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News archives for the week ending 8th May 2009

Obama offers support to Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not their leaders

President Obama declared yesterday that "the security of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States are linked" after meeting with the presidents of those countries, saying his strategy to combat rising extremism through increased development aid and military support reflects that "fundamental truth."

"Now there's much to be done," Obama said at the White House, flanked by Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Vice President Biden.

After a day of meetings at the State Department and the White House, administration officials affirmed Obama's support for "the democratically elected governments" of the two countries, although they avoided personally endorsing either man. Karzai faces reelection in August, and Zardari is deeply unpopular at home.

Washington Post, 7/5/09

Oil strike in northern Iraq

Heritage Oil has uncovered an oilfield in Iraq’s Kurdistan region that it said could yield more than 4bn barrels of oil. The news sent its shares up 25 per cent.

The announcement by the independent explorer, which comes after a year of large oil strikes in Uganda, increases the oil prospectivity of Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan. The region has attracted many other smaller oil companies including OMV, Addax and DNO.

However, the discovery also draws attention to the political uncertainty surrounding oil licences in Kurdistan. Iraq’s central government in Baghdad remains at loggerheads with the Kurdistan regional government in Erbil over the validity of oil licences granted by Erbil. Baghdad has declared many licences invalid, thus holding up full-scale oil exportation for Addax and DNO, the two juniors ready to start exporting through a pipeline controlled by Baghdad.

But several operators have noticed progress towards resolution in the past six months after the prime ministers in Baghdad and Kurdistan established committees to discuss licensing issues. “We are confident we will be able to export oil,” said Paul Atherton, Heritage’s chief financial officer.

Financial Times, 7/5/09

Red cross says dozens of civilians killed in US raid...

Villagers dug dirt graves Wednesday to bury what the international Red Cross said were dozens of Afghans — including women and children — killed in American bombing runs. A former Afghan government official said up to 120 people may have died. If so, it would be the deadliest case of civilian casualties since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. "deeply, deeply" regretted the loss of innocent life, and the U.S. military dispatched a brigadier general to investigate the deaths in two villages in western Afghanistan's Farah province. The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, voiced doubts about whether it was an American airstrike that caused the tragedy.

The number of civilians killed in Afghanistan's worsening conflict jumped 40 percent to a new high last year, though more than half of the deaths were inflicted by Taliban insurgents and other militants, the U.N. has reported. A record 2,118 civilians died from violence last year, up from 1,523 the previous year.

Associated Press, 7/5/09

...and police fire on protestors

Afghans have staged an angry protest following the suspected deaths of up to 100 civilians in a US-led air raid in western Farah province. Shots were fired on Thursday as the demonstrators threw stones at government offices in the town of Farah, the provincial capital.

Several people were wounded in the melee, Gul Ahmad Ayubi, a health department official, said. Mohammad Younus Rasouli, the deputy provincial governor, said the protest had been "violent".

"Police tried to disperse them but they started throwing stones at police, who fired into the air."

Al Jazeera, 7/5/09

'The most moral army in the world'

A United Nations inquiry into attacks by Israeli forces on UN property during the Gaza conflict four months ago has heavily criticised Israel's army. It found Israel to blame in six out of nine incidents when death or injury were caused to people sheltering at UN property and UN buildings were damaged.

The UN report says the Israeli military took "inadequate" precautions to protect UN premises and civilians inside and recommends further investigation into possible war crimes. The board of inquiry also criticises Israel's use of white phosphorus shells which the UN says caused the incineration of the UN's main food warehouse in Gaza.

The Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, rejected the report, saying it was biased.

"We have the most moral army in the world," he said.

BBC News, 5/5/09

Karzai 'insults country' with vice-presedential choice

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan announced Monday he will run for re-election. The country's electoral commission confirmed he had filed his candidacy.

The Western-backed president announced his two running mates, including a controversial former warlord, Mohamed Fahim. Fahim was defense minister and vice president in a transitional government after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government in 2001, but Karzai did not include him on the ticket when he was elected in 2004.

Human Rights Watch was quick to criticize Karzai's decision to add him to the ticket now. "To see Fahim back in the heart of government would be a terrible step backwards for Afghanistan," said Brad Adams, Asia director of the group.

"He is one of the most notorious warlords in the country, with the blood of many Afghans on his hands from the civil war. He is widely believed by many Afghans to be still involved in many illegal activities, including running armed militias, as well as giving cover to criminal gangs and drug traffickers. The people of Afghanistan deserve better leadership. The president is insulting the country with this choice."

