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News archives for the week ending 24th October 2008

Pakistan rejects 'America's war'

Serious doubts multiplied yesterday about Pakistan's commitment to America's military campaign against al-Qaida and the Taliban after parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for dialogue with extremist groups and an end to military action.

The new strategy, backed by all parties, emerged after a fierce debate in parliament where most parliamentarians said that Pakistan was paying an unacceptable price for fighting "America's war".

If implemented by the government, support for Pakistan from international allies would come under severe strain, adding further instability to a country facing a spiral of violence and economic collapse.

Guardian, 24/10/08

US kill 9 Afghan allies in latest mistake

American aircraft have killed nine Afghan soldiers in an accidental attack on an army post – the latest in a string of deadly mistakes involving Western forces in Afghanistan. The US military said that its forces “may have mistakenly killed and injured” Afghan soldiers. According to Lutfullah Babakarkheil, the local district governor, US attack helicopters levelled the army post in Dowa Manda district.

The increasing number of incidents involving US aircraft hitting the wrong target has strained the coalition’s relationship with the Government. After one of them last year, President Karzai wept in public as he called on Western forces to take greater care.

In August US forces mistakenly killed up to 90 civilians in a village in the west of Afghanistan after they were given misleading intelligence by feuding tribesmen.

In July US aircraft bombed a double wedding celebration in Nangarhar province, killing 47 people, including both brides. The same month US aircraft bombed a civilian truck in Kunar province, killing 15 people including Afghan medical staff working for a Western aid agency.

On Monday British commanders in Helmand admitted that civilians were killed during an operation close to the provincial capital. Local people say that up to 25 villagers were killed.

The Times, 23/10/08

House of Lords overturns islanders right to return

Thousands of Chagos islanders have had the right to return to their homeland in the Indian Ocean overturned by a House of Lords judgement. The former residents, evicted from the British overseas territory between 1967 and 1971, hoped their heritage could be rebuilt around a new tourist industry and fishing. But the largest Chagos island of Diego Garcia, which the UK leased to the US for a military air base remains an issue of contention.

Roch Evenor, 51, was among the 2,000 islanders relocated as part of the secret deal with the US. Mr Evenor said the US had taken over Diego Garcia because of its strategic position and he could not envisage it leaving. The US had also indicated that any return of islanders would compromise its military presence.

BBC News, 22/10/08

US threatens 'dramatic consequences' if Iraqis don't sign pact...

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned of "dramatic consequences" if Washington and Baghdad do not agree a security deal on US forces in Iraq. He said if there were no Status of Forces Agreement the US would have to "basically stop doing anything".

Iraq's cabinet is demanding changes to a draft deal already agreed with Washington that would allow US forces to stay in Iraq until 2011.

Mr Gates said the US had "great reluctance" to renegotiate. "I don't think you slam the door shut, but I would say it's pretty far closed," he said.

"What really needs to happen is for us to get this Sofa done. It's a good agreement. It's good for us. It's good for them. It really protects Iraqi sovereignty," Mr Gates said.

BBC News, 21/10/08

...as Iraqis attack bullying

Iraq will not be bullied into signing a security pact with the United States despite top US leaders warning of potentially dire consequences if it does not, a government spokesman said on Wednesday. Ali al-Dabbagh blasted US military chief Admiral Michael Mullen for saying that Baghdad faced the potential of significant losses if a deal is not concluded to keep American forces in Iraq beyond year end.

In a strongly worded statement, Dabbagh said the “Iraqi government is deeply concerned by the statement of Admiral Michael Mullen. Such a statement is not welcomed by Iraq. It is not correct to force Iraqis into making a choice and it is not appropriate to talk with the Iraqis in this way.”

Daily Times, Pakistan, 23/10/08

Iraqi parliament wants firm US withdrawal date...

Key members of the Iraqi parliament's largest political bloc have called for all American troops to leave this country in 2011 as a condition for allowing the U.S. military to stay here beyond year's end, officials said Sunday. The change sought by the influential United Iraqi Alliance would harden the withdrawal date for U.S. troops.

A draft bilateral agreement completed this week would require American forces to leave by December 2011 but would allow for an extension by mutual agreement. The Shiite bloc, which includes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party, also insists that Iraqi officials have a bigger role in determining whether U.S. soldiers accused of wrongdoing are subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts, said Sami al-Askeri, a political adviser to Maliki. That proposal has been resisted by the Pentagon.

If the Iraqi alliance's conditions are not met, "I cannot see that this agreement will see the light," said Askeri, who is also a lawmaker from Maliki's party.

Washington Post, 19/10/08

...but government may not want US to leave

Supporters of al-Maliki's coalition are particularly vulnerable to the public mood. The government has made little headway on the two issues most important to Iraqis: security and public services.

Residents of Baghdad are lucky if they get one hour of electricity a day off the government grid — what's laughingly called "Maliki power." And though the country has the lowest levels of violence in four years, most Iraqis credit this to the American army's surge in Baghdad and to the Awakening councils and neighborhood patrols, which the government is busy dismantling now that they have served their purpose.

Still, it remains unlikely that Iraq's politicians will force the Americans to leave. After all, the country is run by a class of leaders who have come to power thanks to U.S.-sponsored democratic elections, which created power blocs composed of ethnic and sectarian parties.

Except for a few politicians with reputations or family names that predated the American invasion, these are men that most Iraqis don't recognize as their leaders, whose backgrounds are sketchy, and whose hands have been bloodied and bank accounts fattened by the past few years of civil war. Even al-Maliki's bold move in Basra against al-Sadr's Mahdi Army faltered until American soldiers came to the rescue. Iraq won't let the Yankees go home just yet.

