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News archives for the week ending 1st October 2010

Georgians die in Afghanistan

NATO remains committed to admitting Georgia to its ranks, the head of the alliance said Friday, as the pro-Western former Soviet country suffered its greatest losses yet in Afghanistan.

Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia in August 2008, has deployed around 1000 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of President Mikheil Saakashvili's push to join NATO. Four died in combat operations on Thursday.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said "Georgian soldiers are serving in Helmand province—one of the most difficult areas in our mission in Afghanistan. I highly appreciate your dedication to our common security, which is a testimony of strong partnership between Georgia and NATO."

Wall Street Journal, 1/10/10

NATO attacks add to instability in Pakistan...

CIA Director Leon Panetta met in Islamabad with Pakistan's intelligence chief Wednesday amid a month-long escalation in U.S. air attacks against insurgent strongholds and new reports of Pakistan-based terror plots against the West.

The attacks have added to political tension in Pakistan, where the fragile civilian government is staggering under domestic criticism of its response to floods that have left millions homeless and threats by the Supreme Court to reopen corruption cases against high-level officials.

The Obama administration views stability in Pakistan as key to its success in Afghanistan and has provided a multibillion-dollar aid package to help the elected government, along with training, equipment and other assistance to the Pakistani military.

The dilemma for U.S. policymakers is that their hopes of gaining political traction in Pakistan, and increased Pakistani military cooperation against insurgents, are undercut by the highly unpopular air attacks inside Pakistani territory.

U.S. officials privately described such attacks as self-defense operations that are authorized under a private understanding with the Pakistani government.

But Pakistani officials have publicly insisted that they violate bilateral agreements and the international force mandate in Afghanistan.

Washington Post, 30/9/10

...as US helicopter kills 3 border guards...

The Pentagon says a U.S. helicopter based in Afghanistan fired in self-defense during an incident that apparently caused the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers at a border post, and led Pakistan to close a key supply route.

The Pakistani Army says two helicopters crossed the border and fired on a Frontier Corps outpost 200 meters inside its territory. The statement says the helicopters shot at the troops first, and that they responded with rifle fire to indicate that NATO forces had entered Pakistani airspace. Pakistan says the helicopters fired two missiles, destroying the border post, killing three soldiers and wounding three others.

At the Pentagon, a senior spokesman, U.S. Marine Corps Colonel David Lapan, says the Pakistanis fired first and that the response should not be surprising.

"Even the statement that the Pakistanis put out indicated that their forces used rifle fire at the helicopters as a warning. And, well, if you fire at a helicopter in a combat zone, they'll usually take that as hostile and return fire," he said.

The NATO command in Kabul expressed condolences for the deaths of the Pakistani troops.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is preventing NATO-contracted trucks from crossing into Afghanistan at the Torkham border post in the Khyber Pass. The crossing is an important part of the complex U.S. and NATO effort to keep their troops in Afghanistan supplied.

Voice of America, 30/9/10

...and dozens of NATO fuel tankers are torched

Armed men torched dozens of NATO fuel tankers in southern Pakistan Friday, police said, as supply convoys remained blocked at a vital entry point to Afghanistan for a second consecutive day.

Police in the town of Shikarpur said 10 "extremists" shot and set fire to at least 30 NATO trucks stopped at a filling station, destroying the vehicles but injuring no one. Much of the fuel and other supplies bound for coalition forces in Afghanistan arrive at the southern port of Karachi, then are trucked north toward border points at Torkham or Chaman.

The Torkham pass, in the northwest, remained closed to NATO trucks Friday, one day after Pakistan blocked their passage in apparent retaliation for recent U.S. air incursions into Pakistan, including an airstrike on Thursday that allegedly killed three Pakistani soldiers.

Washington Post, 1/10/10

Political vacuum in Iraq is fuelling violence

The top U.S. commander for Baghdad warned Wednesday that Iraq's prolonged political crisis has encouraged militants to step up attacks and left civilians so frustrated they could be holding back crucial tips on suspected insurgent cells.