CNN, 4/5/09

Iran shells Kurdish villages

Iraq summoned Iran's ambassador to condemn Iranian shelling of villages in its northern Kurdistan region, the Iraqi government said on Tuesday, warning of "negative consequences" if attacks continue.

Iran shelled a Kurdish village in a remote area of northern Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region on Monday, causing damage to buildings but no casualties, border police said. That followed Iranian shelling on Saturday of Kurdish rebel positions in another part of Iraqi Kurdistan. Helicopters were also used to fire from the Iranian side of the border.

Iranian forces often clash with guerrillas from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which took up arms in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey. PJAK and PKK fighters are also present in Iraq.

Reuters, 5/5/09

Pakistan overshadows Afghanistan on US agenda...

When President Obama announced his new strategy in March for dealing with the problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan, he declared that America’s once-grandiose goals in the region should be narrowed to taking aim at Al Qaeda. To get the job done, he was already sending upwards of 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and he promised to pour billions of dollars in aid into development programs in the region.

There was only one hitch: Al Qaeda doesn’t really live in Afghanistan. It survives largely over the border in Pakistan, where American boots on the ground will never be tolerated. “This is the logical flaw in an otherwise pretty sophisticated plan,” one of the participants in the White House debate said at the time. “We have to stabilize Afghanistan. But if the goal is to take out Al Qaeda and its friends, we’re putting our troops in the wrong country.”

“The possibility is now real that we will see a jihadist state emerge in Pakistan — not an inevitable outcome, not even the most likely, but a real possibility,” said Bruce Riedel, the Brookings Institution scholar who served as the co-author of Mr. Obama’s review.

“And that is the real strategic nightmare for the United States,” he added.

New York Times, 5/5/09

...as UK steps up intelligence war

Britain is stepping up its military and intelligence presence in Pakistan to help in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, Whitehall officials have told the Guardian. About 20 "military advisers" will liaise with the Pakistani army and particularly with the Frontier Corps, an ethnic Pashtun paramilitary force on the frontline of the battle with the Taliban.

Britain will also increase the number of intelligence officers in Pakistan, according to the officials, increasing an already large MI6 presence in the country. MI5 is also in the country investigating links to suspected terrorist plotters in Britain.

The British military training programme has been operational for some time, as part of a larger American-led effort to reform the 60,000-strong Frontier Corps.

Guardian, 5/5/09

Iraq security looking fragile

Iraq’s impressive security gains over the past 18 months are looking increasingly fragile as the government cracks down on US-backed Sunni militias who turned on al-Qaeda.

Government forces arrested another commander of the so-called Sunni Awakening Councils over the weekend, even as senior officials warned that al-Qaeda and the ousted Baath Party of Saddam Hussein were trying to launch new attacks to coincide with a planned US army withdrawal from inside Iraqi cities by the end of next month.

The head of a powerful Awakening group in west Baghdad said the arrests were politically motivated by parties loyal to Iran, long accused of trying to exert its hegemony. “It’s Iran targeting us, I don’t think any decent Iraqi would target us,” Abu Ibrahim said. “It’s because the Awakening Councils stopped the Iranian expansion into Iraq.”

Raad Ali, the Awakenings leader in the war-torn west Baghdad sector of Ghazaliyah, said the Americans had now abandoned the Sunni militias they once nurtured. “I think there’s a deal between them and the Government. We don’t have a real Government, we just have political parties, and some of them have good ties with Iran and Syria and they have a special agenda,” he said. “The truth is, they are trying to destroy us.”

The Times, 4/5/09

"We hunt people for Jesus"

A former Afghan prime minister has called for an inquiry after Al Jazeera broadcast footage showing Christian US soldiers appearing to be preparing to try and convert Muslims in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai said there must be a "serious investigation" after military chaplains stationed in the US air base at Bagram near Kabul were filmed discussing how to distribute bibles printed in the country's main Pashto and Dari languages.

In one recorded sermon, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, tells soldiers that, as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him".

"The special forces guys - they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down," he says. "Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business."

Under the US military code of conduct, armed forces on active duty are prohibited from trying to convert a person's faith.

Al Jazeera, 4/5/09

Occupation troops kill 12 year old girl

NATO-led troops shot and killed a 12-year-old girl and wounded two other civilians in western Afghanistan after they opened fire at a vehicle close to a convoy, police said on Sunday.

A spokesman for Italian soldiers based in the western city of Herat confirmed the shooting on the vehicle but said troops fearful of an attack had first warned the car to stay away from them. The girl and her family were driving into Herat from a neighbouring province for a wedding party when the troops passed from the other direction, said police spokesman for western Afghanistan Abdul Rauf Ahmadi.

