The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (MAY 2007)

[GAP]

Fresh clashes in Afghanistan leave dozens of Taliban dead
May 12, 2007, 13:31 GMT
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Kabul - Afghan and coalition forces clashed with Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan in past two days, leaving dozens of Taliban dead while at least nine policemen were also killed, officials said on Saturday.

At least 20 Taliban were killed in a clash with US-led coalition and Afghan security forces in Sangin district of southern Helmand province on Friday, the interior ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The dead bodies of 12 militants were left on the battlefield, the statement said, adding that no Afghan and or coalition soldiers were hurt in the gun-battle.

Coalition forces while confirming the fighting, said that their joint patrol first came under attack by Taliban militants.

The combined forces 'observed Taliban reinforcements preparing a second ambush site and requested close air support to destroy the enemy position,' US military said in a statement, adding that 'a number of enemy fighters were killed' but did not provide any figures.
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Afghanistan sacks foreign minister
Last Updated 12/05/2007, 20:24:05 Select text size:   
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Afghanistan's parliament has sacked the foreign minister amid controversy over Iran's forced return of thousands of refugees.

Rangeen Dadfar Spanta has lost a no-confidence vote by a large majority in a second round of voting, after a first round on Thursday hinged on a single spoilt ballot.

The Refugees Affairs Minister lost his job in Thursday's vote.
end

 

[GAP]

Turkey donates 24 howitzers to Afghan Army
Saturday May 12, 2007 (0126 PST)
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KABUL: Turkey has donated 24 heavy guns, costing six million US dollars, to the Afghan National Army (ANA).
Speaking at the handing over ceremony held at the Ministry of Defence, deputy minister for defence General Baz Muhammad Jauhari thanked the Turkish government for the assistance.

He said the equipment would enhance strength and capability of the Afghan National Army (ANA). Turkey had pledged the assistance on April 19.

The howitzers, along with 2,200 cannon shells, gunpowder, fuses and spare parts were shipped by a Russian company to Afghanistan.

The artillery guns could hit the target up to 39 kilometres, Jawhari informed. He said the artillery guns would be moved wherever needed by the ANA inside the country. Jauhari said 110 ANA officers would be sent to Turkey in the days ahead to get training in using the donated arsenal. Speaking on the occasion, Turkish military commander Nusret Tasdeler said his country was standing side by side with the international community in helping the Afghan government in restoration of peace and security in the country.
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Former Dutch defense minister expresses fears over extension of Afghan mission
Friday May 11, 2007 (0811 PST)
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HOLLAND: Former Dutch defense minister Joris Voorhoeve has warned against an extension of the Dutch mission in Afghanistan, the Dutch weekly magazine Vrij Nederland reported.
In an interview with the magazine, Voorhoeve said the Dutch mission in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan could become a "mission without an end" unless the Netherlands sets clear limits to its presence there.

The Netherlands has about 1,400 troops in Uruzgan, mainly engaged in reconstruction work. The government will decide this summer whether the mission will be extended after its two-year mandate expires in August 2008.

The Netherlands is under great pressure from the United States and other NATO allies to stay, since no other country is eager to take over the tasks.

Voorhoeve said an extension will bring risks. "If other countries don't accept their responsibility the Netherlands will be trapped in Uruzgan as it was in Bosnia," he said, referring to the drama of Srebrenica in 1995, when he was defense minister.
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[MarkOttawa]

Now, it's the Van Doos' turn to carry the load
'Heavy casualties in Afghanistan for Van Doos could have a major impact on an election'
Toronto Star, May 12
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/213071

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Capt. Scott Lang - A Soldier's Diary
"Reassess Strategy"
Letter in hometown newspaper prompts reply from Kandahar
May 8, 2007
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I recently received a care package from my parents. Inside was the best morale booster of all: my mom’s homemade fudge and Rockets… I love them candies! But inside the box was a daily newspaper from March 7. It was noticeable immediately because Cpl. Kevin Megeney stood smiling out at me from the cover, with "We’re so very, very proud" as the major headline.

As I read through the paper I flipped through the Editorial section, then came across a letter by Mr. John van Gurp from Halifax. His letter was entitled "Reassess Strategy".

Mr. van Gurp comes to his point immediately: "Through the government’s misguided military aggression, support for insurgency is the only option for many Afghans." The article goes on to end with "Canada needs to adopt policies that will win trust and confidence in Afghanistan and must end U.S.-style blind aggression before the challenges become insurmountable."

Reading such comments dishearten me, as it is a shame to see the nobility of our action in Afghanistan be trivialized down to an assumed political puppetry assimilation, and poor leadership.

Before the Canadians' and coalition military involvement there were two options for Afghans: brutal conformity or death. There is now a greater force than religious extremist tyranny in Afghanistan and it is in the form of well-guided and restrained military action. This has created a third option, Hope and the development of trust.
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[MarkOttawa]

Civilian Deaths Undermine War on Taliban
NY Times, May 13, by CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID E. SANGER

Scores of civilian deaths over the past months from heavy American and allied reliance on airstrikes to battle Taliban insurgents are threatening popular support for the Afghan government and creating severe strains within the NATO alliance.

Afghan, American and other foreign officials say they worry about the political toll the civilian deaths are exacting on President Hamid Karzai, who last week issued another harsh condemnation of the American and NATO tactics, and even of the entire international effort here.

What angers Afghans are not just the bombings, but also the raids of homes, the shootings of civilians in the streets and at checkpoints, and the failure to address those issues over the five years of war. Afghan patience is wearing dangerously thin, officials warn.

The civilian deaths are also exposing tensions between American commanders and commanders from other NATO countries, who have never fully agreed on the strategy to fight the war here, in a country where there are no clear battle lines between civilians and Taliban insurgents.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels, military commanders and diplomats alike fear that divisions within the coalition and the loss of support among Afghans could undermine what until now was considered a successful spring, one in which NATO launched a broad offensive but the Taliban did not.

“There is absolutely no question that the will and support of the Afghan people is vitally important to what we do here,” Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the American commander of the International Security Assistance Force, said in an interview. “We are their guests, they are the hosts. We have to be mindful of their culture, we have to operate in the context of their culture, and we have to take every possible precaution to not cause undue risk to those around us, and to their property.”

But American officials say that they have been forced to use air power more intensively as they have spread their reach throughout Afghanistan, raiding Taliban strongholds that had gone untouched for six years. One senior NATO official said that “without air, we’d need hundreds of thousands of troops” in the country. They also contend that the key to reducing casualties is training more Afghan Army soldiers and police officers.

The anger is visible here in this farming village in the largely peaceful western province of Herat, where American airstrikes left 57 villagers dead, nearly half of them women and children, on April 27 and 29. Even the accounts of villagers bore little resemblance to those of NATO and American officials — and suggested just how badly things could go astray in an unfamiliar land where cultural misunderstandings quickly turn violent.

The United States military says it came under heavy fire from insurgents as it searched for a local tribal commander and weapons caches and called in airstrikes, killing 136 Taliban fighters.

But the villagers denied that any Taliban were in the area. Instead, they said, they rose up and fought the Americans themselves, after the soldiers raided several houses, arrested two men and shot dead two old men on a village road...

While NATO is now in overall command of the military operations in the country, many of the most serious episodes of civilian deaths have involved United States counterterrorism and Special Operations forces that operate separately from the NATO command.

NATO, which now has 35,000 soldiers in the country, has emphasized its concern about keeping civilian casualties to a minimum. Yet NATO, too, has been responsible for civilian casualties over the past year, as it has relied on air power to compensate for a shortage of troops, an American military official who has served in Afghanistan said in a recent interview...

The public mood hardened against foreign forces in the southern city of Kandahar after British troops fired on civilians while driving through the streets after a suicide bombing last year, and Canadian soldiers have repeatedly killed and wounded civilians while on patrol in civilian areas [emphasis added]...

Since the beginning of March at least 132 civilians have been killed in at least six bombings or shootings, according to officials. The actual number of civilians killed is probably higher, since the areas of heaviest fighting, like the southern province of Helmand, are too unsafe for travel and many deaths go unreported and cannot be verified...

Britain fights to curb US Afghan onslaught
Sunday Times, May 13

BRITAIN will step up its presence in Afghanistan this week with the deployment of a high-profile new ambassador as concern mounts that the toll of civilians killed in the war is setting back the coalition’s efforts to win Afghan “hearts and minds”.

There is growing alarm over a wave of US bombing raids in which 110 civilians have died in the past two weeks. Twenty-one people were killed last week after US special forces called in airstrikes on the town of Sangin in Helmand province. “Sometimes you wonder whose side the Americans are on,” said a British official.

US officials claimed that Taliban militants had sheltered in villagers’ homes, using women and children as shields. But local anger was so strong that the Afghan Senate passed a draft law calling for a halt to military offensives by international forces unless they were under attack or had consulted with the Afghan government...

When Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, one of the Foreign Office’s top diplomats and former ambassador to Tel Aviv and Riyadh, flies into Kabul this week to become the new ambassador, one of his first tasks will be to defuse the outcry. He will also need to examine how Britain’s aid contributions have become bogged down in controversy.

In a sign that there is a great deal of catching up to do, the Foreign Office is sending 33 extra diplomats to Afghanistan [emphasis added]. A senior official yesterday described the shake-up as an “upgrading” and denied that it was an admission of failure. “Things have moved in a way people didn’t expect in Afghanistan,” he said. “There’s a sense that we need to do more and to do that we need more people.”

Expectations in London remain high that Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, is a “winnable” war. “The Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office have . . . written off Iraq and all attention is now on Afghanistan,” said a senior diplomat, pointing out that within months Afghanistan will be Britain’s biggest overseas deployment. Gordon Brown emphasised the point yesterday when he said: “Afghanistan is the front line of the war on terrorism.”..

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 13, 2007

No holiday for Canada’s soldiers in Afghanistan
2007-05-13 By JAMES McCARTEN The Canadian Press
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SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan — Sean Boak’s parents would be proud.

A day before Mother’s Day, the 26-year-old Royal Canadian Dragoon was promoted to the rank of captain at the base of a jagged mountain range before embarking on a bone-jarring and at times nerve-rattling patrol of remote villages in southeastern Afghanistan, pledging to keep farmers and their families safe.

Two separate troops of soldiers were readying for an early-morning patrol Saturday when Boak stepped briskly forward to receive a new epaulet from Col. Steve Cadden, the commanding officer of the Dragoons.

"I can’t think of a better place to do this, under the sun" Cadden smiled as the morning light broke and he fixed the new decoration on Boak’s combat shirt.

"Sure beats a field parade."

Even though he dismissed the morning’s promotion as routine, Boak said he planned to call his parents as soon as his shift ended.

"They would have liked to have seen it," he said of the impromptu ceremony.

"They’re typical parents; they’re proud of any accomplishment, whether it’s routine or not."
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Canadian was on suicide mission, Afghans claim
13/05/2007 10:45:42 AM
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If his reported admissions to Afghan authorities are true, a young Canadian man of Pakistani origin went to Afghanistan to die as a suicide bomber -- just like his brother.

"(Afghan authorities) say in the written statement that the Canadian has admitted to planning to carry out a suicide bomb attack in the city," CTV's Steve Chao told Newsnet on Saturday.

"It also goes on to say that he confessed that his brother was the suicide bomber behind a Sept. 30 attack last year in Kabul that happened in the main gate of the government office.

"You may recall that this was one of the more spectacular or massive bomb attacks in Kabul in recent years. It killed as many as 12 people and injured more than 42."