Time Magazine, 20/10/08

NATO campaign in Afghanistan 'disjointed'

A top Nato commander today upbraided alliance members for showing a lack of political will in Afghanistan and warned that a lack of progress would undermine Nato's relevance.

General John Craddock, a US general and Nato's supreme allied commander in Europe, described the seven-year campaign against an increasingly ruthless Taliban as disjointed.

Afghanistan is Nato's first operation outside Europe, but what started as a mission brimming with confidence is looking increasingly fraught. The 26-member Nato alliance has about 50,000 troops in Afghanistan but commanders say they need at least 12,000 more. Most Nato countries are reluctant to send more troops.

Afghanistan is now widely seen as more precarious than Iraq, with the Taliban becoming more sophisticated in its ability to carry out ambushes and bombings. Militants have expanded their traditional bases in the country's south and east - along the border with Pakistan - and have gained territory in the provinces surrounding Kabul, in a worrying development for Nato and Afghan troops.

Guardian. 20/10/08

Pakistan divided over 'war on terror'

A deep rift over anti-terror policy has opened up within Pakistan's political class, as extremist violence and an economic crisis push the country to the verge of collapse. A special session of parliament called by the government to forge a political consensus on the "war on terror" has backfired spectacularly as parties, including some in the ruling coalition, denounced the alliance with Washington and Nato rather than backing the army to take on the Pakistani Taliban.

A party in the coalition government, the religious Jamiat-Ulama-I-Islam party, has even demanded that, as parliamentarians had received a presentation from the army, Pakistan's Taliban movement should also be allowed to address them. It comes as the political and economic situation worsens, with intensified suicide bomb attacks and an alarming depletion in Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves. The country is seeking an emergency $10bn bailout from the international community, while a severe shortage of electricity is crippling business and punishing households.

Guardian, 17/10/08

Mass demonstration against occupation in Baghdad

Supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr have staged a mass demonstration in Baghdad in protest against plans to extend the US mandate in Iraq. An estimated 50,000 protesters chanted slogans such as "Get out occupier!".

Iraqi and US negotiators drafted the deal after months of talks but it still needs approval from Iraq's government. The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says Moqtada Sadr's militant opposition to the US presence has strong grassroots support among many Shias - and this was a physical manifestation of that opposition.

BBC News, 18/10/08

New agreement gives US 'absolute control' of prosecutions in Iraq

A number of senior Iraqi and U.S. politicians expressed strong reservations Friday about the terms of a draft agreement that gives Iraq the "primary right" -- subject to U.S. acquiescence -- to try American soldiers accused of serious crimes committed during off-duty hours outside U.S. military bases here.

Some political leaders in Baghdad, who got their first look at the controversial agreement to extend the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond 2008, said it did not go far enough in guaranteeing Iraqi sovereignty.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that "there is not a reason to be concerned." He said top U.S. military officials "are all satisfied that our men and women in uniform serving in Iraq are well protected."

U.S. officials have emphasized that off-duty American troops in Iraq rarely, if ever, venture outside their bases, and said that they consider language in the document vague enough to ensure absolute U.S. control in all circumstances.

Washington Post, 18/10/08

New UK army head favours escalating Afghanistan war

A general who is reported to favour a "surge" of troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan was named head of the British Army on Friday. The appointment of General David Richards, a former commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan, is part of a sweeping shakeup of Britain's military top brass announced by the government on Friday.

The Independent newspaper reported that Richards believes a build-up of 30,000 more troops is needed in Afghanistan, where there has been a resurgence of violence in the past year. He is believed to favour sending up to 5,000 more British troops, in addition to the 8,000 already there, the report said. The other 25,000 would be made up of U.S. reinforcements and newly trained Afghan soldiers.

Military commanders are hoping that as British troops are withdrawn from Iraq, numbers will be boosted in Afghanistan, where the British force is over-stretched.

Reuters, 17/10/08

Iraqi PM says US commander 'risked his position'

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki warned in comments broadcast Friday that the top U.S. commander in Iraq "had risked his position" by suggesting that Iran tried to bribe Iraqi lawmakers to oppose a security agreement with the United States.

U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno, who took command of U.S. forces last month, told the Washington Post in an interview published Monday that American intelligence reports alleged that Iran had attempted to bribe Iraqi lawmakers to sabotage the agreement. The comments, which drew the ire of Iraqi politicians all week, brought an angry retort from Maliki.

"The American commander risked his position when he talked about this issue and in this manner. He has regretfully made relations complex," Maliki said in remarks made to Kuwaiti journalists on Thursday and aired Friday. "The parliament does not take any bribes, neither from Iran or any other party. This is regretful."

The Iraqi government and its three-member presidency council had already issued statements condemning the remarks. The U.S. military had also taken the step of reiterating that Odierno was criticizing Iran and not Iraqi lawmakers.

Los Angeles Times, 18/10/08

More civilians killed in NATO strike

British defence officials said last night they were investigating reports that civilians, including women and children, were killed in an air strike by Nato forces in southern Afghanistan.

Angry villagers took 18 bodies - including badly mangled bodies of women and children - to the governor's house in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, Haji Adnan Khan, a tribal leader in the city who had seen the bodies, was reported as saying. He said there might be more bodies trapped under the rubble.

A BBC reporter in Lashkar Gah said he saw the bodies - three women and the rest children ranging in age from six months to 15. The families brought the bodies from their village in the Nad Ali district.

The incident comes days after a British military spokesman said that Nato aircraft had killed more than 60 Taliban fighters massing to attack Lashkar Gah.

Guardian, 17/10/08