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News archives for the week ending 29th January 2010

Germans oppose escalating war

Nearly 80 percent of Germans oppose Berlin’s plans to hike the number of troops in Afghanistan, according to a poll released Wednesday on the eve of a major international conference.

Four out of five Germans said they disagreed with a stronger military role for Berlin in Afghanistan, the survey by the independent polling institute Forsa indicated.

The survey revealed very shallow support for the Afghan mission. “When asked whether they personally supported the German soldiers’ deployment, nearly half (49 percent) said no,” Forsa said.

Daily Times, Pakistan, 28/1/10

Afghan tribe signs pact to oppose Taliban

An eastern Afghan tribe has signed a pact to keep the Taliban out of their lands, pledging to burn down the houses of those who shelter insurgents and force them to pay fines high as $20,000.

U.S. military officials Wednesday welcomed the decision by the Shinwari tribe with a pledge of $1 million for a tribal fund and $200,000 in jobs programs. But they acknowledged that the tribe was uniquely positioned to defy the Taliban with its sizable militia and a history of unity against outsiders.

The Shinwari, which dominate five districts of about 600,000 people in Nangarhar province, agreed in the document signed by 170 elders to stand unified against the Taliban.

Tribal leaders said the agreement was borne as much out of frustration with the Afghan government as the desire to keep out militants.

The agreement affirms that the tribe "recognizes that the Afghan government supports their cause." But it adds that "defensive preparations have to be taken" in case of a fallout with the government.

"We can't go to the government for anything," said Malik Niyaz, the white-bearded head of one of the most powerful of the tribe's 12 subgroups. He said his people are used to defending themselves.

Canadian Press, 28/1/10

NATO agrees Kazakhstan transit deal

NATO and Kazakhstan completed an agreement Wednesday that will permit NATO allies to ship cargo through Kazakh territory to Afghanistan, providing an important alternative to vulnerable routes elsewhere.

Kazakhstan was the final holdout in the so-called northern supply line, which will allow cargo to pass overland from Europe to NATO troops in Afghanistan. Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have signed similar agreements.

“This allows supplies for our forces to start moving from Europe to Afghanistan, beginning in the coming days, complementing the very important transit route through Pakistan,” NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said in a statement in Brussels.

New YorkTimes, 27/1/10

UN report shows UK complicit in detentions and torture

A year-long inquiry by United Nations investigators found security and intelligence service officers were frequently present during the interrogation of British citizens and residents who had been kidnapped by foreign states.

The report by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that Britain also received intelligence or provided questions for interrogators in the cases of several named detainees. The investigation comprised four independent UN bodies working together to interview victims of secret detention all over the world.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of the human rights charity Reprieve, said: “Sadly, our government has teamed up with unscrupulous, Mafia-like regimes that are in the habit of disappearing people, using information extracted by violence, keeping secrets and protecting their thugs and cronies. It is shameful that it takes a UN report to reveal these shoddy practices to the British people. The victims are still waiting for an apology. “

David Davis MP, who raised the issue in Parliament, said the report was a “searing indictment” of the UK Government's involvement in torture and secret detention that needed to be urgently investigated.

Independent, 23/1/10

Afghanistan's neighbours back plan to reintegrate Taliban

Afghanistan's neighbours and Turkey on Tuesday backed President Hamid Karzai's plan to offer incentives to Taliban fighters to make them lay down arms, in a joint statement issued after talks here.

"We... support the Afghan national process of reconciliation and reintegration in accordance with the constitution of Afghanistan in a way that is Afghan-led and -driven," the statement said.

The talks were attended by Karzai, his counterparts from Pakistan and Turkey as well as senior officials from Iran, China, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

"Those Taliban who were not part of terrorist networks or Al-Qaeda are the sons of the Afghan soil," Karzai told reporters. "They are thousands and thousands and thousands and they have to be reintegrated."

AFP, 26/1/10

Straw knew Iraq invasion was illegal

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was warned by his chief legal adviser two months before the invasion of Iraq that such a move would be unlawful, an inquiry has heard.

Sir Michael Wood told the Iraq inquiry he had told Mr Straw explicit UN authorisation was needed. He said comments made by Mr Straw to US Vice-President Dick Cheney regarding a second UN resolution were "completely wrong from a legal point of view".

He said it was the "first and only occasion" a minister had not accepted his advice.

BBC News, 26/1/10

US presses Pakistan on nuclear talks

Pakistan is delaying international talks on a ban on the production of new nuclear bomb material, insisting that any deal must also require its archrival India to reduce its existing stockpile. The United States on Tuesday urged Pakistan to allow a quick start to the talks at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

India has a larger stock of fissile material and the capacity to build more warheads than Pakistan. Pakistan fears that India is gaining disproportionate power in South Asia after a 2008 agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and India, and a series of strategic and economic cooperation deals it has concluded with countries including Russia.