Chao issued a caution: "We want to stress that these are incredible revelations that have yet to be confirmed. And at this point, we understand that the Canadian has not been charged with any crime. But if it turns out to be true, it will be the first time in several years that two Canadian brothers or a Canadian family has been involved in Afghanistan fighting alongside or for the Taliban or al Qaeda."

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs spokesman Rejean Beaulieu  told The Canadian Press that he couldn't confirm any Canadian had been involved in the 2006 Kabul bombing, adding he was "not aware of this."
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Top Taliban commander said killed
TheStar.com - News - Top Taliban commander said killed
May 13, 2007 Associated Press
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A U.S.-led coalition operation supported by NATO troops killed the Taliban’s most prominent military commander, dealing the insurgency a “serious blow,” a NATO statement said Sunday, confirming Afghan reports of Mullah Dadullah’s death.
Dadullah, a Taliban commander who trained suicide bombers, was killed after he left his “sanctuary” in southern Afghanistan, according to a statement from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. It said the Afghan forces assisted in the operation.

“Mullah Dadullah Lang will most certainly be replaced in time, but the insurgency has received a serious blow,” it said.

Dadullah is one of the highest-ranking Taliban leaders to be killed since the fall of the hardline regime following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and his death represents a major victory for the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO troops.

Dadullah, a top lieutenant of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, was killed Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, said Said Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence service.

A second intelligence service official said Dadullah was killed near the Sangin and Nahri Sarraj districts of Helmand province, which have seen heavy fighting involving British and Afghan troops and U.S. Special Forces. The official was not authorized to give his name.

Earlier Sunday, Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid showed Dadullah’s body to reporters at a news conference in the governor’s compound.

An Associated Press reporter said the body, which was lying on a bed and dressed in a traditional Afghan robe, had no left leg and three bullet wounds: one to the back of the head and two to the stomach. Dadullah lost a leg fighting against the Soviet army that occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s.
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Confessions from the combat zone
TheStar.com - May 13, 2007 Rosie DiManno KANDAHAR
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Embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan, Star columnist Rosie DiManno reflects on the sights, sounds and bad smells encountered in cramped armoured vehicles and along Panjwaii district's swoon-inducing trails

The reporter is up to her waist in water and up to her knees in mud.
This embarrassing predicament has halted the progress of the entire Charlie Company platoon.

It wasn't even a river, more like a creek, that should have been easy to traverse with a good running-start leap.

But this is what happens on a 10-kilometre hike in Panjwaii district when a person is suffering from dehydration and it's 55C and the Kevlar vest suddenly feels like a piano strapped around one's shoulders:

Legs cramp, the stomach lurches and every breath is an admonition against that two-packs-a-day smoking habit.

So, the reporter launches off one bank with hope in her heart but plops halfway across with silt seeping into her butt. Repeated attempts to scale the opposite bank, grabbing handfuls of thorn grass – ouch, ouch, ouch – result only in repeated slides back into the creek. Finally, with two infantrymen pushing from the rear and two hauling from the front, the reporter is lugged, rolled and heaved onto dry ground.

She is now some six inches taller, tottering on shoes encased in mud, rather like the Gary Glitter platform heels of the 1970s.

"Just 800 metres to go," the medic, Cpl. Lorne Smith, says encouragingly.

Warrant Officer Marco Favasoli offers a more stimulating comment: "You don't keep walking, Rosie, I'm going to tie a rope around your ankles and drag you back."

Unlike the Afghan National Army platoon that had started out this mission on a joint patrol with Canadians – gagging at the midway point and requiring rescue by pickup truck – the rubbery-legged reporter does finish the hump.

Then collapses beneath a LAV armoured transport vehicle, the only handkerchief of shade in the desert.

From under an ANA truck parked close by, one recovering Afghan soldier whistles: "You want sleep with me?"

Delirious, the aging reporter thinks: I've still got it.

There's a donkey in the middle of the road.

It's not moving. In fact, it's lying down, untroubled by honking traffic. The reporter, standing up in the gunner's hatch of a LAV III, doesn't remember ever seeing a donkey lying down before, much less in the middle of the road.

The other gunner, the real gunner, Warrant Officer Sam Budd, is trying to come up with a punch line for "Why did the donkey cross the road?"
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[GAP]

Articles found May 14, 2007


It’s hockey morning in Afghanistan
Tom Blackwell, National Post Published: Sunday, May 13, 2007
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Dozens of Canadian troops stationed in the Afghan desert roused themselves in the middle of the night this week for some high-priority missions.

They weren't heading out to hunt Taliban or befriend local villagers and tribal leaders. That could wait.

They were up as early as 3:30 a.m. for Hockey Night in Canada and the Ottawa-Buffalo playoff series, beamed half-way around the world to this sprawling military base.

The cheering from one of two Canada Houses, the Canadian soldiers' recreation centres, could be heard 50 metres away as Ottawa took an early series lead over the Sabres Thursday.

The crowds were smaller Saturday - or Sunday morning in Afghanistan - with many of the troops out on patrol, but those left behind were almost as boisterous as the Senators went up 2-0 in their series.

"I'm what you call a hockey nut. I get up every time there's a hockey game, whether it's 3:30 or 4 o'clock," said Robert Jolivet of Ottawa, who installs armour plating on LAV III personnel carriers.

"When you play hockey all your life, it's part of you."

Having a chance to participate in the Canadian ritual 8-1/2 time zones from home "makes it easier for everybody. It's part of the morale," he said.

Cpl. Luis Diaz, an Ottawa native who is part of the Princess Patricia's Charlie company, showed up at 3:30 a.m. for the second Sabres-Senators match-up, an hour early, as it turned out.
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Key Taliban Leader Is Killed in Afghanistan in Joint Operation
By TAIMOOR SHAH and CARLOTTA GALL KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, May 13
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The man who probably was the Taliban’s foremost operational commander, Mullah Dadullah, was killed in a joint operation by Afghan security forces, American forces and NATO troops in Helmand Province, Governor Asadullah Khaled of the neighboring Kandahar Province said Sunday.

Mullah Dadullah’s body was displayed for journalists on Sunday morning in this southern Afghan city. The NATO force in Afghanistan confirmed his death in a statement issued in Kabul, saying that American troops had led the operation. There were various reports of the actual circumstances and day of the death.

Mullah Dadullah was one of the most wanted Taliban leaders, close to the leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, and with links to Al Qaeda, and was probably the most important operational commander.

While the exact number of Taliban fighters or the command structure are not known, military officials say he organized fighters, weapons, supplies and finances across much of southern and southeastern Afghanistan, the centers of the Taliban insurgency. He had been sighted in various places in the last nine months to a year, apparently moving into and out of southern Afghanistan from Pakistan border regions.

His death would cause a “significant blow to the Taliban’s command and control,” said Maj. Chris Belcher, an American military spokesman at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, the capital. He added that Mullah Dadullah “was a military leader, primarily in charge of the effort to recapture the city of Kandahar,” once the Taliban’s stronghold.
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Pakistan, Afghan troops exchange fire at border
Updated Sun. May. 13 2007 10:53 PM ET Associated Press
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged fire at their rugged border in their most serious skirmish in years.

Pakistan said it killed five Afghan soldiers in the fighting Sunday but Afghanistan said just two Afghan civilians died.

Tension has been running high between Afghanistan and Pakistan, its eastern neighbour, over controlling the 2,430-kilometre border and stemming the flow of Taliban and al Qaeda militants that stage cross-border attacks inside Afghanistan. Pakistan's move to fence parts of the disputed frontier has also angered Afghanistan.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj.-Gen. Waheed Arshad accused the Afghan army of sparking the two-hour gunbattle with "unprovoked'' fire at about six Pakistani border posts in Kurram Agency, a Pakistani tribal region opposite Afghanistan's Paktia province.

A Pakistan military statement said troops from its Frontier Corps returned fire and five Afghan National Army soldiers were killed. Arshad initially put the toll at six or seven and said three Pakistani troops were wounded.

"This was unprovoked and without any reason,'' Arshad said.

On the Afghan side, Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi accused Pakistani forces of encroaching two to three kilometres inside Paktia province's Jajai district.
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Blast hits Western forces in Afghanistan, several hurt
14 May 2007 07:56:07 GMT Source: Reuters
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HERAT, Afghanistan, May 14 (Reuters) - A roadside bomb ripped through a vehicle in a convoy of Western troops as it passed over a bridge outside the Afghan city of Herat on Monday, wounding several soldiers, witnesses said.

The incident, part of rising violence in recent months following last year's bloodiest fighting since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, prompted the troops to briefly seal off the bridge.

One vehicle was badly damaged in the blast.

Both NATO and U.S.-led troops operate in Herat, regarded as one of a handful of safe areas in Afghanistan until recent weeks.
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U.K. Skynet-5A Now Operational over Afghanistan and Iraq
SatNews Daily LONDON, May 14, 2007
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Although it’s hard imagining the technophobic Taliban as adept at using computer keypads as they are with using Kalashnikovs, it’s precisely the anxiety that they might somehow be more techno savvy than they look that’s prompted the British to use their most sophisticated military satellite in Afghanistan.

Launched only this March, Skynet-5A is the UK’s most advanced military satellite—and is the highest power X-Band satellite in orbit. It is part of a $7 billion upgrade project by the UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) to improve communications between military command centers around the world.

Skynet- 5A is a next generation military satellite communications program to provide end-to-end, resilient, secure Beyond Line of Site communications services, including welfare, to the UK MoD and other non-UK MoD and multinational customers until 2020.
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Get out of Afghanistan and Iraq
By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News
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Afghanistan will be high on the agenda when Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visits President George W. Bush at his Texas ranch on May 20-21.

The message de Hoop Scheffer has to convey is sombre: Nato is losing the war against the Taliban. A fundamental policy review is urgently needed.

The most important new development is that the Afghans themselves, sickened by war and mounting civilian casualties, want US and other foreign troops to leave.

As President Hamid Karzai himself admitted Afghan patience with foreign troops is "wearing thin" five years after the US invasion. "It is difficult for us to continue to tolerate civilian casualties," he said at a press conference earlier this month.

On May 8, the Senate in Kabul approved a Bill that called for negotiations with the Taliban, a ceasefire, and a date for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
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Afghanistan president awaits high court ruling on foreign minister dismissal
Bernard Hibbitts at 6:50 PM ET May 13, 2007
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[JURIST] A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai [official website] said Saturday that Karzai would await a Supreme Court [Wikipedia backgrounder] ruling on the legality of parliament dismissing government ministers before relieving Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta [official profile] after Spanta lost a no-confidence vote. A previous effort to oust Spanta on Thursday failed by a narrow margin, but parliament did vote that day to remove Repatriation and Refugee Minister Mohammad Akbar Akbar. Karzai, who accepted Akbar's dismissal, has asked the high court to decide whether parliament can force out a minister on a matter not directly related to his portfolio.

Both ministers came under fire for not doing more to oppose the expulsion of thousands of Afghan refugees from neighboring Iran [RFE/RL reports]. The refugees are now living in an Afghan border province but have no shelter. Some 2 million Afghan refugees remain in Iran
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Nine police officers killed in Afghanistan
May 14 2007 at 12:40AM 
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Kabul - Nine police officers lost their lives in fresh attacks in Afghanistan on Sunday as a provincial governor said around 55 Taliban fighters had been killed in two battles near the Pakistan border a day earlier.