Daily Times, Pakistan, 4/5/09

Fraud fears as Afghan men get women's voting cards

Afghan men are illegally collecting voter cards in the names of women, raising worries about fraud in the upcoming presidential election, the head of Afghanistan's human rights commission said on Sunday.

In Logar province which borders Kabul, nearly three-quarters of those who registered as voters were women, a suspiciously high ratio, said Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"The men are just bringing the names of a woman and getting registration cards on their behalf and that is why I can say there is a possibility of fraud," Samar told a news conference in the Afghan capital.

Suspiciously high levels of female registration, in areas where women are often reluctant to travel, has also been noted in Paktika, Paktia and Khost provinces, as well as across parts of the south, Samar said.

Reuters, 3/5/09

Canadian retreat a 'tactical victory'

Canada’s military says it has not abandoned villagers in the Taliban-controlled western Panjwaii district, insisting that the “drawback” of troops last week and the dismantling of a Canadian-built police substation are tactical victories.

Canadian officers say that after living beside coalition forces for two years, villagers may find themselves in harm’s way. They could face reprisals from insurgents.

“There is a concern,” said Maj. Stephane Briand, operations planning officer for the Canadian Forces battle group in Kandahar. “(Reprisal) can happen in Mushan, but it (also) happens elsewhere.”

Calgary Herald, 3/5/09

Iraq will not extend withdrawal deadline

Iraq will not extend withdrawal deadlines for U.S. troops set out in a bilateral accord, ending months of speculation about whether U.S. combat troops would stay beyond June in bases in the restive northern city of Mosul.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq was committed to adhering to the withdrawal schedule in the pact, which took effect on January 1, including the requirement to withdraw U.S. combat troops from towns and cities by the end of June and a full withdrawal by the end of 2011.

"These dates cannot be extended and this is consistent with the transfer and handover of responsibility to Iraqi security forces," Dabbagh said in a statement.

Washington Post, 3/5/09

US drones have killed 14 Al Qaeda members and 700 civilians

David Kilcullen is no soft-headed peacenik. He's a beefy, 41-year-old former Australian army officer who served in Iraq as a top advisor to U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. He's one of the counter-insurgency warrior/theorists who designed Petraeus' successful "surge" of troops into the streets of Baghdad.

But a few days ago, when a congressman asked Kilcullen what the U.S. government should do in Pakistan, the Australian guerrilla fighter sounded like an antiwar protester. "We need to call off the drones," Kilcullen said.

" I realize that they do damage to the Al Qaeda leadership," he told the House Armed Services Committee. But that, he said, was not enough to justify the program. "Since 2006, we've killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we've killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area."

"The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they've given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. ... The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population."

Another problem, Kilcullen says, is that "using robots from the air ... looks both cowardly and weak."

In the Pashtun tribal culture of honor and revenge, face-to-face combat is seen as brave; shooting people with missiles from 20,000 feet is not.

Los Angeles Times, 3/5/09

Anti-corruption raid sparks gunfight at Iraq ministry

An effort by members of Parliament to prosecute what they say is a nest of corruption in the Trade Ministry led to a gun battle between ministry officials and Iraqi soldiers and the sudden disappearance of the trade minister and several senior ministry officials.

Only the minister’s spokesman, Muhammad Hannoun, was arrested. The others fled after a 15-minute firefight between the military and the minister’s security detail, according to the head of Iraq’s public integrity commission, Rahim al-Okaili.

The trade minister, Falah al-Sudani, has not been accused, but on Saturday the Iraqi Parliament called on him to answer for corruption charges against several senior directors at the ministry and two of his brothers, who also work as his bodyguards.

“The Trade Ministry has become one of the most significant arteries for corruption and squandering of public funds in Iraq,” Sabah al-Saedi, head of Parliament’s integrity committee, told reporters.

Arrest warrants were issued for nine people: two current director generals, four previous directors, the ministry spokesman and the minister’s two brothers, according to Mr. Okaili. He said the charges were “very serious and significant” and involved kickbacks and fraud in bidding and contracting at the ministry, but he declined to provide further details.

New York Times, 2/5/09

Violence on increase as US stops paying 'Sons of Iraq'

Iraq is threatened by a new wave of sectarian violence as members of the “Sons of Iraq” – the Sunni Awakening militias that were paid by the US to fight Al-Qaeda – begin to rejoin the insurgency. More than 370 Iraqi civilians and military – and 80 Iranian pilgrims – lost their lives in April, making it the bloodiest month since last September.

Many fighters have abandoned their security posts, allowing militant groups to fill the gap. Abu Omar, the leader of an Awakening militia in northern Baghdad, said more than 50 out of 175 fighters had quit.