"If we are going to negotiate a treaty which only bans future production, then that asymmetry or imbalance between us will be frozen for ever," said Pakistan's Ambassador in Geneva, Zamir Akram, said Monday. "It presents us with a clear and present danger."

At the moment, only India and Pakistan - and possibly Israel and North Korea - produce plutonium or highly enriched uranium for weapons.

Washington Post, 26/1/10

Parts of Helmand governed by Taliban

UK and other Nato troops are to launch an offensive to take back areas of southern Afghanistan, the British general in charge of forces there says.

Maj Gen Nick Carter said the operation would "assert the control" of the Afghan government in parts of Helmand now controlled by the Taliban.

Gen Carter said that if parts of Helmand were governed at all, "it's by parallel governments provided often by the Taliban".

BBC News, 25/1/10

Contamination in Iraq

More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaiminated with high levels of radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iaqi study has found.

Areas in and near Iraq’s largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, whch appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over th past five years.

The joint study by the environment, health and science ministries found that scrap metal yards in and around Baghdad and Basra contain high levels of ionising radiation, which is thought to be a legacy of depleted uranium used in munitions during the first Gulf war and since the 2003 invasion.

The environment minister, Narmin Othman,said high levels of dioxins on agricultural lands in southern Iraq, in particular, were increasingly thought to be a key factor in a general decline in the health of people living in the poorest parts of the country.

Guardian 23/1/10

In Japan, US losing ground to China

When Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited Japan’s new leaders in October, not long after their historic election, he pressed so hard and so publicly for a military base agreement that the Japanese news media labeled him a bully.

The difference between that visit and the friendly welcome that a high-level Japanese delegation received just two months later in China, Japan’s historic rival, could not have been more stark.

The trip, organized by the powerful secretary general of Japan’s governing Democratic Party, Ichiro Ozawa, was just one sign of a noticeable warming of Japan’s once icy ties with China. It was also an indication that the United States, Japan’s closest ally, may be losing at least some ground in a diplomatic tug-of-war with Beijing.

Political experts say Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s greater willingness to engage Beijing and the rest of Asia reflects a broad rethinking of Japan’s role in the region at a time when the United States is showing unmistakable signs of decline.

It also reflects a growing awareness here that Japan’s economic future is increasingly tied to China, which has already surpassed the United States as its largest trading partner.

New York Times, 23/1/10

Pakistan skeptical about US reassurances

Despite a string of high-profile visits designed to reassure Pakistan of Washington's commitment, U.S. officials have failed to win over a military and civilian establishment here that remains suspicious of U.S. ties to India and reluctant to plunge into war with Afghan militants who may outlast the U.S. presence.

In a visit here last week that included speeches and interviews on local television, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates declared repeatedly that the United States respects Pakistani sovereignty, regrets having curtailed military ties with Islamabad after the end of the Afghan-Soviet war in 1989 and has no desire to open military bases here or seize control of Pakistan's nuclear assets.

Gates also offered to provide Pakistan with unarmed, unmanned surveillance planes. The gesture intended to ease Pakistani concerns about the increasing use of U.S. armed drones to launch missile strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan's remote tribal areas. '

Nevertheless, the responses he received from the army and the press here were either skeptical or defiant. Washington has been urgently pressing military officials to take on Islamic militants in the tribal area of North Waziristan, but the officials announced during Gates's visit that they could not launch any operation for at least six months.

Washington Post, 25/1/10

Afghanistan postpones elections

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission announced on Sunday that it was postponing the country’s parliamentary elections to Sept. 18, The Associated Press reported. The postponement will likely please the international organizations and Western governments that have pressed Afghanistan to delay the vote until it reforms its election process.

The elections, constitutionally required every four years, had been scheduled to be held on May 22.

Worried about the potential for a repetition of the massive voting irregularities that undermined the credibility of last year’s presidential vote, the international community has urged the government of President Hamid Karzai to delay the parliamentary elections until there are comprehensive changes in the election law and in the administrative aspects of th e election process, including the creation of a complete voter roll.

In the first round of the presidential election held last August, more than one million votes for Mr. Karzai were thrown out as possibly fraudulent, forcing him into a runoff with his closest competitor, Abdullah Abdullah. Although Mr. Abdullah ultimately withdrew and Mr. Karzai was given a second term, a number of Afghans question the president’s legitimacy.

Under the current law, the president appoints the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, which runs the elections. That arrangement has led to charges of bias in the institution that oversees the voting.