Eight police officers were killed when a hail of bullets ripped into their vehicle in a Taliban ambush in the western province of Nimroz, which is on the border with Iran, provincial governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad said.

Another police officer was killed in the eastern province of Nangarhar in a blast caused by a remote-controlled bomb, provincial police spokesperson Abdul Gahfoor said.

The attack was in the Bati Kot area where US-led coalition troops were accused of firing on civilians after a suicide bombing. They have admitted 19 were killed.
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Calgary man arrested in Afghanistan spoke of jihad, not suicide bombing: imam  
PAT HEWITT  The Canadian Press
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An Alberta imam says he spoke several months ago with a Calgary man he believes is the Canadian detained in Afghanistan and says the man talked about "helping his brothers and sisters in Afghanistan" by fighting the jihad, but didn't mention a suicide bombing.

In a report from Kandahar, CTV Newsnet quoted a written statement from Afghan authorities that alleged the Canadian admitted to planning to carry out a suicide bombing in Kabul. The statement also allegedly claimed the man's brother was the suicide bomber behind a Sept. 30, 2006 attack near the security gate of the Interior Ministry in Kabul that killed 12 people and injured at least 42.

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs spokesman Rejean Beaulieu said yesterday he could not confirm any Canadian had been involved in the 2006 bombing in Kabul and added he was "not aware of this."
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Afghans display corpse of 'butcher'
Mullah Dadullah Lang; Slaying of Taliban's No. 2 a 'serious blow' to insurgents
Tom Blackwell, National Post Published: Monday, May 14, 2007
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Striking what they called a powerful blow against the Taliban insurgency, Afghan authorities and international forces announced yesterday they had killed Mullah Dadullah Lang, the group's second-in-command with a gruesome penchant for decapitation.

The coalition had reported one-legged Dadullah's death, prematurely, in the past. But to erase any doubt this time, the Governor of Kandahar showed journalists his blackened corpse, making a point of indicating the amputee limb.

The Mullah was a "brutal butcher," responsible for countless beheadings and other killings of Afghans and Western soldiers, said Governor Assadullah Khalid.
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Taliban leader Mullah Omar says jihad will go on
Updated Mon. May. 14 2007 8:27 AM ET Associated Press
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The Taliban leader Mullah Omar said the killing of the group's top field commander "won't create problems" for the hardline militia, a spokesman said Monday.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told The Associated Press that Omar and other top Taliban leaders offered condolences to Mullah Dadullah's family over the killing by the U.S.-led coalition -- the first Taliban confirmation of Dadullah's killing.

Ahmadi read a statement attributed to Omar insisting that Dadullah's death "won't create problems for the Taliban's jihad" and that militants will continue attacks against "occupying countries."

Dadullah, a one-legged militant who orchestrated Taliban suicide attacks and beheadings, died of gunshot wounds after a U.S.-led operation over the weekend in the southern province of Helmand. Analysts called the killing the most significant Taliban loss since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Ahmadi said Omar and his council of top Taliban leaders decided against naming an immediate replacement for Dadullah.

"Mullah Dadullah was the commander of all the fighting groups. Now all of the mujahedeen will carry on his same type of jihad. They will carry out attacks just as Mullah Dadullah did in his life," Ahmadi quoted Omar as saying.
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Afghanistan under the microscope
TheStar.com May 14, 2007 Terry Copp
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Canadians are confused about the UN-sanctioned, NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. What is its purpose? Waging war on terrorism, opium eradication, nation-building, protecting Afghan civil society from the strictures of the Taliban or simply holding on and hoping for a miracle amid the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq?

These and other questions continue to be the subject of a series of workshops held in Waterloo, Ontario.

Wilfrid Laurier University's Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, in partnership with the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Academic Council on the United Nations System, is organizing a third attempt to come to grips with some of the many issues that challenge decision-makers.

Last December, 28 specialists – including Chris Alexander, Canada's former ambassador in Kabul who is now a UN Special Representative for Afghanistan; Ali A. Jalali, the reformist interior minister who served Afghanistan from 2003-2005; and Husain Haggani, author of Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military – met to debate broad strategic and security issues.

The workshop began with a presentation by William Maley of the Australian National University. His recent book Rescuing Afghanistan is basic reading for everyone who seeks to understand this complex country. Maley and 10 other participants have contributed essays to Afghanistan: Transition Under Threat which is being published this summer.

This week's workshop that begins today includes, among others, contributions from Lt.-Col. Simon Hetherington, who commanded the Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar in 2006, and Ramesh Thakur, formerly of the UN University in Tokyo. The plan is to produce a report to be made available as a supplement to Afghanistan: Transition Under Threat.

What can Canadians expect to learn from such events? Foreign and defence policies have become major political issues and may well determine the outcome of the next election.

We need to examine our options on the basis of the best information available to us and the Waterloo conference will make an important contribution to a long overdue public debate.

Prior to 9/11, Canada had little interest in Afghanistan and when the Chrétien government opted to commit resources to rebuilding that country, it was widely seen as gesture to Washington after rejecting participation in George W. Bush's Iraq war.

Once on the ground in Afghanistan, successive Liberal governments embraced the 3D (development, diplomacy and defence) approach and Afghanistan became the focal point of Canadian external policy.

If Canada had stuck to its original commitment to Kabul, or opted for one of the calmer northern provinces, the mission would have attracted little attention and produced many fewer casualties.
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[MarkOttawa]

NEW ALLIANCE THREATENS KARZAI
Power Struggle in Afghanistan
Spiegel Online, May 14
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,482857,00.html

In Afghanistan, an odd, new alliance of Mujahedeen, old communists, and royalists is threatening President Hamid Karzai's leadership. But can the motley crew solve the country's problems?..

Today, Kabul's establishment is celebrating the anniversary of the "Islamic Revolution" here. In Afghanistan, the reference is to the overthrow of the Najibullah regime in 1992 and the takeover by the Mujahedeen; the Karzai government elected to name April 28th -- the day the holy warriors triumphed over the communists loyal to Moscow -- as the fledgling democracy's national holiday...

A portrait of national hero Ahmed Shah Massoud hangs across from the grandstand. The army he led, the so-called Northern Alliance, chased the Taliban away five years ago. The general did not get a chance to witness his accomplishment, however, having been assassinated shortly beforehand. In his place, his brother Ahmed Zia Massoud stands next to Karzai on the grandstand. He is now Afghanistan's first vice president.

It is he who is meant first and foremost when the president speaks of "differences."

Four weeks ago, Massoud staged a putsch against Karzai -- that, at least, is how his detractors describe what happened. Others say it was concern for the country's future that drove him to action. However one chooses to see it, Karzai was on a visit to India when his vice president -- acting head of state with the president out of the country -- appeared at a dubious event in Kabul's old luxury hotel, the Intercontinental. It was the founding ceremony of the United National Front of Afghanistan -- and the most bewildering collection of people Kabulis had ever seen together.

Former warlord and Karzai's current chief of staff General Dostam was there, as was ex-Governor Ismail Khan -- known as the "Lion of Herat" during the anti-Soviet resistance -- whi is currently the minister of energy. Former Minister of Defense and former head of the Northern Alliance's secret service Marshal Fahim was also there along with retired General Olumi, who was Najibullah's army chief in Kandahar. Then there were Yunus Qanuni, currently speaker of the parliament, and Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy, who as a communist lieutenant toppled head of state Daud in 1978. Also sitting there were Prince Mustafa, the favorite grandson of King Mohammad Zahir, who returned from exile five years ago, and -- initiator of the meeting -- Burhanuddin Rabbani, recognized the world over as president of Afghanistan under the Mujahedeen and even during Taliban times -- a radical Islamist and opponent of democracy.

It was a gathering of people who were once bitter enemies and who have been blamed for a number of serious human rights violations. During the bloody civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal, men like Rabbani and Dostam turned Kabul into a pile of rubble, killing thousands of civilians. If they had been born in the Balkans, they and others like them would likely be sitting in a cell at the International Criminal Court in The Hague today.

But in the Intercontinental, they adopted a manifesto calling for the abolishment of the presidential system and for the election of governors. In other words, they were urging nothing less than the overthrow of Karzai and the re-establishment of their former power as tribal chiefs and provincial warlords...

Afghan warlords can’t be ignored
ChronicleHerald.ca, May 14, by Scott Taylor
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/835309.html

Just two days before 9-11 happened, al-Qaida assassins managed to kill Gen. Ahmad Shah Massoud, the nominal head of the Northern Alliance. His death caused a temporary power vacuum in northern Afghanistan, but just days after Massoud’s assassination, the Americans came calling with bags of cash.

With the Taliban unwilling to hand over Osama bin Laden and his senior al-Qaida lieutenants, America was prepared to invade [what "invasion"?-- read on - MC]Afghanistan to avenge the 9-11 attacks.

With the strategy of "waging war on the cheap," the Pentagon sought the support of mujahedeen warlords to act as the foot soldiers [so no "invasion"--soldiers invade, not aircraft or special forces - MC].

Wooed by stacks of money, advised by U.S. Special Forces and supported by the American air force, the Northern Alliance warlords deployed their infantry and cavalry (yes cavalry) against the Taliban front lines.

As expected, the ill-equipped and mostly illiterate Taliban were quickly destroyed or dispersed and the warlords once again ruled supreme in Afghanistan.

One of the key players among the warlords was also among the most notorious. Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, had ruled the northwest corner of Afghanistan through both the Soviet occupation and the mujahedeen era.

During those years, Dostum developed a well-founded reputation for switching sides and betraying alliances. Nevertheless, when the U.S. asked for help in defeating the Taliban, he had provided nearly 4,000 fighters. At the first loya jirga council in 2002, held to establish an interim government, Dostum had advised newly appointed President Hamid Karzai that the fighting was not finished.

He advocated that the Afghan government and the international community negotiate with the Pakistani authorities to round up the last remnants of the Taliban. As history has shown, the old warlord’s advice was ignored. During the elections in 2004, Dostum threw his hat into the political ring, along with many other former warlords, and he managed to tally over one million votes. Despite demonstrating his continued popular support, Dostum found himself sidelined by the Karzai government.

Unwilling to build a new-look government that clearly resembled the old mujahedeen warlord patchwork, Karzai deliberately kept key players like Dostum out of his cabinet.

Instead of securing a meaningful post, Dostum was offered a purely symbolic title — chief of staff to the army commander — and a paycheque of just $700 a month.

Independently wealthy and still maintaining the central infrastructure of his private army, Dostum has increasingly distanced himself from the Kabul government...

With Afghanistan still destabilized and the Karzai regime still dependent on foreign military support for survival, it is easy to understand why the Afghan government does not wish to grant real power to the former warlords.

However, one possible middle-ground solution would be to create some sort of high council composed of ex-warlords like Dostum.

The High Council may have only advisory powers, but as long as the prestige and payment were sufficient to placate both the warlords’ egos and their followers’ sensibilities, maybe then they could find their contribution to Afghanistan’s evolution was appreciated.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 15, 2007

Air strikes kill suspected Taliban in southern Afghanistan, officials say
Noor Khan Canadian Press Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Article Link

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - At least 11 suspected Taliban and possibly dozens more were killed by air strikes on Taliban compounds Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

Afghanistan's Defence Ministry said 11 Taliban were killed in the Zhari district of Kandahar province early Tuesday, though the provincial police chief said more than 60 suspected insurgents died, including three regional commanders.

The air strikes were carried out at 3 a.m. local time, and many other suspected Taliban were wounded, said Kandahar Police Chief Esmatullah Alizai. He said there were no civilians killed or wounded.