The assessment by U.S. Brig. Gen. Rob Baker is the most direct link by American military brass between Iraq's nearly seven-month impasse on forming a government and a recent spike in violence that has included rocket strikes blamed on Shiite militias and targeted killings by suspected Sunni hit squads against security officials and government workers.

Baker's comments also boost U.S. pressure on Iraqi political leaders to finally pull together after March elections, which were narrowly won by a Sunni-backed coalition but without enough parliament seats to push aside the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — who seeks to hold on to power.

Vice President Joe Biden called the Sunni bloc leader, Ayad Allawi, on Tuesday to urge a compromise that would satisfy all Iraq's rival groups. A day earlier, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told The Associated Press that Washington needs to take a more active role in breaking the deadlock.

Associated Press, 29/9/10

British were defeated in Iraq

The British army suffered defeat in Iraq when it pulled out of Basra, a senior American general has argued. UK forces left the city in 2007, leaving the people to be "terrorised", key White House adviser Gen Jack Keane told the BBC.

The former UK commander in southern Iraq said his actions were constrained by political considerations. "I think it was a huge mistake to pull out of Basra and to go out to the airfield and to leave the people of Basra to be subjected to the Iranian surrogates who brutalised them, intimidated them, terrorised them," Gen Keane told the BBC Two series Secret Iraq.

Another US officer who worked directly for the US commander in Iraq at the time also described Britain's withdrawal as a defeat. "I don't know that you could see the British withdrawal from Basra in 2007 in any light other than a defeat," says Col Peter Mansoor, who was executive officer to Gen David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the withdrawal at the time as "a pre-planned and organised move"

BBC News, 29/9/10

Government to make it easier for war criminals to visit UK

The British government says it plans to introduce legislation to change the process for getting an arrest warrant for suspected war criminals. The change is an attempt to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment last year when an Israeli official abandoned a visit to Britain after a warrant was issued for her arrest.

Last December former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni abruptly cancelled a visit to London when she learned she could be arrested for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Then British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was outraged and promised a change to the law. Now the government here wants the public prosecutor to have veto power over arrest warrants for war crimes and similar offenses.

Voice of America, 28/9/10

Karzai in tears over NATO mission

President Hamid Karzai broke into tears Tuesday while delivering a speech in which he questioned the efficacy of the NATO military mission in Afghanistan and condemning an epidemic of violence gripping his country.

In the same speech, the Afghan leader called on Taliban "compatriots" to lay down their arms. The government Tuesday named a nearly 70-member council to make peace overtures to the insurgency, whose leaders have rebuffed Karzai's appeals to come to the bargaining table.

President Karzai became emotional during an address at an event in Kabul focused on improving literacy. Dwelling on Afghanistan's more than 30 years of warfare, he recalled the Soviet era, alluded to meddling by Afghanistan's neighbors and then added, "NATO is here, fighting against terrorism for 10 years, fighting with no result."

The president's eyes welled and his voice cracked when he expressed fears that young Afghans might choose to emigrate rather than live amid spiraling violence.

Los Angeles Times, 29/9/10

Pakistan warns US on cross border incursions...

Pakistan has told NATO leaders it will stop protecting U.S. and NATO supply lines to Afghanistan if foreign aircraft stage further cross-border attacks against fleeing militants, security officials said Tuesday.

If carried out, such a threat would have major consequences on the war in Afghanistan as well as on Pakistan's relationship with the United States, which is vitally important for both nations.

Analysts said there was little or no chance of Islamabad carrying though with it, however. The threat was therefore seen as mostly aimed at tamping down criticism inside Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment runs high and where conspiracy theories that the U.S. army is poised to invade the nation from bases in Afghanistan are rampant.

But it was also a clear sign of Pakistani unease at the attacks on Saturday and Monday by NATO aircraft against militants in its northwest tribal areas and a reminder of the leverage the country has in its complicated alliance with Washington.

Associated Press, 28/9/10

...as US steps up drone attacks

The U.S. has stepped up drone strikes and other military operations inside Pakistan after concluding that Islamabad does not intend to crack down against Afghan insurgents along its border, U.S. officials said.

There have been more than 20 strikes by CIA-operated drones since Sept. 1, counterterrorism officials said, the highest monthly total in the nearly 10 years since the U.S. began carrying out such attacks.

Los Angeles Times, 28/9/10

Top senator calls for more US involvement in Mexico

Senator Richard Lugar, the influential top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on Obama to consider using the U.S. military and intelligence community to provide more surveillance assets to help interdict drugs and weapons crossing the border to and from Mexico.

"Transnational drug trafficking organizations operating from Mexico represent the most immediate national security threat faced by the United States in the Western Hemisphere," he said in prepared remarks for a Mexican prosecutors conference on Sunday.

"The United States should undertake a broad review of further steps the U.S. military and the intelligence community could take to help combat the Mexican cartels in association with the Mexican government," Lugar said, suggesting aviation, surveillance and other intelligence assets.

Reuters, 26/9/10

US begins attack on Kandahar

American and Afghan troops began active combat last week in an offensive to drive the Taliban out of their strongholds surrounding the city of Kandahar, military officials said Sunday.

In the last several days, soldiers shifted from guarding aid workers and sipping tea with village elders to actively hunting down Taliban fighters in marijuana fields and pomegranate orchards laced with booby traps.

Sixteen Americans have died in the push so far, including two killed by a roadside bomb on Sunday.

New York Times, 26/9/10

Pentagon buys and burns all copies of an Afghanistan memoir

The U.S. Department of Defense bought and destroyed about 9,500 copies of Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's new memoir "Operation Dark Heart" last Monday because the book apparently contained classified information.

"The whole premise smacks of retaliation," Shaffer told CNN after being notified of what the Pentagon did. "Someone buying 10,000 books to suppress a story in this digital age is ludicrous."

Shaffer claims that the book's contents were approved by his superiors from the Army Reserve Command but the Pentagon argues that he should have also cleared it with the larger Army and Department of Defense.

The memoir deals with Shaffer's time in Afghanistan while in charge of a black-ops team during the Bush administration.

Toronto Sun, 27/9/10

US asks Bangladesh to send troops to Afghanistan

The USA yesterday requested Bangladesh to send combat troops to Afghanistan to ensure security and stability in the war-ravaged country, reports BBC Bangla Service.

US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke made the plea before Foreign Minister Dipu Moni at a meeting in New York.

Dipu Moni assured the US envoy of further talks on the issue.

Diplomatic analysts in Dhaka, however, say it is risky to send troops to Afghanistan right now and the decision of sending troops should be made after consulting the United Nations and other Muslim-dominated countries.

Daily Star, Bangladesh, 27/9/10

NATO helicopters kill 49 in Pakistan

NATO helicopters crossed into Pakistani airspace from Afghanistan in pursuit of insurgents over the weekend, killing 49 people, a spokesman told CNN Monday.

Crossing the border did not violate the International Security Assistance Force rules of engagement, Maj. Michael Johnson said.

Pakistan is very sensitive about United States-led military operations on its territory. Johnson, the ISAF spokesman, could not say how often NATO forces crossed into Pakistani airspace - but said it had happened again Monday morning.

CNN, 27/9/10

US to play strong role in South China Sea

President Barack Obama made clear Friday the U.S. has an "enormous stake" in the South China Sea and intends to play a strong role in the region, a position likely to irk China.

Tensions have mounted recently in part from an increased U.S. presence in the region as a potential counterweight to China, and, more immediately, following Japan's detention of a Chinese trawler captain that Japan said had ventured into Japan's territorial waters. On Friday, Japan released the trawler captain, who had been held by Japanese authorities since early September.

While the release of the Chinese trawler captain was expected to improve matters somewhat, others issues involving China's expanding influence in the region, and the potential re-emergence of the U.S. there, should keep the region in the geopolitical spotlight

In July, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Beijing by saying that the peaceful resolution of disputes over some islands in the South China Sea was a matter of U.S. national interest.

Other nations, such as the Philippines, appear to welcome a stronger U.S. role. U.S. exports to Asean countries will reach $68 billion this year, supporting about 450,000 American jobs, up from $53.8 billion in exports last year, according to a briefing of the meeting.

About 44,000 university students from Asean countries study in the U.S., the fourth-largest source of university students in the U.S., according to the briefing, and nearly 3,400 American university students study in the region.

Asean comprises Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam.

Wall Street Journal, 25/9/10

Key Iraqi bloc won't participate in a government led by current PM

The head of Iraq's largest political coalition has once again ruled out participating in any new government headed by Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister.

Iyad Allawi, the leader of the Iraqiya bloc, repeated a threat he has made several times in the past, saying in a statement on Friday night that an al-Maliki-led government is something which "cannot be repeated".

Iraqiya won 91 out of 325 seats in Iraq's parliamentary election in March, the largest share for any bloc. But it has struggled to form a governing coalition, in part because al-Maliki's State of Law bloc has allied itself with the Iraqi National Alliance, a predominantly Shia coalition.

Those two formed a bloc called the National Alliance. But the coalition's leadership is also divided on whether al-Maliki should receive a second term as prime minister.

Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a current vice president, has been suggested as a compromise candidate. The National Alliance said on Tuesday that it would decide within five days who it would nominate as prime minister.

AlJazeera, 25/9/10

Widespread Fraud Seen in Latest Afghan Elections

Evidence is mounting that fraud in last weekend’s parliamentary election was so widespread that it could affect the results in a third of provinces, calling into question the credibility of a vote that was an important test of the American and Afghan effort to build a stable and legitimate government.

The complaints to provincial election commissions have so far included video clips showing ballot stuffing; the strong-arming of election officials by candidates’ agents; and even the handcuffing and detention of election workers.

In some places, election officials themselves are alleged to have carried out the fraud; in others, government employees did, witnesses said. One video showed election officials and a candidate’s representatives haggling over the price of votes.

In the important southern province of Kandahar, where election officials threw out 76 percent of the ballots in last year’s badly tainted presidential election, candidates accused the president’s influential half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, of drawing up a list of winners even before the Sept. 18 election for Parliament was carried out.

“From an overall democracy-building perspective it does not look rosy,” said one diplomat who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

The widespread tampering and bare-knuckle tactics of some candidates raised serious questions about the effort to build a credible government that can draw the support of Afghans and the Obama administration and its NATO partners as they re-evaluate their commitment to the war.

American and international diplomats kept their distance from the tide of candidate complaints this week, and NATO and American Embassy officials said little other than that the election was an Afghan process and that it was the Afghans who were responsible for its outcome.

But a less than credible parliamentary election, following last year’s tarnished presidential vote, would place international forces in the increasingly awkward position of defending a government of waning legitimacy, and diplomats acknowledged that it could undermine efforts to persuade countries to maintain their financing and troop levels.

Washington Post, 25/9/10

Suspected US drone attack kills four in Pakistan

At least four militants have been killed in a suspected US drone strike in north-western Pakistan, officials said.

The missiles are said to have struck near Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal district. They were targeting a vehicle carrying militants, officials said.

In the last three weeks, US drone strikes have killed about 100 suspected militants in Pakistan's tribal belt close to the Afghan border.

The US military routinely does not confirm drone operations, but analysts say it has the only force capable of deploying such aircraft in the region.

BBC News 25/9/10

U.N. speakers urge Pakistan to free up arms talks

Heaping pressure on Pakistan, a high-level U.N. meeting called on Friday for talks to start immediately on a treaty to ban production of fissile material used as fuel for nuclear weapons.

But Pakistan has insisted it will continue to block such talks, arguing that a ban would put it at a permanent disadvantage to its nuclear rival India.

The dispute has led to deadlock at the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva. At Friday's U.N. meeting, Western powers sharply attacked Pakistan's blockage of the CD, which requires consensus for its actions.

Launched in 1978, the CD has clinched treaties banning biological and chemical weapons as well as underground nuclear tests. Its members include all five official nuclear powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. But it has been unable to reach consensus on substantive work for the past 12 years.

Pakistan's refusal since January to launch negotiations on fissile material like plutonium and highly enriched uranium is the latest obstacle.

Zamir Akram, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said earlier this month his country would continue to hold out, arguing that India has an unfair advantage with bigger fissile material stockpiles and "discriminatory" nuclear cooperation deals with the United States.

Reuters 24/9/10