The Iraqi resistance representative claimed some militias had lost even more. “Up to half their members have resigned from the Awakening and rejoined the resistance,” he said.

The US had been paying nearly 100,000 Sons of Iraq to participate in its security “surge”, but handed over responsibility for their welfare to the Iraqi government last month. Their pay has since dried up. Only 5,000 members of the Awakening have been employed by the Iraqi security forces.

Sunday Times, 3/5/09

US reaches out to Pakistan opposition

As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday.

American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents.

The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan’s government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials.

Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, administration officials say. But they say that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalize on Mr. Sharif’s appeal among the country’s Islamist groups.

New York Times, 1/5/09

Afghan war costs UK £3 billion a year

Britain's army chiefs are incensed at Gordon Brown's decision to block a long-term surge in UK forces in Afghanistan, arguing that a troop increase is vital to the success of the mission in troubled Helmand province.

Army generals have told Mr Brown that Britain is making progress in Helmand, creating security zones in which Afghans can live without intimidation from the Taliban. But the army believes the 5,000 troops in Task Force Helmand are stretched in the province,which is widely seen as the front line in the battle against the Taliban.

Backed by John Hutton, the defence secretary, they have insisted that the UK should increase its deployment permanently by 2,000 troops to 10,300. "If we are going to be in Helmand then we urgently need to resource the campaign properly," said a senior army figure. "We need to thicken up on the ground and get ourselves on a sustained campaign-footing."

Some Whitehall officials argue that the UK operation in Afghanistan iswell resourced. They note that the operation will cost a projected £3bn in 2009-10, while the cost of UK operations in southern Iraq never rose above £1.5bn.

Financial Times, 1/5/09

Iraq 'open for business'

Britain and Iraq yesterday vowed to establish strong economic ties in a new "longterm partnership of equals".

Gordon Brown, after talks with Iraqi counterpart Nouri al-Maliki at No10, said the UK would set up investment and exports to help Iraq regenerate and use its oil supply. Mr Brown said: "This is a clear message for companies worldwide: Iraq is open for business."

As the two signed a declaration of co-operation, Mr al-Maliki said Iraq needed help from Britain across many fronts, including science, the economy and education.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson called on UK firms to invest there. He said: "Just as Britain has played a huge part in bringing democracy to Iraq, we now have a big role to play in bringing prosperity."

Daily Mirror, 1/5/09

Obama has to concentrate on Pakistan

The big idea behind the Obama administration’s long-in-the-making policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan was that the two countries are inextricably linked. The key to stabilizing Afghanistan, the White House concluded five weeks ago, is a stable and cooperative Pakistan.

That calculation has been utterly scrambled by the Taliban offensive in western Pakistan, which has forced the United States to concentrate on the singular task of preventing further gains in Pakistan by an Islamic militant insurgency that has claimed territory just 60 miles from Islamabad.

“We’re no longer looking at how Pakistan could help Afghanistan,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “We’re looking at what we could do to help Pakistan get through this period.”

President Obama and his top advisers have been meeting almost daily to discuss options for helping the Pakistani government and military repel the offensive. But those conversations are complicated by deepening doubts within the administration about Pakistan’s civilian and military authorities, and by resistance in Congress, which has attached strict conditions to $400 million in American aid to buttress Pakistan’s counterinsurgency capabilities.

New York Times, 30/4/09

UN calls for end to Israeli destruction of homes

The United Nations is calling on Israel to freeze all pending demolition orders against Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem in a new report that reflects growing international concern over developments in the contested city. The report also urges Israel to provide solutions to the housing crisis there.

Scores of Palestinian-owned structures are demolished every year by the Israeli authorities on the grounds that they were built without the required permits. But many Palestinians say Israel limits construction to push them out of East Jerusalem, which they claim as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The report states that only 13 percent of East Jerusalem land is currently zoned by the Israeli authorities for Palestinian construction, and much of that is already built up, severely restricting the possibility of obtaining a permit. More than a third of East Jerusalem, meanwhile, has been expropriated for Israeli construction since 1967, according to the report, while 22 percent is zoned for green areas and public infrastructure and 30 percent remains “unplanned.”

New York Times, 1/5/09

Official end to UK's occupation of Iraq

A ceremony has been held in Basra to mark the official end of the six-year British military mission in Iraq. UK combat operations ended as 20th Armoured Brigade took part in a flag-lowering ceremony with a US brigade.

Gordon Brown said the operation in Iraq had been a "success story" because of UK troops' efforts. But the Stop the War Coalition said it had been a disaster and the 179 British military deaths were made more acute by the pointlessness of the UK presence.

BBC News, 30/4/09