Casualty tolls from remote battle sites in Afghanistan often vary widely, and the number of casualties could not be independently verified.

Alizai said NATO forces carried out the air strike, but NATO's International Security Assistance Force did not immediately have any details. The separate U.S.-led coalition said it was not their operation.

Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said the militants were killed during a joint NATO-Afghan operation.

Alizai said the air strike was based on "good information." He identified the regional commanders killed as Mullah Abdul Hakim, Mullah Abdul Manan and Mullah Zarif, and said bodies were still being removed from under the mud and rubble of the bombed compounds.

The latest violence comes days after
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Canadian soldiers meet locals in southeastern Afghanistan in bid to win trust
at 15:51 on May 12, 2007, EST. SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (CP) -
Article Link

Sean Boak's parents would be proud.

A day before Mother's Day, the 26-year-old Royal Canadian Dragoon was promoted to the rank of captain at the base of a jagged mountain range before embarking on a bone-jarring and at times nerve-rattling patrol of remote villages in southeastern Afghanistan, pledging to keep farmers and their families safe.

Two separate troops of soldiers were readying for an early-morning patrol Saturday when Boak stepped briskly forward to receive a new epaulet from Col. Steve Cadden, the commanding officer of the Dragoons.

"I can't think of a better place to do this, under the sun" Cadden smiled as the morning light broke and he fixed the new decoration on Boak's combat shirt.

"Sure beats a field parade."

Even though he dismissed the morning's promotion as routine, Boak said he planned to call his parents as soon as his shift ended.

"They would have liked to have seen it," he said of the impromptu ceremony.

"They're typical parents; they're proud of any accomplishment, whether it's routine or not."

After a round of back-slaps, handshakes and good-natured ribbing - Boak apparently has a lot of beer to buy when the Dragoons get back to their base in Petawawa, Ont. - the soldiers of 2 Troop, Reconnaissance Squadron climbed into their Coyote armoured vehicles and fanned out across the rock-dotted moonscape at the edge of the steamy Registan desert, just a few scant kilometres from the Pakistan border.
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Taking torture personally
TheStar.com May 15, 2007  Rosie DiManno
Article Link

Canada only began caring about detainee abuse after issue came too close to home

KANDAHAR–It's a grim building. But then, most such detention facilities are in Afghanistan.

High walls and a compound that extends far beyond what the eye can see.

And the eye is not always the best judge of things.

Last week, the National Directorate of Security opened its feared prison and interrogation premises in Kandahar city to a couple of Canadian journalists. Preceding them, in the first flush of scandal, were Canadian diplomats and Afghan human rights scrutineers.

This is where prisoners – suspected Taliban – were tortured, allegedly. Before, that is, the alarming stories of abuse hit newspaper front pages on the other side of the world, the oh-so-civilized part of the world, and exploded in Parliament with accusations that Canada was complicit in the horrific mistreatment of detainees.

It became, very quickly, not a story about tortured detainees at all. There are undoubtedly thousands of those – political prisoners, criminals, garden-variety malefactors – as documented by one humanitarian agency after another, though much of the previous focus had been on the infamously wretched Pul-e-Charkhi in Kabul, where untold numbers of inmates have died in riots and protests and hunger strikes, their miserable fate recorded only in news digest items.

It was abysmally easy not to pay attention, the Canadian public more preoccupied with the bigger picture of just what their troops were doing in Afghanistan and whether they should be yanked home sooner rather than just a little later, as in 2009. Sometimes, the political conundrum was framed in the context of dead Canadian soldiers and dying for what?

Just as often, the deployment devolved into polemics about Canada's tarnished reputation as a gentle peacekeeping nation and thus it had no place in Afghanistan other than as a toady to Washington – despite the core fact the NATO presence here is sanctioned by the United Nations (which Canadians so adore) and, only five years ago, the international community was falling over itself with declarations it would not abandon Afghanistan again.

So, in our self-absorbed way, it became a story about Canada, its morals and precepts and obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Further, it turned into a wincing episode of partisan politics. The purportedly tortured Afghan detainees were rendered mere props.

Canadian politicians – the same rhetoricians who thundered on the Hill after The Globe and Mail first broke a fulsomely documented investigation of detainee abuse – had earlier uttered not a peep about these poor creatures and their predecessors, although their circumstances have been widely known for years, before and after the harsh Taliban era.

No, Canada only started caring after the issue brushed too close to home and reputation, with assertions that our own troops had handed over Taliban suspects to Afghan security forces, who promptly strung them up, caged them like animals and whipped them with electrical cords. Such was the moral outrage that Canada hastily revisited the document signed in 2005 by Gen. Rick Hillier, on behalf of the government, which dictated the terms of disengagement with suspects taken into custody. Canadians would not be custodians. They were Afghans and the responsibility of the Afghan government.

Nobody paid much attention to that little agreement either, its specifics long kept under wraps. Neither the present Conservative government nor the Liberals who got Canada into Afghanistan to start with made much ado about it, though the Star did publish columns last year questioning the transfer arrangement and pointing out that Canada – unlike the Netherlands, for instance – had secured no assurances that detainees would be treated humanely afterwards.
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Australian troops leave for Afghanistan
May 15, 2007 - 11:20AM
Article Link[/color]

A contingent of Australian Army commandos headed for southern Afghanistan has been farewelled by Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd.

The mostly Sydney-based soldiers from the 4th Battalion The Royal Australian Regiment (Commando) will boost Australia's troop deployment in Afghanistan to about 1,000.

Mr Howard wished the troops a successful mission and safe return, saying the deployment was made all the more dangerous by the resurgence of the Taliban.

"It is a very important mission," Mr Howard told the soldiers, many of them sporting new beards, at Sydney's Holsworthy barracks.

"If terrorism wins in Afghanistan, that would be bad for our part of the world as well as bad for the people of that country."
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EU agrees police missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo
Article Link

Brussels (dpa) - European Union defence ministers Monday finalized preparations for police missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo in an expansion of the bloc's global security role.

The 27-nation bloc also agreed joint efforts to build a Europe- wide industrial and technological base capable of responding to the military needs of its members.

Both moves are seen as a vital leap forward in the EU's rapidly-developing plans to forge an independent defence and security identity, separate from the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The EU police operation in Afghanistan, involving the deployment of 160 police and law enforcement officers as well as legal experts, will be formally launched in June, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung told reporters.

Training the Afghan police force is a vital element of international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and fight narcotics production and trafficking in the country.
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Governor-General has reassuring words for families of soldiers
KEVIN BISSETT Canadian Press May 15, 2007
Article Link

FREDERICTON -- Military officials and families of soldiers deployed in Afghanistan said they were impressed and honoured that Governor-General Michaëlle Jean made Canadian Forces Base Gagetown the first stop on her first official visit to New Brunswick.

The Governor-General, who is also commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces, toured the base near Fredericton before spending about 90 minutes yesterday afternoon with families of some of the deployed soldiers.

"She spoke of having been to Afghanistan and said that wherever you look, there are pictures of family and banners of support. ...They are always thinking of you." said Kim Timon of Oromocto, N.B., whose husband is in Kandahar.

"She was very reassuring to let us know that she had been there."
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[The Bread Guy]

Environmental conditions challenge for helicopter operations in Afghanistan
Darren Lake, Rotorhub.com, 15 May 07
Article link

Keynoting Shephard's Expeditionary Forces conference in London, Major General Ton van Loon of the Netherlands, who has just returned from Afghanistan where he was commander of Regional Command South (RCS) within the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had a stark warning for delegates. 'We have all bought the wrong helicopters. It's as simple as that,' he stated.

Gen van Loon said that the hot high conditions of Afghanistan were a major issue and that the only helicopter that really performs, especially in the summer months, is the Chinook. Using the Cougar as an example, he said that in the winter the aircraft was capable of carrying 14 soldiers onboard, but that by the time he left post at the end of last month environmental conditions had cut that number to four. He said that other aircraft, such as Lynx and the Black Hawk encountered similar problems.

At the same time Gen van Loon highlighted the crucial place that the helicopter force played in enabling opreations in the country, particularly in the areas covered by RCS, which includes Hellmand and Kandahar. He stated that without the helicopters operations in the region would be impossible and that air mobility was allowing ISAF to out manoeuvre the Taleban. He went further in stating that more infantry battalions and special forces would be of no use unless this was backed by further troop transport and casualty evacuation capabilities.

 

[MarkOttawa]

German defense minister calls for changes in Afghanistan tactics
AP, May 14
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/14/europe/EU-GEN-EU-Afghanistan.php

U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan need to change tactics to limit civilian casualties and prevent a backlash from locals, Germany's defense minister said Monday, reflecting European unease about reports of high death tolls in incidents involving American units.

"We have to make sure that in the future, operations do not take place in this way," Franz Josef Jung told reporters at a meeting of EU defense ministers. "We don't want the population against us. We have to prevent that."

NATO governments are concerned that recent reports of civilian casualties could undermine public support for the international security mission in Afghanistan, both among the local people and with public opinion in Europe.

Airstrikes called in by U.S. special forces fighting some 200 Taliban militants near Sangin in southern Afghanistan killed 21 civilians last week, Afghan government officials said, while villagers said nearly 40 civilians were killed.

The U.S.-led coalition — which operates outside NATO's force of 36,000 troops — confirmed that the battle caused civilian casualties, killing at least one child, and that a joint Afghan-U.S. team would investigate.

In March, U.S. Marines' special forces fired on civilians after a suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan, killing 19 civilians and wounding 50. Fighting late last month killed some 50 civilians in the western province of Herat, Afghan and U.N. officials say.

Jung made a distinction between the work of NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S.-led counterterrorism mission, which was known until recently as Operation Enduring Freedom.

"It's not the way of going about it," he said. "I'm not talking about ISAF, I'm talking about OEF."

Jung said he had raised the issue of civilian casualties with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and added that NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, was "looking into the issue."..

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 16, 2007

Angry Afghans protest at Pakistan Embassy against border skirmishes
AMIR SHAH
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - About 1,000 Afghans shouting "Death to Pakistan" demonstrated in front of the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul on Wednesday to protest recent border violence.

Many of the demonstrators were from the eastern province of Paktika, where fighting between Afghan and Pakistani troops on Sunday and Monday killed at least 13 Afghan border guards and civilians - the most serious skirmishes in years between the neighbouring countries.

The demonstrators carried banners and shouted "Death to the ISI! Death to Musharraf," a reference to Pakistan's intelligence agency and President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Afghan police wearing riot gear guarded the embassy in a downtown street. There were no reports of violence, but emotions ran high.

"We've run out of patience with Pakistan," said Sultan Uddin, 50, from the Jaji district of Paktika. "We're requesting President (Hamid) Karzai to give us weapons and remove the border police. We know how to deal with Pakistan."

Tensions have been running high between Afghanistan and Pakistan over controlling their 2,430-kilometre border and stemming the flow of Taliban and al-Qaida militants who stage attacks inside Afghanistan.

Afghan officials said this week's border clashes began when Pakistani soldiers entered Afghan territory. Pakistan said Afghan soldiers sparked the clashes by firing on border posts.

On Monday, one U.S. soldier and a Pakistani soldier were killed by unidentified militants after a meeting in a Pakistani border region between officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan and NATO's International Security Assistance Force. The meeting was meant to cool tensions over the border fighting.
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Ex-captives 'rejoined fight' in Afghanistan
16/05/2007 - 7:23:26 AM
Article Link

Former Guantanamo detainees have organised a jailbreak in Afghanistan, kidnapped Chinese engineers and taken leadership positions with the Taliban, the US military says.

The former detainees were released from the prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba between 2002-2004 by claiming to be innocent or low-level figures, the military said in a statement, responding to questions about ex-prisoners who had allegedly resumed fighting.

The Pentagon gave brief descriptions of six detainees, including two it said were killed in fighting in Afghanistan, which the US invaded to oust the Taliban regime following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.

The statement suggested that the six were released from Guantanamo by mistake.

“These former detainees successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years,” said Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.
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Border bomb kills 25
Article Link

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – A suicide bomber with a warning to spies for America taped to his leg attacked a crowded restaurant Tuesday near the Afghan border, killing at least 25 people days after a relative of the Taliban’s slain commander was arrested there, officials said.

The explosion deepened instability in a country still reeling from deadly political riots over the weekend in its commercial capital, Karachi.

The attack, while not directly related to that unrest, brought further instability to Pakistan and was a further indication that the war in Afghanistan between Islamic militants and NATO forces was spilling across the border.

Provincial police chief Sharif Virk said the message taped to the severed leg of the bomber said spies for America would meet the same fate as those killed and included the Persian word "Khurasan" – often used in militant videos to describe Afghanistan.

The owner of the hotel restaurant, who was killed in the bombing, was an Afghan with ties to an anti–Taliban warlord, and the restaurant itself was popular with many Afghans.

Two security officials told The Associated Press that a close relative of the Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah was arrested in the restaurant a few days before Tuesday’s attack. The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, refused to be identified.
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Success and setbacks marked in Afghanistan
Article Link to TehranTimes

The death of Mullah Dadullah, the one-legged commander of Taliban forces in Afghanistan who was high on the most-wanted list of U.S. forces, could deal a significant blow to the country’s Islamic insurgency (BBC). He is the third top Taliban leader to be killed by coalition forces in the past six months, signaling some success at repelling a resurgent Taliban in parts of southern Afghanistan. But the fluidity of the Taliban's command structure, noted by U.S. and NATO officials, could lessen the impact of Dadullah's removal. News of his death coincided with the fallout from a series of miscues that have damaged the image of U.S. and NATO forces in the country. Recent U.S.-led air strikes have left scores of civilians dead (Economist.com), resulting in growing anti-Americanism among Afghans.

Most recently a May 9 NATO air strike in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, killed at least twenty-one noncombatants, among them women and children (BBC). Previously in April, U.S. air strikes left at least fifty-seven Afghans killed in Shindand district. And in March, a convoy of U.S. Marines opened fire near the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, killing nineteen civilians. After the Jalalabad incident, the U.S. military issued an unusual apology for what it called a “terrible, terrible mistake” and promised a complete investigation. These attacks have prompted a number of anti-U.S. protests, while Afghan newspapers have published blistering editorials accusing NATO and the United States of “war crimes.” Lawmakers are calling for more oversight. Even President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks and said his patience with foreign forces was “wearing thin.”
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Suspected Militant Captured in Afghanistan; Weapons Caches Seized
American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, May 15, 2007
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Afghan and coalition forces detained a suspected militant and discovered two weapons caches during operations in Afghanistan today.
At a compound in the Mandozai district of Khowst province, combined forces captured one militant with alleged ties to the extremist Siraj Haqqani’s suicide-bombing network, military officials said.

After detaining the suspect, combined forces found two AK47 assault rifles, a shotgun, 500 ammunition rounds and various other weapons. Troops also seized equipment used to manufacture improvised explosive devices and suicide bombs.

Coalition forces removed the cache and destroyed it nearby. No shots were fired, and no one was injured in the operation.

In other news, coalition forces received rifle fire from a group of insurgents this morning near Jusalay village, about a mile northeast of Sangin District Center, in Helmand province. Troops maneuvered toward the enemy position and pursued the insurgents as they attempted to flee. Coalition forces searched a compound during the pursuit and discovered a cache containing weapons and ammunition.

There were no reports of Afghan civilian or coalition force injuries during the firefight.
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Bush Names Lute to New Post to Support Iraq, Afghanistan Ops
By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service
Article Link

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2007 – President Bush announced yesterday that he has named Army Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, director of operations for the Joint Staff, as assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush named Lute to the new position to serve as the full-time manager for implementing and executing U.S. strategies for Iraq and Afghanistan, the president explained. Lute also will manage the interagency policy-development process for the two theaters, working closely with National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, the Cabinet and the president.

Lute’s efforts will directly support Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command; Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multinational Force Iraq; U.S. commanders in Afghanistan; and the U.S. ambassadors to Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush said.

“Nothing is more important than getting Admiral Fallon, General Petraeus, American commanders in Afghanistan, and Ambassadors (Ryan) Crocker and (William) Wood what they need, and Douglas Lute can make sure that happens quickly and reliably,” the president said.

Bush praised Lute as “a tremendously accomplished military leader who understands war and government and knows how to get things done.
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[MarkOttawa]

Improved intelligence helps target top Taliban
Coalition air strike kills Mullah Manan, local commander known for bloodthirsty tactics
Globe and Mail, May 16, by Graeme Smith
http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070516/AFGHANGTA16/International/international/international/4/4/29/

The latest air strike against a Taliban leader has killed a notorious local commander who used villagers as human shields and fought in the largest battles Canadian troops have faced in half a century, Afghan officials and villagers say.

Mullah Abdul Manan was somewhere in the area of Nalgham and Sangisar, two clusters of villages west of Kandahar city, when he was struck while riding a motorbike by what locals described as a large blast that shook their farms at 3 a.m., local time.

His death marks another in a series of successful targeted strikes against prominent Taliban figures in southern Afghanistan. The most important insurgent commander, Mullah Dadullah, made international headlines when his death was confirmed on Sunday. Dozens of less prominent Taliban chiefs have been killed without fanfare over the past six months, however, as the foreign troops in southern Afghanistan appear to be improving their intelligence about the insurgents.

"This is great news," said Asmatullah Alizai, Kandahar police chief, in a telephone interview. "He made a lot of trouble for us." Mullah Manan ranked among the minor commanders, with perhaps a few dozen fighters under his control, locals say. Two others killed along with him, Mullah Abdul Hakim and Mullah Zarif, were described as his lieutenants. Mullah Uror, another small-time commander, was injured.

Follow-up attacks on people who gathered in the area may have killed local civilians, villagers suggested.

Mr. Alizai said the air strikes killed 60 insurgents and injured 30 others; when asked whether some of those might be civilians, he acknowledged that it's possible.

Afghanistan's Defence Ministry described lower numbers, saying perhaps 11 Taliban were killed.

There was also confusion last night over who conducted the air strike, as neither the North Atlantic Treaty Organization nor the U.S. counter-terrorism forces took responsibility. Afghan authorities in Kabul and Kandahar described it as a NATO attack, but the alliance's International Security Assistance Force quickly issued a denial.

"Contrary to press reports, ISAF is unaware, at this time, of any NATO air strikes or significant operations near Kandahar early this morning," the statement said...

NATO sees importance of secret Afghan info
Intelligence crucial in fight against Taliban
Ottawa Citizen, May 16, by a certain reporter
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=636a562e-6669-42c7-98fc-9d92088f05f7

NATO would like to make more use of intelligence gathered by Afghanistan's secret police since such information can be fundamental in saving soldiers' lives and combating the insurgency here, says the Canadian general in charge of the alliance's intelligence section.

Canadian Brig.-Gen. Jim Ferron says he is confident that Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security or NDS is following proper procedures when it interrogates insurgent detainees.

The general also pointed out that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is interested in further developing its relationship with the NDS because it is a key Afghan government agency and the intelligence it is providing is highly credible in the battle against insurgents.

"We'd like to make (NDS intelligence) a significant part because the best information is the information that comes from the Afghans themselves," said Brig.-Gen. Ferron, ISAF's chief intelligence officer. "They have the cultural nuances that we may miss. So I think it's safe to say we would like to make it more of a part of our daily intelligence."

But human rights critics have raised concerns about the NDS, whose predecessor was the dreaded KhAD, the secret police created by the Soviets to hunt down anti-Communist forces. KhAD officials earned a brutal reputation for themselves and torture was a common method in dealing with detainees. Current NDS officers interviewed by the Citizen acknowledged they have worked as intelligence officers and interrogators for various Afghan regimes in their long careers.

The Afghan government maintains that the situation has changed under the NDS, although some of its officers were members of KhAD. A number of Afghan detainees interviewed by journalists allege they were tortured at the NDS facility in Kandahar...

Brig.-Gen. Ferron said information is key in battling insurgents and saving lives. One method is to gather information through technological means, such as intercepting communications or using drones to transmit images of enemy movements.

"The other way is through interviewing or interrogating, which is not a bad word if it's done properly and professionally," he explained. "The detainees are detained for a reason. They have information we need."

Brig-Gen. Ferron said much of the information a detainee provides is not truthful and is aimed at deceiving military forces. That's why it is up to intelligence analysts to sift through what is truth and what is deception. "But if we don't have the information we can't even start on that process," he added.

He pointed out that Canadian troops closely follow the Geneva Convention in handling detainees. The Canadian detention centre at the base in Kandahar, where prisoners are briefly held, is professionally run, the officer noted.

Detainees are held in Kandahar for 96 hours and undergo basic questioning. Soldiers will ask for their name, where they are from and why they joined the insurgency. Information about the prisoners is recorded and their photographs are taken. After that they are turned over to the NDS.

Canada is in the process of working out an arrangement with the Afghan government so Canadian officials can be reassured that detainees turned over to the NDS are properly treated.

Brig.-Gen. Ferron said he understands the public might have some discomfort with such terms as "interrogation" but that is a normal process to gather information...

Soldiering on
Efforts to build Afghan National Army have long way to go
Ottawa Sun, May 16, by Scott Taylor
http://www.ottawasun.com/News/National/2007/05/16/4183679-sun.html

When I first met them at the Kabul airport, the three young Afghan men were wearing traditional civilian clothes -- white robes and baggy pants. What set them apart from the rest of the crowd waiting to board a Kandahar-bound flight was that they were speaking English among themselves.

When I inquired as to their identity, Ramin -- the oldest of the group at 22 -- explained they were Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers returning to duty after taking leave in Kabul. Their unit was based in Tarin Kot in support of the Australians and after flying to Kandahar on Ariana (Afghan) Airways they would travel in a convoy to their forward operating base.

Informing them that I was a former Canadian soldier, I tried to spark their martial pride by asking them to rate the ANA compared to other armies they had worked with. All three of them looked at me in disbelief before Ramin replied, "The Taliban is number one -- that's why they are always kicking our ass."

RE-ENLISTED

With three years of combat experience, Ramin had just re-enlisted for a second tour in the Afghan army. He was a first sergeant and the senior ranked among the trio, yet Ramin explained he had been given this authority as soon as he had volunteered for the army.

"Because I was one of the few recruits with secondary education, I was made first sergeant for my company," he said.

Simply for being literate, Ramin was promoted upon enlistment to a position of authority that would require at least 10 years of experience to attain in any Western army. Only recently has the ANA altered their policy of training and fielding completely inexperienced kandaks (battalions).

In the past, the NATO-supervised Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC) was pushing out complete 600-man kandaks after a 17-week training course. Any soldier who showed initiative during training -- or, like Ramin, was literate upon enlistment -- would automatically be given a senior rank...

...the ANA is still expanding so quickly that there simply is not enough units existing to make this possible. At present, it is estimated that there are 35,000 trained members of the ANA. The goal is to boost that number to a target of 70,000 as quickly as possible. To achieve that objective, U.S. President George Bush increased funding to the KMTC. Since January, the KMTC is graduating two complete kandaks (1,200 troops total) every four weeks.

The pay for ANA recruits is $115 a month and in a country with 90 per cent unemployment and where $300 is the average annual family income, there is no shortage of enlistees. However, with the pressure to produce such a vast number of troops in such a short timeframe, the KMTC has a "no fail" policy.

"As long as they are not deemed to be a threat to their own safety or that of the instructors they pass," explained Major Adam Barsby, a Canadian instructor at the KMTC in an interview earlier this year.

The drawbacks to this "everyone graduates" policy was evident when we encountered an ANA guard at the Khali-Jenk fort in Mazar-i-Sharif. Walking in circles, shaking his fists and talking to himself in angry tones, it was apparent this soldier was completely witless. Yet armed and in uniform he remains a statistical contribution to the magic number of 70,000 ANA that the Pentagon believes will result in the self-sufficiency of the Afghan security forces.

While commenting on the performance of his ANA unit, Ramin made a final statement, "We run away from the Taliban because we want to live. What's hard to understand about that?"

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 17, 2007

Two blasts in southern Afghanistan kill seven
Updated Thu. May. 17 2007 8:38 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Seven people were killed and several others wounded when two bombs exploded just minutes apart in Kandahar City on Thursday.

Three of the dead were police officers, said a Taliban spokesperson, who added the co-ordinated explosions were designed to kill as many police as possible.

The first blast on Thursday was reportedly a remote-controlled bomb that killed four private security guards.

The second blast, just 15 minutes after the first, detonated as police officers attended to the wreckage created by the first explosion, killing three officers and wounding four, Kandahar province's police chief Esmatullah Alizai told The Associated Press.

CTV's Steve Chao said journalists were also hurt in the second explosion.

"It wounded journalists, including our own local freelance camera person, who rushed to the scene to cover the event," Chao told Canada AM.

"Our own camera person was thrown several feet into the air during the second blast. He fortunately survived with minor injuries but many around him did not."

Though the speculation has not yet been confirmed, Chao said it is possible that the attacks are intended as retaliation to last weekend's killing of the Taliban's Mullah Dadullah in neighbouring Helmand province.

"Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban key strategic field commander was killed last weekend and the Taliban obviously are very upset by that, they are upset that the governor of Kandahar buried his body at an undisclosed location in the city," Chao said.

"Time and time again in recent days we heard from a Taliban spokesman demanding that the Afghan government give back the bodies to families for burial."

The Taliban had warned of "bad consequences'' if Dadullah's body wasn't handed over to his relatives.
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Opium in Afghanistan: A bad trip
By Hayder Mili and Jacob Townsend
Article Link

The opium economy in Afghanistan is a key component of the counterinsurgency campaign, yet remains one of the most difficult issues to tackle. It is a critical problem facing international efforts to create a functional government in Kabul that can prosecute counter-terrorism on its own territory.

A successful counter-narcotics intervention would have the added benefit of undermining an important terrorist funding source in arenas as diverse as Chechnya, Xinjiang and Central Asia.

While coalition and Afghan officials regularly acknowledge the power that the narco-economy has over their ambitions, it has proved exceptionally challenging to turn this into a national strategy that incorporates counter-narcotics into counterinsurgency and provides the resources for its execution. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium production had a boom year in 2006, rising to 6,100 tonnes.

This marked a 49% increase over 2005, yielding an estimated US$755 million to farmers on the basis of a slightly decreased farm-gate price of $125 per kilogram of dry opium. With the national government's revenues at less than $350 million for 2006, the opium economy is a formidable financial power base beyond the state's control. Good weather conditions are expected in 2007, suggesting another huge harvest.

Any national counter-narcotics strategy for Afghanistan must begin with a preface noting the geographical variations of the country. In 2006, the southern province of Helmand accounted for 46% of Afghanistan's opium production. To the east of Helmand, Kandahar produced 8%. In other words, the majority of Afghanistan's opium economy is built on production in two southern provinces. Of the remainder, 25% is produced in the northern belt close to the borders with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, with lighter concentrations in the eastern and western provinces.

Based on the UNODC's observations of recent opium planting, southern pre-eminence is likely to intensify further in 2007. [1] The distribution of production correlates strongly with areas of ongoing insurgency/terrorism and coalition fatalities. Using the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's divisions of Afghanistan, Regional Command South, which includes Helmand and Kandahar provinces, is where 62% of the country's opium is produced and where the coalition has suffered close to two-thirds of its combat deaths. [2] Basically, people are dying where poppies are thriving.
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Afghanistan: British fight a subtle war
By Philip Smucker
Article Link

GIRISHK, Helmand province - The Afghan elders sat cross-legged, waiting for their leaders and the British commander to speak. By mid-afternoon they had each accepted a turban from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heard an expression of remorse from the Briton for accidental casualties inflicted by coalition forces.

Britain's approach to the war in southern Afghanistan is unique. It addresses nuances of the home-grown Pashtun insurgency and values the art of persuasion over the use of bullets and bombs.

(Talking of bullets and bombs, though, senior Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah was killed in the province on Saturday in a fight against US and Afghan forces - see Dadullah's death hits Taliban hard.)

The brigadier in charge of operations in the area, John Lorimer, pleaded with the assembled elders: "We know the Taliban are still present in some villages. You must reject the Taliban and foreign fighters and persuade them to leave."

While apologizing to some 400 assembled elders for civilian deaths of Afghans (nearly two dozen) in an air strike called in by US Special Forces, Brigadier Lorimer was also quick to blame the Taliban for what he called "cowardly action against your people", adding that the insurgents "do not care if they put the lives of civilians at risk by mounting attacks from their homes and compounds".

In a subsequent interview, Lorimer characterized his enemy as "cunning and determined".

But unlike most of the Western contingents on the ground here in 2001 and 2002, the British are not in an all-out race to seek and destroy terror cells wherever they can be discovered. Nor do the British apply the metric of daily or weekly body counts to their struggle here.

So how does the British contingent of NATO judge success? "One measure is the ability and will of the Afghan people to deny the enemy, the Taliban, room to maneuver," said David Slinn, the United Kingdom's senior regional coordinator in Helmand, speaking from a lawn chair on a grassy plot in the heart of a drab desert compound lined with steel containers.

It is a slow process that relies as much on the carrot of economic development as it does on military operations. Signs of progress are few, but tangible, said Lieutenant-Colonel Charlie Mayo, the British NATO spokesman in Helmand: "In some areas we've seen the elders, having spotted the Taliban laying mines, approach them and ask them to remove these mines."

In another recent incident - possibly more significant than the former - Afghan village leaders assassinated a Taliban commander and his two bodyguards near the Sangin Valley in Helmand last week after he refused to move his guerrilla operations out of their neighborhood, according to local Afghans and Western officials.

As sure as British soldiers often gaze down their barrels - without firing a shot - leering across parched fields as their enemy strolls casually through a village, there is also an element to the British peacemaking efforts that relies on the Taliban's ability - if it is possible - to shoot itself in the foot.
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Italy to send helicopters, tanks to Afghanistan
Thursday May 17, 2007 (0616 PST)
Article Link

KABUL: Italy is for the first time to send helicopters and tanks to Afghanistan to protect its peacekeeping contingent against a growing wave of attacks by rebel groups.
Italian Defense Minister Arturo Parisi told parliament that Italy's 2,000 troops in Afghanistan would soon receive five Mangusta helicopters, eight Dardo tanks and an additional 10 Lince armored cars.

An extra 145 soldiers will also be sent to operate and maintain the new equipment, Parisi said, stressing that the reinforcements should increase the contingent's security, at least in part, by a "deterrent effect."

According to reports that two Italian soldiers were slightly injured on Monday when a device exploded on the road between Herat, where Italy has 1,150 soldiers, and the airport. Two weeks earlier two others were injured in the same way.
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First-ever govt-owned fish farm in Parwan
Wednesday May 16, 2007 (0638 PST)
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CHARIKAR: The first-ever government-owned fishery was launched in the central Parwan province. The fish farm, built in Tajikan village of the Jabal Siraj district, will start production in the coming six months, officials told Pajhwok Afghan News.
Amount for setting up of the fishery was provided by the government of France. Ahmad Zia Sharifi, representative of the French embassy in Kabul, said supply in the market would begin in the coming six months.

Director of the agriculture department Shah Mir Ameeri said dozens of private farms were present in the province, but that was the first government-owned fish farm to be set up here.

A farmer Abdul Khaliq said he also intended to set up a fish farm and start running his own business.

People hunt fish by using explosives or passing electric current through water, which kill even the new-born fish.

Agricultural officials in Parwan province said fish at the newly-opened fish farm have resistance against climate changes and can grow faster. Two weeks back, a fish farm was established with French support in Takhar province.

Sharifi said fish farms at Qargha lake with 50,000 fish and another in the central Kapisa province, had been established at the cost of $164,000 last year.
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Better border management to spur revenues, says Ahady
Wednesday May 16, 2007 (0638 PST)
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KABUL: Finance Minister Dr. Anwar Ul Haq Ahady and European Commission delegation's head Ambassador Hansj.rg Kretschmer laid the cornerstone of a new customs terminal in Sher Khan Bandar in the northern Kunduz province, bordering Tajikistan.
Lack of efficient facilities is one of our biggest problems in managing borders, controlling incoming and outgoing goods, promoting trade and generating revenues, the finance minister told a ceremony.

But we are working hard to cope with this problem by building customs facilities where we have none, and modernising those we already have, Ahady added, acknowledging the European Commission was playing an instrumental role in assisting the government of Afghanistan in the process.

One of the biggest construction efforts going on in Central Asia, the custom terminal at the Sher Khan Bandar border post is seen as a major step towards improving border facilities, regional trade and generating important revenues for the Afghan government.

It is hoped the new bridge and improved border infrastructure will lead to a substantial increase in trade with Tajikistan, with the customs terminal expected to process 1000 trucks a day. The total covered surface will exceed 5,100 square meters, including the main customs building, import warehouse and accommodation for customs officials.
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Ex-captives "rejoined fight" in Afghanistan
Thursday May 17, 2007 (0616 PST)
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KABUL: Former Guantanamo detainees have organised a jailbreak in Afghanistan, kidnapped Chinese engineers and taken leadership positions with the Taliban, the US military says.

The former detainees were released from the prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba between 2002-2004 by claiming to be innocent or low-level figures, the military said in a statement, responding to questions about ex-prisoners who had allegedly resumed fighting.

The Pentagon gave brief descriptions of six detainees, including two it said were killed in fighting in Afghanistan, which the US invaded to oust the Taliban regime following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.

The statement suggested that the six were released from Guantanamo by mistake.

"These former detainees successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years," said Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.
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[MarkOttawa]

Italy to send helicopters, tanks to Afghanistan
http://paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?178409

Actually the Dardo is an infantry fighting vehicle, not a tank:
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/dardo/

And the Lince is not an armored car:
http://www.ferreamole.it/images/vtlm/index.htm
http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=2132333&C=europe

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 18, 2007

Thousands of seized artifacts returned to Afghan museum
POSTED: 0244 GMT (1044 HKT), May 17, 2007
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- About 4,000 artifacts seized by border police in Denmark have been returned to the National Museum of Afghanistan, the Danish prime minister said Thursday during a visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The Afghan archaeological artifacts -- including coins dating to the first and second centuries B.C., and figurines of lions and horses -- were seized a few years ago by Danish border police and have been returned to the museum in Kabul, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday during a visit to Kabul.

It is the "common responsibility for the international community to protect this cultural heritage as well as we can," Rasmussen said at a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The repatriation of the artifacts comes two months after more than 1,400 of them were returned from the Afghan museum-in-exile in Switzerland to the National Museum. The items returned from Denmark include coins that illustrate Afghanistan's former position as "crossroads of the world." Some include both Greek and the Indian Kharosti language, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

During the news conference, Rasmussen presented a lion figurine to Karzai as a symbolic gesture of the hand-over and said he hoped the returned treasures would strengthen cultural ties between the two countries and their people.

The National Museum of Afghanistan, founded in 1930, was looted and deliberately vandalized under the Taliban. After restoration and reconstruction, the museum reopened to the public in October 2004.
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After years of delays Abu Hamza faces a fast-track extradition
May 18, 2007
Article Link

The process of extraditing the radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri to stand trial in the United States finally began yesterday – three years after he was arrested on an American warrant.

Abu Hamza, 48, was brought before Woolwich Crown Court after a judge rejected his latest attempts to delay the case.

Lawyers for the former imam of Finsbury Park mosque read a list of grievances ranging from complaints about strip-searching to grumbles about having to climb 40 steps to the courtroom from the cells.

But District Judge Timothy Workman said that a doctor had declared Abu Hamza fit to appear and ordered the hearing to go ahead.

The Egyptian-born preacher was arrested in May 2004 shortly after the introduction of the controversial Anglo-American treaty intended to fast-track extradition cases.

But senior law officers, including the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General, insisted that he stand trial in Britain first.

An Old Bailey jury convicted him in February last year of charges of incitement to murder and stir up race hatred.
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Cost of new tanks to be double initial estimate
Updated Fri. May. 18 2007 9:28 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff
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The government's deal to purchase 100 slightly used Leopard 2A6 battle tanks from the Netherlands will cost roughly double the estimate first presented last month.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor announced to the House of Commons Thursday that there will be a 20-year, $650-million service contract attached to the deal, raising the total cost to about $1.3 billion.

The initial capital acquisition of the tanks, to be used to bolster Canada's firepower in Afghanistan, was also about $650 million.

CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife said the higher total doesn't come as a total surprise.

"The $650 million was to purchase the tanks. Obviously in any kind of military purchases, there are servicing contracts that span the life of the vehicle or the piece of armament," Fife told CTV's Canada AM.

"In this case, there's another $650 million to be able to service and upgrade these tanks over a 20-year period."

On April 12, O'Connor announced that the military was going to borrow 20 modern Leopard 2 tanks from Germany and purchase 100 slightly used versions of the same model from the Dutch.

But O'Connor didn't mention the additional costs stemming from a support contract, only the purchase of spare parts and cost of modifications.
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US Troops In Afghanistan Frustrated, Forgotten
Soldiers: Afghanistan Is 'Forgotten War'
(May 17, 2007)
Article Link

Many feel the war in Afghanistan, where the United States-led coalition began their 'War on Terror' has long been overshadowed by the higher-profile Iraq war.

The soldiers call the mission to Afghanistan 'the forgotten war'.

"From the perspective of a US soldier here its pretty frustrating. I know a lot of soldiers have commented that this is the forgotten war," Army 1st Lt. Keith Wei told an Associated Press Television cameraman embedded with the US Army in the Zabul Mountains in southeastern Afghanistan.

The soldiers and officers also complain that fighting in Iraq and Taliban strongholds like Helmand and Kandahar provinces in Afghanistan are exhausting resources, leaving units like the one stationed in Zabul with little support and resources.
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Foreign troops would leave Afghanistan when al Qaeda is wiped out: Karzai
Islamabad, May 17
Article Link

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that foreign troops would not leave Afghanistan till al Qaeda remains active in the country.

"Foreign troops would not leave till Al Qaeda, which is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is wiped out, and this may take two or three years or more," Karzai said in an interview to Pakistan Television.

"Foreign troops would leave Afghanistan when the country becomes stable and has functioning institutions like the army and police. We do not want the foreign troops to stay here forever. The foreign troops themselves are not happy to stay here; they want to leave, but we are keeping them here. Their presence is bringing foreign investment in the country and infrastructure development activity," Karzai added.

Karzai said Afghanistan was a sovereign country and had a right to develop relations with any country, adding that Kabul's relations with New Delhi would not harm Pak-Afghan relations at any point of time.

He further said nearly five million Afghan refugees had returned to their homeland from Pakistan and Iran, but many still had to return.
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Danish premier visits troops in Afghanistan
Article Link

Copenhagen (dpa) - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday visited the Danish contingent based in southern Afghanistan during his second day in the country, Danish media reported.

In remarks to Danish troops at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, Rasmussen touched on the recent death of a Danish soldier injured in a firefight at the end of April.

The soldier was the fourth Danish soldier to have been killed in Afghanistan and in his remarks the premier said that while tragic, the deaths had some meaning, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.

Rasmussen highlighted elections held since the Taliban were driven from power and that "women have been given rights and opportunities that they did not have before."

The Danish premier Thursday visited a Danish-funded school for girls and said that the visit "convinced" him that Denmark's involvement was worthwhile.

Rasmussen was due later Friday to fly to Jordan where he would attend a conference Saturday in the capital Amman.
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[The Bread Guy]

‘Spy hid Dadullah’s fake leg during Nato raid’
Gulf Times (QAT), 18 May 07
Article link

The Taliban have arrested an aide to Mullah Dadullah who allegedly not only provided information to US forces that led to the militant commander’s death in Afghanistan but also hid his artificial leg as troops closed in, a Pakistani newspaper said yesterday.  “We have captured Din Mohamed, an American spy who played a key role in trapping Mullah Dadullah,” an unnamed Taliban commander told Pakistan’s The News in a telephone interview.  The Taliban’s chief military strategist died Friday in a US-led operation with about 10 of his men in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand.  The Taliban commander claimed that Mohammed, a trusted friend of Dadullah, had confessed that he had spied for the Americans.  He had several meetings with American army officials at their military air base in Kandahar, where he was assigned the task of trapping Dadullah,” the commander said .... “When American and Afghan army forces attacked the house, Dadullah was searching for his leg while his men started fighting,” the Taliban commander told the newspaper.  According to conflicting versions, Dadullah lost his leg either after stepping on a mine near the western Afghan city of Herat in the mid-1990s or while fighting in Kabul around the same time.  Mohamed spent the night in a wheat field near Brahmcha after Dadullah died of bullet wounds to the head and chest, the Taliban commander said.  When the fighting ended, Taliban members moved his body to another place and were preparing to bury him when US helicopters mounted an airstrike on the area, allegedly also acting on a tip-off by Mohamed. They later removed the body, he said ....

 

[GAP]

Articles found May 19, 2007

Afghanistan suicide attacker kills eight
Updated Sat. May. 19 2007 9:30 AM ET Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide attacker detonated himself next to German soldiers shopping in a crowded market in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing eight people and wounding 16, officials said.

Three Germans were killed and two wounded in the attack, said Gen. Noor Mohammad Omarkhail, the deputy provincial police chief. Five civilians were killed and 13 wounded, including seven seriously, said Azizullah Safer, the director of the provincial health department. One translator working for the Germans was also wounded.

A statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed that three ISAF soldiers were killed and two wounded in the attack.

The provincial police chief, Gen. Ayub Salangi, said two German vehicles on a security patrol drove into the market area, where soldiers got out on foot to do some shopping.

"They were on a patrol, but they had gotten out of their vehicles with their translator to buy something in the market when the attack happened," he said.

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung broke off a private trip to Denmark to return to Berlin when he heard the news, spokesman Thomas Raabe said. Raabe refused to give details of the casualties.

"It was with great dismay and shock that I heard of the cowardly attacks on our German soldiers and the Afghan civilians, by which several German soldiers lost their lives and others were seriously injured," Jung said in a statement Raabe read.

Germany's 3,000 troops here are responsible for northern Afghanistan, which sees relatively few attacks and is considered a much safer region than southern or eastern Afghanistan, where most of the country's fighting takes place.
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Troops Detain Three Suspects in Afghanistan
American Forces Press Service
Article Link

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2007 – Afghan and coalition forces captured three suspected insurgents during raids in Afghanistan in the past two days.
In an operation this morning against Taliban fighters in the Kajaki district of Helmand province, Afghan and coalition forces detained two militants.

Credible intelligence had led the Afghan and coalition forces to the compound where the Taliban militants allegedly resided. Militants fired on the combined forces as they approached a building. Coalition forces responded with small-arms fire and followed up with an air strike that destroyed the militants’ firing position.

The suspects are being held for questioning.

“A precision strike was conducted when it was obvious the militants were well-armed and had no intentions of surrendering,” said Army Maj. Chris Belcher, Combined Joint Task Force 82 spokesman.

Afghan and coalition forces detained another suspected militant during a raid in the Mandozai district of Khowst province yesterday. No shots were fired, and no one was injured in the operation.

Village elders provided information that led coalition forces directly to the man who is suspected of helping and training suicide bombers for extremist Siraj Haqqani, military officials said.
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U.S. thanks Canada for its efforts in Afghanistan
By CHRIS MORRIS The Canadian Press
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OROMOCTO, N.B. — The U.S. ambassador to Canada concluded a two-day visit to New Brunswick on Friday by thanking students in this small military town for Canada’s sacrifices in Afghanistan and its commitment to fighting the war on terror.

David Wilkins described Oromocto, N.B., as a "hometown of heroes" when he spoke at the local high school and neighbouring Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, where people are still grieving the loss of eight soldiers killed last month west of Kandahar City.

In an address to about 1,000 students, Wilkins said the soldiers who were killed — six on Easter Sunday and two more a few days later — gave their lives "carrying liberty’s light" to a faraway land.

"They died the way I imagine they lived — boldly and unafraid, knowing their cause was a just and worthy of sacrifice," Wilkins told the students in a hushed auditorium.

"There is a lot of discussion about Canada’s role in Afghanistan and about my country’s role in Iraq, but I believe history will note that we made the right decision at the right time. We didn’t run away when it was hard and when it was dangerous."

Six soldiers, all members of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, based at CFB Gagetown, were killed April 8 when the light-armoured vehicle in which they were travelling struck a roadside bomb.
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Denmark says troops to remain in Afghanistan
May 19, 2007         
Article Link

The Danish prime minister promised that Danish forces will remain in Afghanistan until the country was free of Taliban insurgents, according to reports reaching here from Copenhagen on Friday.

Denmark will not leave Afghanistan in the lurch, said Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen during a visit to that country, the Copenhagen Post reported.

He ensured the country that in addition to leaving troops in Afghanistan until the country is secure, Denmark will also continue to focus on humanitarian projects.

Rasmussen met with Afghan president Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Thursday to address the country's eroding security situation.

"Outside forces will be required in Afghanistan over what I would call an open time period," Rasmussen told Denmark's Jyllands- Posten newspaper.

Rasmussen said bringing security to Helmand province, where Danish forces are staying, and stopping the harvesting of opium there were keys to the Danish military's assignment.

"In order to solve the opium problems and other issues, it is necessary that we secure full military control of Helmand province. Unfortunately, there are still parts of the region outside of that control," the prime minister said.
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[The Bread Guy]

A Soviet in Afghanistan
Common mission: Does a Victoria man's experience as a teen soldier under a different flag have lessons for Canada?
Jack Knox, Times Colonist, 20 May 07
Article link

He was an ordinary 18-year-old from an ordinary family when he marched off to war in Afghanistan.  He did so with the assurance that not only was he protecting his own country's security, but was bringing peace and happiness to an oppressed people, too.  "On my first mission, we had to secure an escape route for refugees who were fleeing the area under attack by the resistance, so my initial impression was that we were, indeed, protecting peaceful Afghans from 'Islamic extremists.'"  But by the time Nikolai Lanine and the rest of the Soviet army pulled out of Afghanistan 16 months later, his faith was shaken, his feelings conflicted.  And now the Victoria man hears the echoes of his Afghan experience in his new country, Canada.  There are the same simplistic assessments of a complicated war, the same assumption that foreigners can "fix" Afghanistan, the same media focus on "our" soldiers, with the Afghans reduced to bit players in their own tragedy. And there is the same fear that military action will backfire, fuelling, not extinguishing, the spread of terrorism and violence ....



Silence surrounds fate of Canadian detainee in Afghanistan
Joel Kom and Deborah Tetley, CanWest News Service, 19 May 07
Article link

Members of Calgary's Muslim community are questioning Ottawa's silence surrounding the case of a Canadian man being held in Afghanistan.  It was a little more than a week ago that Sohail Qureshi, a 24-year-old University of Calgary computer science grad, stepped off a bus in Kabul and, within hours, became the first Canadian in almost five years to be detained for alleged ties to the insurgency in Afghanistan.  Since then, diplomats and Canadian politicians - amid charges of detainees being mistreated after Canadian Forces handed them over to Afghan authorities - have said very little about the case.  Qureshi has not been charged with any crime.  "He's sitting in a jail and he hasn't been charged," said Nagah Hage, of the Muslim Council of Calgary. "Put pressure on the Afghan government to release him to the Canadian government. Let him come back home."  Hage said his community was stunned by the arrest, but many are still waiting for more details. Qureshi's family are strong community members, he said.  "He's one of ours, he's a Canadian," he said. "Unless he's charged, he's got no business sitting in a cell."  Qureshi's fate could take  months, even years, to be determined, say experts ....



Warlord who came in from the cold
Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, 19 May 07
Article link

Let us now praise famous warlords.  Or perhaps just the one, faintly.  Ismail Khan is tiny and cherubic, with a beneficently smiling face, but eyes that are hard and probing. Dressed, as always, in crisp white shirtwaist, his small hands clasp the rounded belly that swells beneath a luxuriantly flowing Santa Claus beard.  The emir – as he prefers to be called – exudes fatherliness, kindly and stern.  Outside his Kabul office, supplicants sip sweet tea, awaiting their turn to present petitions.  This is how business is done in Afghanistan, with legitimacy accruing to those who have fought for their fiefdoms, because the country has known little other than war and warlords.  The Star is ushered into Khan's presence.  He shakes the female reporter's hand.  In the province of Herat, where he once was all but king, Khan was an intransigently conservative ruler, as strictly religious as the Taliban. Even mannequins in shop windows had to have their faces covered. Yet now he touches his visitor's fingers without flinching.  Khan has been marginalized, forced to dismantle his personal militia, lured to the capital – in an agreement orchestrated by U.S. diplomats – as water and power minister in Hamid Karzai's government ....



New push for talks with Taliban
Afghan leaders say it's path to peace
Kim Barker, Chicago Tribune, 20 May 07
Article link

A year ago, Mohammad Tariq and nine of his friends drove from Pakistan to Afghanistan and joined the jihad.  The young Taliban recruits met with local commanders in southern Helmand province, the heart of the Taliban-led insurgency against the U.S.-backed government. There, the men learned their fate.  "The leaders told us we would be suicide bombers," said Tariq, now 21. "I thought about it. Then I thought, 'Why should I kill myself for you?'"  Five men stayed. But within days, Tariq and four friends gave up their dreams of holy war and drove back to Pakistan. And last month, Tariq, a one-time Taliban foot soldier and former Afghan refugee, decided to join the government he once opposed. He sat in a room in Kabul with 40 other former insurgents and swore allegiance to the fledgling Afghan government, joining about 3,700 one-time insurgents who have signed up with the Afghan reconciliation program since it started two years ago.  Now, some government officials want to broaden this program and negotiate directly with the Taliban, which is mounting its most serious challenge since being forced out of power in late 2001. The idea of negotiation is also gaining more support among Afghans, frustrated with the continued fighting and with international troops, increasingly accused of causing large numbers of civilian casualties ....



Pakistan: Local Taliban Commander Arrested
Locals hope the arrest will help check the Taliban's growing influence
Irfan Ashraf, via OhMyNews, 20 May 07
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Taliban commander in Pakistan Qari Sarfaraz Afghanis has been arrested in the Sara-i-Norang area of Lucky Marwat district, which is in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).  Qari Sarfaraz was arrested by local police at a Minchi Wala check post on Sunday as he was moving in public transport toward the Lucky Marwat bazaar.  Police sources say they were informed earlier that the Taliban commander was traveling by local commuter service to take part in some important activity at the bazaar. A heavy contingent of policemen took up positions along the check post and arrested the dreaded commander without any resistance.  Sources say Qari Sarfaraz was wanted by the local police in a number of cases. The night before he was arrested, he was involved in an attempted kidnapping of police officials; however, the attempt was foiled. Qari Sarfaraz also faces charges for killing a number of people in the southern districts of NWFP.  Qari Sarfaraz played a vital role in the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. He later moved his activities to the southern districts of NWFP, including Tank, Bannu, Lucky Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan, and the restive tribal areas of South and North Waziristan ....



Taliban leader says he is loyal to Pakistan
Anwarullah Khan, Dawn (PAK), 17 May 07
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Chief of the local Taliban Maulana Faqir Mohammad on Thursday announced his allegiance to the government of Pakistan before a tribal jirga and promised to cooperate with the tribal administration in restoring peace in the Bajaur tribal agency.  Head of the Mamond tribal coordination jirga, Malik Abdul Aziz, told a press conference that they met Maulana Faqir, a leader of the banned Tehrik-i-Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM), and held detailed discussions with him regarding the security situation in the agency and the charges against him of being involved in anti-state activities.  Maulana Faqir had twice escaped bombardment in Bajaur in January and October 2006. This was the first direct contact between local Taliban and tribesmen here after the signing of a peace deal between the government and tribesmen in March last.  “Maulana Faqir dispelled the impression that he is against the Pakistani government and reiterated that he is a patriotic citizen and had rendered valuable sacrifices for the defence and safety of the country in the past,” Malik Aziz said ....



German Forces Will Stay in Afghanistan, Top Politicians Say
Deutsche Welle, 20 May 07
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The German military will not turn its back on Afghanistan despite suffering its worst casualties for four years in a suicide bombing, politicians from the governing coalition said on Sunday.  Three German soldiers and six Afghans were killed on Saturday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded market in the northern city of Kunduz on Saturday.  The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which was the worst on the 3,000 German troops serving in Afghanistan since four were killed in a suicide car bombing in Kabul in 2003.  Members of both sides of the right-left coalition in power in Berlin said Germany's commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan would not be shaken by the attack.  Karl Theodor Guttenberg, a foreign policy specialist from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, said: "It would be absurd to withdraw and it would only worsen the terrorist threat. It would also increase the demands from terrorists towards the international community and us." ....

 

[MarkOttawa]

Bush, NATO Chief Seek Ways To Bolster Afghanistan Mission
Washington Post, May 20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051900963.html

NATO's top official is scheduled to arrive here Sunday for talks with President Bush amid growing anger in Afghanistan about civilian casualties from the alliance's war there and continued reluctance among many NATO members to increase their commitment to the six-year-old conflict.

Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Bush are to meet Sunday and Monday at the president's ranch in hopes of solidifying NATO's efforts in Afghanistan. Some experts worry that the international effort is fraying as the violence in Afghanistan has intensified in the past year, exposing fissures between alliance members.

The 26 NATO member nations have assumed vastly different levels of risk in the Afghanistan mission. Countries including Germany, Italy and Spain have largely had their troops deployed in nonviolent areas of Afghanistan, leaving the volatile south to allies including Americans, Canadians, British and the Dutch.

"This mission, which was supposed to be where the alliance regained its solidarity, is not turning out that way," said Thomas Donnelly, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute...

Meanwhile, administration officials and outside experts worry that what can be described as the Taliban's command-and-control operation has reconstituted itself in the largely ungoverned border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Concerned that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating, Bush in recent months has ordered additional troops and proposed stepped-up reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, an effort that has been backed by Britain. Germany, meanwhile, has sent additional helicopters and other equipment...

"There is a deep reluctance among European people to get more involved in this war," said Bruce Riedel, a former special adviser to NATO and Brookings Institution scholar. "The U.S.-European relationship has been poisoned by the war in Iraq."

There are approximately 37,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, including about 15,000 U.S. soldiers, and another 12,000 U.S. troops operate there under U.S. command...

Influx of Al Qaeda, money into Pakistan is seen
U.S. officials say the terrorist network's command base is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq.
LA Times, May 20
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-binladen20may20,0,5046563.story?coll=la-home-center

A major CIA effort launched last year to hunt down Osama bin Laden has produced no significant leads on his whereabouts, but has helped track an alarming increase in the movement of Al Qaeda operatives and money into Pakistan's tribal territories, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the operation.

In one of the most troubling trends, U.S. officials said that Al Qaeda's command base in Pakistan is increasingly being funded by cash coming out of Iraq, where the terrorist network's operatives are raising substantial sums from donations to the anti-American insurgency as well as kidnappings of wealthy Iraqis and other criminal activity.

The influx of money has bolstered Al Qaeda's leadership ranks at a time when the core command is regrouping and reasserting influence over its far-flung network. The trend also signals a reversal in the traditional flow of Al Qaeda funds, with the network's leadership surviving to a large extent on money coming in from its most profitable franchise, rather than distributing funds from headquarters to distant cells.

Al Qaeda's efforts were aided, intelligence officials said, by Pakistan's withdrawal in September of tens of thousands of troops from the tribal areas along the Afghanistan border where Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, are believed to be hiding.

Little more than a year ago, Al Qaeda's core command was thought to be in a financial crunch. But U.S. officials said cash shipped from Iraq has eased those troubles.

"Iraq is a big moneymaker for them," said a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official...

As part of a so-called surge in personnel, the CIA deployed as many as 50 clandestine operatives to Pakistan and Afghanistan — a dramatic increase over the number of CIA case officers permanently stationed in those countries. All of the new arrivals were given the primary objective of finding what counter-terrorism officials call "HVT1" and "HVT2." Those "high value target" designations refer to Bin Laden and Zawahiri.

The surge was part of a broader shake-up at the CIA designed to refocus on the hunt for Bin Laden, officials said. One former high-ranking agency official said the CIA had formed a task force that involved officials from all four directorates at the agency, including analysts, scientists and technical experts, as well as covert operators...

The former official added that the resurgent Taliban forces in Afghanistan are "being schooled" by Al Qaeda operatives with experience fighting U.S. forces in Iraq [emphasis added].

The administration's concern was underscored when Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy CIA Director Stephen Kappes visited Musharraf in Pakistan in February to prod him to crack down on Al Qaeda and its training camps...

Mark
Ottawa