160 NATO supply trucks torched in Pakistan
Incident is biggest assault yet on a vital military supply line to Afghanistan
December 7, 2008
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Militants blasted their way into two transport terminals in Pakistan on Sunday and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, in the biggest assault yet on a vital military supply line, officials said.
The U.S. military said its losses in the raid near the northwestern city of Peshawar would have only a "minimal" impact on its operations against resurgent Taliban-led militants in Afghanistan.
However, the attack's boldness will fuel concern that Taliban militants are tightening their hold around Peshawar and could choke the supply route through the famed Khyber Pass.
Up to 75 percent of supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan pass through Pakistan after being unloaded from ships at the Arabian sea port of Karachi. NATO is already seeking an alternative route through Central Asia.
Terminal manager Kifayatullah Khan said armed men flattened the gate before dawn with a rocket-propelled grenade, shot dead a guard and set fire to a total of 106 vehicles, including about 70 Humvees.
An Associated Press reporter who visited the depot saw six rows of destroyed Humvees and military trucks parked close together, some of them on flatbed trailers, all of them gutted and twisted by the flames.
Khan said shipping documents showed they were destined for U.S. forces and the Western-trained Afghan National Army.
The attackers fled after a brief exchange of fire with police, who arrived about 40 minutes later, Khan said.
The nine other guards who were on duty but stood helplessly aside put the number of assailants at 300, Khan said, though police official Kashif Alam said there were only 30.
At the nearby Faisal depot, manager Shah Iran said 60 vehicles destined for Afghanistan as well as three Pakistani trucks were burned in a similar assault.
It was unclear if one or two bands of gunmen were involved.
Latest in a series of attacks
The attack was the latest in a series that have highlighted the vulnerability of the supply route to the spreading power of the Taliban and other Islamic militants in the border region.
Suspected insurgents also attacked the Faisal terminal last week and burned 12 trucks loaded with NATO supplies, including several Humvees. Two guards were shot dead.
In November, militants made off with a Humvee during a raid on the treacherous road from Peshawar to the Afghan border and showed it off later to reporters at a militant stronghold further south.
The U.S. military in Afghanistan said in a statement that an unspecified number of its containers were destroyed in the attack but that their loss would have "minimal effect on our operations."
"It's militarily insignificant," U.S. spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rumi Nielsen-Green said. "You can't imagine the volume of supplies that come through there and elsewhere and other ways."
"So far there hasn't been a significant loss or impact to our mission," she said.
Pakistan halted traffic through the Khyber Pass for several days in November while it arranged for troops to guard the slow-moving convoys.
Shahedullah Baig, a spokesman for the interior minister in Islamabad, insisted Sunday that the extra security covered the terminals.
"They are fully protected, but in this kind of situation such incidents happen," Baig said.
However, Khan, the depot manager, said that was untrue, and there were only a handful of police at the terminals on Sunday afternoon.
Khan said his business, which handles some 600 truckloads a month for foreign troops in Afghanistan, had received repeated threats. He didn't want to discuss whom they were from for fear of incurring further wrath.
"We don't feel safe here at all," he said. "It is almost impossible for us to continue with this business."
Peshawar has seen a surge in violence in recent weeks, including the slaying of an American working on a U.S.-funded aid project.
The city lies close to the lawless tribal regions along the Afghan border, where Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders are believed to be hiding.
On Saturday, a car bomb detonated in a busy market area of the city, killing 29 people and injuring 100 more. The blast wrecked a Shiite Muslim mosque and a hotel, but the motive and culprits remained unclear.
The instability in Pakistan's northwest coincides with serious tensions with its eastern neighbor India in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
New Delhi blames the attack, which killed 171 people, on an Islamic militant group fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region, heightening tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors that could distract Pakistan from its role in helping the U.S. fight terrorism.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts
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MSNBC : 160 NATO supply trucks torched in Pakistan
Sunday, December 07, 2008
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NYT : Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid
By CARLOTTA GALL | September 8, 2008
AZIZABAD, Afghanistan — To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.
The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.
Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old. Their shock and grief is still palpable.
For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of “emerging evidence.”
“The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,” he said in a statement.
The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.
The repercussions of the airstrikes have consumed both the Afghan government and the American military, wearing the patience of Afghans at all levels after repeated cases of civilian casualties over the last six years and threatening to erode their tolerance for the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai visited Azizabad on Thursday to pay his respects to the mourners, condemning the strikes, and vowing to arrest an Afghan he says misled American forces with false intelligence.
President Bush expressed his regrets and sympathy in a call to Mr. Karzai on Wednesday. And General McKiernan has issued several statements voicing sorrow for civilian casualties.
The Afghan government is demanding changes in the accords defining the United States military engagement in Afghanistan, in particular ending American military raids on villages and halting the detention of Afghan citizens.
“People are sick of hearing there is another case of civilian casualties,” one presidential aide said.
Differing Accounts
The accounts of the airstrike’s aftermath given by Afghans and Americans could not be further apart.
A visitor to the village and to three graveyards within its limits on Aug. 31 counted 42 freshly dug graves. Thirteen of the graves were so small they could hold only children; another 13 were marked with stones in the way that Afghans identify women’s graves.
Villagers questioned separately identified relatives in the graves; their names matched the accounts given by elders of the village of those who died in each of eight bomb-damaged houses and where they were buried. They were quite specific about who was killed in the airstrikes and did not count those who died for other reasons; one of the fresh graves, they said, belonged to a man who was killed when villagers demonstrated against the Afghan Army on Aug. 23.
At the battle scene, shell craters dotted the courtyards and shrapnel had gouged holes in the walls. Rooms had collapsed and mud bricks and torn clothing lay in uneven mounds where people had been digging. In two places blood was splattered on a ceiling and a wall. An old woman pushed forward with a cauldron full of jagged metal bomb fragments, and a youth presented cellphone video he said was shot on the day of the bombing; there was no time stamp.
The smell of bodies lingered in one compound, causing villagers to start digging with spades. They found the body of a baby, caked in dust, in the corner of a bombed-out room.
Cellphone images that a villager said that he shot, and seen by this reporter, showed two lines of about 20 bodies each laid out in the mosque, with the sounds of loud sobbing and villagers’ cries in the background.
An Afghan doctor who runs a clinic in a nearby village said he counted 50 to 60 bodies of civilians, most of them women and children and some of them his own patients, laid out in the village mosque on the day of the strike. The doctor, who works for a reputable nongovernmental organization here, at first gave his name but then asked that it be withheld because he feared retribution from Afghans feeding intelligence to the Americans.
The United States military, in a series of statements about the operation, has accused the villagers of spreading Taliban propaganda. Speaking on condition that their names not be used, some military officials have suggested that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites — and, by implication, that other investigators had been duped. But many villagers have connections to the Afghan police, NATO or the Americans through reconstruction projects, and they say they oppose the Taliban.
The district chief of Shindand, Lal Muhammad Umarzai, 45, said he personally counted 76 bodies that day, and he believed that more bodies were unearthed over the next two days, bringing the total to more than 90. Mr. Umarzai has been praised for bringing security to the district in the three months since his appointment and is on good terms with American and NATO forces in the region.
American military investigators said that they had interviewed him and that he had told them that he had no access to the village. But Mr. Umarzai said Taliban supporters came into the village in midmorning after the airstrikes, forcing him and the police to leave the village, but that later he was able to return and attend the burials.
The United Nations issued a statement pointing to evidence it considered conclusive that about 90 civilians were killed, some 75 of them women and children. Villagers and relatives said that the bodies were scattered in different locations; many of the victims were visiting Azizabad for a family memorial ceremony, and their relatives took their bodies back to their home villages for burial. This reporter did not visit the other villages but was given a detailed list of names and places where the remaining victims were buried.
Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them. Most of the village families were asleep when the shooting broke out, some sleeping out under mosquito nets in the yards of their houses, some inside the small domed rooms of their houses, lying close together on the floor, with up to 10 or 20 people in a room.
“I woke up when I heard shooting,” Zainab, a 26-year-old woman who doctors said was wounded in the attack, said in an interview in the Herat city hospital. “The shooting was very close to our house. We just stayed where we were because it was dangerous to go out. When the bombardment started there was smoke everywhere and we lay down to protect ourselves.”
Yakhakhan, 51, one of several men in the village working for a private security firm, and who uses just one name, said he heard shooting and was just coming out of his house when he saw his neighbor’s sons running.
“They were killed right here; they were 10 and 7 years old,” he said. In the compound next to his, he said, four entire families, including those of his two brothers, were killed. “They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us,” he said of the Americans. “God will punish them.”
A policeman, Abdul Hakim, whose four children were killed and whose wife was paralyzed, said she had told him how an Afghan informer accompanying the American Special Operations forces had entered the compound after the bombardment and shot dead her brother, Reza Khan; her father; and an uncle as they were trying to help her. She said she had heard her father plead for help and ask the Afghan: “Are you a Muslim? Why are you doing this to us?” Then she heard shots, and her father did not speak after that, he said.
A United States military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, said in an e-mail message that she was unaware of such an allegation, and that the American military did not have Afghan civilian informers accompanying its forces during the mission. Soldiers treated wounded people at the scene, which indicated that the Laws of Armed Conflict were followed, she said.
No Taliban, Villagers Say
While the American forces reported they had come under fire upon entering the village, it is not clear from whom. The villagers and the relatives of some of the people killed in the raid insisted that none of them were Taliban and that there were no Taliban present in the village. Eight of the men killed were security guards supplied by Reza Khan to a private American security company and did possess weapons, said Gul Ahmed Khan, Reza Khan’s brother. Two other security guards and three members of the local Afghan police were detained by United States forces during the raid. Four of them were released a week later.
The Khan brothers are from the most prominent family in the village and were hosting the memorial ceremony for their brother, Taimoor Shah, who was killed in a business dispute a year ago. They had cards issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated each of them as a “coordinator for the U.S.S.F.” Another brother, Haji Abdul Rashid, blamed a business rival for falsely telling the Americans that their family supported the Taliban.
American military officials in Afghanistan and Washington have stood by their much lower body count. Capt. Christian Patterson, an American military spokesman at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, said that an investigating officer, a Special Forces major, visited the village after the airstrikes. Guided by aerial photographs, he visited six burial sites within a six-mile range of the attack; only one had any freshly dug graves, about 18 to 20 in total, Captain Patterson said. The 12-page investigative report does not indicate whether they were the graves of children or women. The officer did not interview villagers, he said.
Mr. Khan, whose house is just yards from the main graveyard, which contains 24 fresh graves, said no members of the American military had entered the village since Aug. 22. Villagers living around the graveyards would have seen them, he said.
The American military also said that it had found only two wounded people, a woman and a child, at the scene, and that in a survey of clinics, doctors and hospitals of the area it had found no other wounded.
U.S. Defends Operation
In a series of statements about the operation, the American military has said that extremists who entered the village after the bombardment encouraged villagers to change their story and inflate the number of dead. Yet the Afghan government and the United Nation have stood by the victims’ families and their accounts, not least because many of the families work for the Afghan government or reconstruction projects. The villagers say they oppose the Taliban and would not let them in the village.
“You can see our I.D. cards,” said a police officer, Muhammad Alam, 35, who was accused by the Americans of being a Taliban supporter and was detained for a week after the airstrikes, then released. “If the Taliban caught me, they would slaughter me.”
Two families in the village have lost men serving in the police during recent Taliban attacks. Reza Khan, whose house was the main target of the Special Operations Forces operation, and who was shot dead in the episode, was a wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport, and with a cellphone business in the town of Herat. A recent photo of him shows a clean-shaven, slightly portly man in a suit and tie — far from the typical look of a Taliban militant.
His brother, Haji Rashid, said the American forces “should question the people who gave them the wrong information.”
“We want them brought to trial and punished for what they have done,” he added.
