChrystal said the Marjah operation was not about killing Taliban fighters but eradicating the militant threat.

Whether fighters left the region or rejoined society - as President Hamid Karzai's reconciliation programme encourages them to do - the aim was to establish Afghan civilian governance, he said. "We're trying to make this not a military operation only, but a civilian and military operation because the thing that is changing is not just going to be the level of security in the area but the governance," McChrystal said.

"So all the planning for this operation has been led by the civilian side with the military in support - and of course this is an Afghan-led operation." The head of the provincial refugees and repatriation department said authorities were preparing to receive up to 10,000 people, as about 2,000 had already left Marjah. "Around 400 families have been displaced from the Nad Ali and Marjah areas," said Ghulam Farouq Noorzai.

Authorities had set up an emergency response committee in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah to provide food and shelter for those fleeing, he said. A mini-van driver who would not give his name, told AFP: "I have made five or six trips between Marjah and Lashkah Gar today, bringing people out of the area."

Marjah, home to 80,000 people, is a major base for growing poppies, the raw material of opium and heroin, which help fund the insurgency. Officials say farmers are coerced by militants into growing poppies rather than other crops. "For individuals who live in Marjah, who right now live under Taliban control with narco-traffickers there, they don't have a lot of choices," McChrystal told reporters.

"We are trying to communicate to them that when the government re-establishes security they'll have choices." "They'll have choices on the crops they grow, they'll have the ability to move that produce to appropriate markets, they won't be limited to narco-traffickers who can force them into that," he added.

Mushtarak echoes assaults last year - the British Operation Panther's Claw and the Marines' Operation Dagger - that were seen as successfully eradicating militants who had controlled other poppy-growing regions in the Helmand valley. Preparatory operations around Marjah, south of Lashkar Gah, have been going on for weeks, with leaflets dropped on the area from NATO helicopters warning residents of the assault to come.

Military officials said the operation had been planned in cooperation with Afghan authorities, and would enable them to move in to establish civilian institutions, including police, education and health. Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, who started his new job Sunday, said Marjah would provide an example of how "governance and development follows up any advances we make in security".

"To the Afghan citizen what matters is can his kids get to school, is the school open, is the clinic open, can they get decent justice from the Afghan government rather than the Taliban?" Sedwill said. Sedwill, until this month British ambassador to Afghanistan, echoed McChrystal in saying "the situation in Afghanistan remains serious but is no longer deteriorating.

"Both of us are confident... that at the end of 2010 we will be in a much better position than we are now," he said. - AFP/de

 

[yellow people]

WikiLeaks: US special forces in northern Pakistan


WikiLeaks: US special forces in northern Pakistan

US special forces are secretly operating in tribal areas of northern Pakistan to help flush out Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, leaked cables disclose.

By Dean Nelson 10:30PM GMT 01 Dec 2010

The 16 US soldiers embedded with the Pakistani armed forces have also helped coordinate missile strikes by unmanned drone aircraft.

Permission for the combat role had “almost certainly” come with the personal endorsement of Gen Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army.

 

[yellow people]

Nine Afghan security guards kidnapped


Nine Afghan security guards kidnapped

Nine Afghan private security guards from a construction company have been attacked and kidnapped by unknown militants in eastern Kabul province, according to the interior ministry.

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

11:22AM GMT 30 Nov 2010

The guards were taken on Monday in the Tizin area of Surobi district, a known hot spot for insurgents 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of the Afghan capital, the ministry said in a statement.

"As a result of the attack, one security guard of the company was wounded and nine other security guards were kidnapped," the statement said, adding that the attackers seized one AK-47 and four other rifles.

The interior ministry has asked the police to investigate and "take all possible strides to free the kidnapped workers," it said. Hazrat Mohammad Haqbin, Surobi district chief, said efforts had begun to secure the men's release. "And for this we have called upon the tribal elders," he said.

"These people are related to projects led by the Ministry of Public Works, but the ministry hasn't contacted us so far," Mr Haqbin added. Criminal groups and insurgents have kidnapped dozens of Afghans and foreigners since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul.