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News archives for the week ending 5th September 2008

American attack inside Pakistan is only the beginning

Helicopter-borne American Special Operations forces attacked Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan early Wednesday in the first publicly acknowledged case of United States forces conducting a ground raid on Pakistani soil, American officials said.

The commando raid by the American forces signaled what top American officials said could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been advocating for months within President Bush’s war council.

It also seemed likely to complicate relations with Pakistan, where the already unstable political situation worsened after the resignation last month of President Pervez Musharraf, a longtime American ally.

While most American troops in Afghanistan operate under a NATO chain of command, the Special Operations forces who carried out this attack answer only to American commanders.

New York Times, 3/9/08

US kills six Iraqi security personnel

Iraqi officials say U.S. forces Wednesday killed six Iraqi security personnel in what the U.S. describes as a case of "mistaken fire". Authorities say the shooting involved Iraqi police and military personnel in the town of Tarmiyah north of Baghdad.

U.S. officials released a statement saying the incident is "regrettable" and is being reviewed.

Voice of America, 3/9/08

UK censors story about 'politically expedient' timing of Afghan operation

British commanders knew that carrying a delicate, multimillion-dollar cargo of machinery along 47 miles of road to the power plant at Kajaki would be beset with obstacles.

Yet they also understood that the plan was fraught with political and military problems at the highest levels. The knowledge left many Nato commanders wondering whether the lives of their men were being risked for the sake of little more than American political expediency.

From the very start, commanders on the ground were concerned about the timing of the operation. Late August marks the culmination of Afghanistan’s fighting season, a period when the maximum number of insurgents are guaranteed to be in Helmand province. Speaking to The Times in Kabul in July, officials involved in planning the operation said that British commanders preferred instead to wait until next spring’s poppy harvest, a guaranteed point of low ebb in the Taleban’s activities, to launch the convoy.

In spite of these misgivings, Nato came under pressure from Washington to secure visible progress in the Kajaki hydroelectric project to safeguard future funding lines before the US presidential elections.

When The Times tried to publish a story earlier in the year reporting these concerns among US and other Nato officials, the article was blocked by a Ministry of Defence D notice, on the ground that it would endanger forthcoming operations.

The Times, 3/9/08

NATO troops kill 20 in Pakistan

A Pakistan provincial governor Wednesday confirmed coalition troops from across the Afghan border had raided a Pakistani village, calling the incident "a direct assault" on sovereignty. The raid killed at least 20 people, North West Frontier Province governor Owais Ahmed Ghani said in a statement.

"Innocent citizens of Pakistan including women and children were martyred," he said. "This is a direct assault on the sovereignty of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan expect that the armed forces of Pakistan would rise to defend the sovereignty of the country and give a befitting reply to all such attacks."

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said that it was unaware of any such incident.

AFP, 3/9/08

Palin has Israeli flag in office

An online video interview with Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin that is currently making the rounds appears to put to rest liberal rumors that she is no friend of Israel. In the interview with Alaska HDTV, an Israeli flag is clearly seen hanging near the window of Palin's office, and the governor even appears to be wearing an Israeli flag lapel pin.

Israel National News blogger Tamar Yonah points out that these appearances by the Israeli flag are made more significant by the fact that the video "was not made by a Jewish organization, nor is [Palin] speaking before a Jewish audience or catering to any Jewish vote."

Hawaii's Jewish governor, Linda Lingle, said in an interview with Ha'aretz that she would not be surprised to learn that Palin is a staunch supporter of the Jewish state since her Alaska counterpart is "a very religious person, and the religious Christians are the greatest supporters of Israel."

Israel Today, 2/9/08

Dutch intelligence say Iran attack imminent

The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's De Telegraaf newspaper on Friday.

The report claimed that the Dutch operation had been "extremely successful," and had been stopped because the US military was planning to hit targets that were "connected with the Dutch espionage action." The impending air-strike on Iran was to be carried out by unmanned aircraft "within weeks," the report claimed, quoting "well placed" sources.

According to the report, information gleaned from the AIVD's operation in Iran has provided several of the targets that are to be attacked in the strike, including "parts for missiles and launching equipment."

"Information from the AIVD operation has been shared in recent years with the CIA," the report said.

Jerusalem Post, 1/9/08

Baghdad still without power and fuel

Ordinary Iraqis still face fuel shortage and high rates. These days, there are three-hour lines of cars queued up for gas, according to one friend of mine in Baghdad. He said officially the government blames this problem on the lack of power that gas pumps need to operate. In Baghdad, he said, people are only getting two hours of electricity a day. The government says the nearly total absence of power in the capital is due to the lack of new power projects.

My friend said his family paid as much as 30,000 Iraqi dinars, or over $25, for a cooking gas cylinder last winter. That’s roughly 15 times the highest price before the war started, and extortionate given a cylinder doesn’t usually last more than one week.

When I asked my friend why people don’t protest the situation, he said they don’t dare to open their mouths for fear of getting into trouble with the government.

Wall Street Journal, 2/9/08

Maliki on a roll

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has been on a roll, and American officials are getting worried. Once perceived as a sectarian Shiite Muslim leader, the U.S.-backed Maliki has won over Sunni constituents in recent months with offensives to curb Shiite militias in southern cities such as Basra and Amara and in the Baghdad Shiite slum of Sadr City.

He then turned his security forces north to wrest control of Mosul and Diyala province from Sunni extremists. U.S. forces provided strong backing, and except for Basra and Sadr City, the operations were announced in advance so that militants and insurgents had a chance to run.

Now, however, U.S. officials in Baghdad worry that success has gone to Maliki's head. They fear that his tough bargaining on a long-term security agreement with the United States is a sign that Maliki thinks he can move ahead on his own.

The operation in Basra, which U.S. officials originally argued against, led to Maliki's more assertive dealings with the Americans, one Iraqi official said. The operation was a success, and Basra, once a Shiite militia stronghold, came under central government control.

Without U.S. and British planes swooping in to save the Iraqi army, however, the operation might have failed, U.S. officials in Iraq said, adding that in recent weeks the situation in Basra has slid downhill again, with a resurgence of assassinations in the city. The officials refused to be quoted by name because their assessments are less optimistic than the Bush administration's public ones are.

Kansas City Star, 2/9/08

More Afghan civilians killed...

Foreign and Afghan forces killed five children in two separate incidents Monday, further inflaming tensions in the country over the killings of civilians by troops from the U.S.-led coalition.

NATO said Monday it had accidentally killed three children in an artillery strike in eastern Afghanistan. It said NATO forces had fired the rounds after insurgents attacked its patrol in the Gayan district of Paktika Province and one of the rounds hit a house, killing three children and injuring seven civilians.

In a separate incident, foreign and Afghan forces killed a man and his two children and during a raid near Kabul, the police and witnesses said. Angry men gathered at the victims' house in the Utkheil area east of the capital, where the three bodies were displayed inside a mud-walled compound. The man's wife was wounded in the operation, said Yahya Khan, a cousin.

International Herald Tribune, 1/9/08

...as popular protests against killings grows

Hundreds of Afghans took to the street Monday to protest the killing of three family members in an attack the protesters blamed on an early morning raid by U.S.-led troops in Kabul.

The U.S.-led coalition denied any involvement in the attack on the family's house.

Voice of America, 1/9/08

SAS took thousands off the streets of Baghdad

More than 3,500 insurgents have been "taken off the streets of Baghdad" by the elite British force in a series of audacious "Black Ops" over the past two years.

It is understood that while the majority of the terrorists were captured, several hundred, who were mainly members of the organisation known as "al-Qa'eda in Iraq" have been killed by the SAS. The SAS is part of a highly secretive unit called "Task Force Black" which also includes Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS.

But the success of the covert mission came at a price – six members of the SAS were killed and more than 30 were injured. Delta Force has suffered in the region of 20 per cent casualties.

A senior British officer told The Sunday Telegraph: "We took over 3,500 terrorists off the streets of Baghdad in around 18 months. "You could say it was a very successful period. But the butcher's bill was high. The attrition rate is equivalent to that experienced by the SAS during the Malayan insurgency 50 years ago.