New York Times, 24/1/10

CIA steps up attacks on Pakistan

The most intense round of U.S. drone strikes ever seen has been under way in Pakistan this month, local reports indicate.

Citing Pakistani news accounts, The New York Times reported that beginning the day after a Taliban double-agent blew himself up Dec. 30 in a CIA post in Khost, Afghanistan, killing seven Americans, the agency has carried out 11 drone missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal-area militant strongholds in the most intensive drone warfare program to date.

The newspaper said the CIA denies vengeance is driving the drone strikes.

UPI, 23/1/10

250th British soldier killed in Afghanistan

The number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan reached 250 today, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The soldier from the A Company 4 Rifles, serving as part of 3 Rifles Battle Group died in an explosion near Sangin, Helmand province.

The death toll since the start of operations in 2001 is now just five short of those killed in the Falklands War in 1982.

The Times, 23/1/10

Biden intervenes in Iraq election dispute

The two biggest secular coalitions were hit hardest by this month’s decision to bar about 500 candidates from parliamentary elections in March, a top election official said Thursday, as efforts to resolve what has become a political crisis intensified.

The decision infuriated Sunnis and deepened their fears of being excluded from the political process. Critics have warned that the disqualifications, made on the grounds that the candidates promoted the Baath Party of former President Saddam Hussein, could damage the credibility of the March 7 vote, which is crucial to American plans to withdraw.

In an early effort to resolve the crisis, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested that the list of the disqualified be set aside until after the elections, so that only those on the list who won would have to be examined for Baathist ties, according to Iraqi officials.

Many politicians said that they supported this solution, but others questioned its legality and criticized Washington for interference in Iraq’s affairs.

New York Times, 22/1/10

The long occupation of Afghanistan

The United States will maintain a civilian presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan for a long time, even after American combat troops leave the region, a State Department report said on Thursday.

"While our combat mission in Afghanistan is not open-ended, we will remain politically, diplomatically and economically engaged in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the long-term to protect our enduring interests in the region," the report said.

The United States planned on a significant increase in civilian experts to help rebuild Afghanistan's agriculture sector, strengthen its governance, and support efforts to re-integrate Taliban fighters who renounce al Qaeda, it said.

The experts will be sent from various U.S. government departments and agencies, including the departments of state, agriculture, treasury, homeland security and justice as well as the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI.

Reuters, 21/1/10

'Al Qaeda is now difficult to define'

Yemen has made progress in its US-backed fight against Al Qaeda, but the extremist group continues to spread elsewhere and has some two dozen affiliates across a swathe of the globe, US officials said on Wednesday.

At congressional hearings, US officials painted a picture of an Al Qaeda that has expanded from Afghanistan to Iraq, the Arabian peninsula, Africa and southeast Asia.

“Al Qaeda is now difficult to define,” Admiral Eric Olson commander of the US Special Operations Command, told a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee.

“More than two dozen associated ... groups have established themselves in Iraq, the Arabian peninsula, the Horn of Africa, the trans-Saharan region, the Maghreb of north Africa, west Africa and southeast Asia, and there are several different groups now operating within and from Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Olson said.

Daily Times, Pakistan, 22/1/10

US ambassador puts brakes on proposal to use militias in Afghanistan

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and senior Afghan officials have resisted moving forward with a bold and potentially risky initiative to support local militias in Afghanistan that are willing to defend their villages against insurgents, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. military officials had wanted to get the initiative -- developed under the leadership of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan -- off to a quick start this year. But before the initiative can be implemented on a broader scale, Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry must approve the release of more money for it.

Eikenberry's unease about the program as it was structured by the military also reflects a broader difference of opinion at the highest levels of the U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters in Kabul about new approaches to combating the Taliban insurgency.

While military commanders are eager to experiment with decentralized grass-roots initiatives that work around the ponderous Afghan bureaucracy in Kabul, civilian officials think it is more important to wait until they have the central government's support, something they regard as essential to sustaining the programs.

WAshington Post, 22/1/10

UK to increase counter-terrorism expenditure

The U.K. government remains committed to resourcing its overseas counter-terrorism efforts and will continue to increase its spending again next year, the Foreign Office said Thursday, amid criticism over cuts forced by the falling value of the pound.

On Wednesday, Minister of State for Europe Glenys Kinnock said the government had been compelled to scale back its spending plans for counter-terrorism programs as the falling pound had led to an estimated shortfall of £110 million in the Foreign Office's annual budget.

However, Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant told lawmakers Thursday that Pakistan remained the government's "highest overseas counter-terrorism priority, together with Afghanistan," and that spending would continue to increase.

Wall Street Journal, 21/1/10