Sunday Telegraph, 31/8/08

NATO should change rules of engagement

Senior British military commanders in Afghanistan have been told to change their military tactics in the face of mounting civilian casualties.

Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, warned Nato-led coalition forces, including Britain, that rules of engagement need to be revised or the coalition risks losing the war. There was a worrying but growing perception among Afghans that the foreign forces were responsible for 'indiscriminate killings' and 'mass rape'.

Internal US air force figures reveal that 272 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Afghanistan during June and July - the same amount dropped on the country during all of 2006. At least 500 civilians have died this year as a result of the actions of foreign forces.

'[The coalition] told me that their rules of engagement hadn't changed which is strange. If you look at the increased use of aerial bombing, the numbers don't seem to add up,' said Alston.

His chief concern was night raids by foreign intelligence agencies which appeared to take place without accountability to the Afghan government and left those subjected to them with three choices. 'They can either stay in their home and run the risk of being shot in their bed. Secondly, they could try and run, in which they would be shot, or thirdly, they fire back in which case they are treated as a terrorist and shot.'

A growing consensus was emerging among Afghans that foreign forces were raping women. 'There is also a cultural element which seems to be that if a male [soldier] goes into a female's bedroom it is perceived as the equivalent of rape.'

Observer, 31/8/08

Afghan airstrikes based on false information

Three Afghan officials said Thursday that U.S. commanders were misled into striking some 15 houses in Azizabad.

They said U.S. special forces troops and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival clan. The officials said the raid was aimed at militants who were supposed to be in the village, but they said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Shah's rival, whom they identified as Nader Tawakal.

Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information given by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with vendettas or who are simply interested in reward money for anti-government militants.

Minneapolis Star-Tibune, 30/8/08

KBR trafficked Nepali workers into Iraq

A lawsuit filed in California against Kellogg, Brown and Root on Wednesday alleges the company and its subcontractor were involved in a human trafficking plan that forced Nepali men to work against their will in Iraq.

The men, between the ages of 18 and 27, were recruited in Nepal and told they would be doing work in hotel and restaurant kitchens in Amman, Jordan, but were sent instead to Iraq to work at a U.S. air base, according to the lawsuit. When the Nepali men arrived in Jordan the contractors took their passports and drove them into Iraq.

Mathew Handley, a lawyer with Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, which filed the lawsuit, said about 70 Nepali men were driven into Iraq in a large convoy of civilian vehicles. One of the lead vehicles was ahead of the convoy and was stopped by insurgents posing as Iraqi Police. Twelve of the Nepali men were taken by the insurgents and later killed.

CNN, 28/8/08

US will continue to use airpower in Afghanistan despite risk to civilians

Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway told reporters that airpower would continue to play a primary role despite the risk of civilian casualties that have angered Afghans and made US and NATO forces more unpopular.

He said it was unclear how many civilians died in an August 21 air strike in western Afghanistan, despite a UN finding of evidence that about 90 were killed, most of them children.

But the general accused the Taliban of operating among civilians to reap a propaganda advantage from military attacks. “This is a dirty game being played,” Conway said. “Airpower is the premier asymmetric advantage that we hold over ... the Taliban. They have no like capability,” he said. “We’ll continue to drop bombs. We will also continue at every effort to preserve civilian lives who unfortunately are a part of the battlefield.”

Daily Times, Pakistan, 29/8/08

Iraq and China make deal on oil

In the first major oil deal Iraq has made with a foreign country since 2003, the Iraqi government and the China National Petroleum Corporation have signed a contract in Beijing that could be worth up to $3 billion, Iraqi officials said Thursday. For China, the deal offers a lucrative foothold in one of the most oil-rich countries in the world.

“There are some political profits for China,” said Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, a former Iraqi oil minister. “They need access to Iraq, and when they need oil, at least the Iraqi people will feel that China has done something for them.”

Mr. Jihad said that the contract was the first major agreement to be completed because the Chinese company had “wide experience in this field” and because many foreign oil companies were not willing to come to Iraq.

New York Times, 28/8/08