His claim was supported by the district chief, Mr. Umarzai, who said, “The victims did not fire on the Americans.” He said he suspected that an informer falsely told the American forces that Taliban fighters were in the village and also staged the firefight. The gunmen first fired on the police checkpoint on the edge of the village that night, he said. “When the Americans came, they laid down heavy gunfire and then they left the area. Then the Americans called in airstrikes,” he said.
Villagers also challenged the American military’s claims that it successfully conducted its planned operation against a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and a group of his men.
A man claiming to be Mullah Sadiq called Radio Liberty several days after the raid and declared that he was alive and well and was never in the village of Azizabad that night. Reporters at the radio station, who asked not to be identified, said they knew his voice well and double checked the recording with residents of Shindand and they were sure the caller was Mullah Sadiq.
American military officials have said that the man who called the radio program was an imposter and that they are confident they killed their target.
A senior American officer who has been briefed on the military investigation’s findings said in an e-mail message: “I will simply say that the soldiers — U.S. and Afghan — reported what they saw and found at each building site as they looked for material, weapons, bodies. I cannot explain why later the numbers are so far apart.”
Members of the Afghan government investigation commission said that the Americans were just covering up the truth. “The Americans are guilty in this incident: it is much better for them to confess the reality rather than hiding the truth,” said Abdul Salam Qazizada, a member of Parliament and the government commission from Herat Province, where the village is located.
Villagers suggested that the soldiers just counted those who died in the open and did not try to dig under the rubble. A local journalist, Reza Shir Mohammadi, said that when he visited the village on the second day after the attack, women and children were still weeping at one collapsed house, saying they still had not found their mother and siblings.
The operation in Azizabad once again raises questions for the military about whether it is worth pursuing members of the Taliban with airstrikes inside a densely populated village where civilian casualties and property damage can be so high. A similar raid in the same district by American Special Forces in April 2007, which killed 57 people, led American and NATO commanders to tighten rules on calling in airstrikes on village houses.
“This is not fair to kill 90 people for one Mullah Sadiq,” said Mr. Umarzai, the district chief. “If they continue like this, they will lose the people’s confidence in the government and the coalition forces.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Sangar Rahimi and Abdul Waheed Wafa from Afghanistan.
By CARLOTTA GALL | September 8, 2008
AZIZABAD, Afghanistan — To the villagers here, there is no doubt what happened in an American airstrike on Aug. 22: more than 90 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed.
The Afghan government, human rights and intelligence officials, independent witnesses and a United Nations investigation back up their account, pointing to dozens of freshly dug graves, lists of the dead, and cellphone videos and other images showing bodies of women and children laid out in the village mosque.
Cellphone images seen by this reporter show at least 11 dead children, some apparently with blast and concussion injuries, among some 30 to 40 bodies laid out in the village mosque. Ten days after the airstrikes, villagers dug up the last victim from the rubble, a baby just a few months old. Their shock and grief is still palpable.
For two weeks, the United States military has insisted that only 5 to 7 civilians, and 30 to 35 militants, were killed in what it says was a successful operation against the Taliban: a Special Operations ground mission backed up by American air support. But on Sunday, Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, requested that a general be sent from Central Command to review the American military investigation in light of “emerging evidence.”
“The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth,” he said in a statement.
The military investigation drew on what military officials called convincing technical evidence documenting a far smaller number of graves than the villagers had reported, as well as a thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the airstrikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred.
The repercussions of the airstrikes have consumed both the Afghan government and the American military, wearing the patience of Afghans at all levels after repeated cases of civilian casualties over the last six years and threatening to erode their tolerance for the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai visited Azizabad on Thursday to pay his respects to the mourners, condemning the strikes, and vowing to arrest an Afghan he says misled American forces with false intelligence.
President Bush expressed his regrets and sympathy in a call to Mr. Karzai on Wednesday. And General McKiernan has issued several statements voicing sorrow for civilian casualties.
The Afghan government is demanding changes in the accords defining the United States military engagement in Afghanistan, in particular ending American military raids on villages and halting the detention of Afghan citizens.
“People are sick of hearing there is another case of civilian casualties,” one presidential aide said.
Differing Accounts
The accounts of the airstrike’s aftermath given by Afghans and Americans could not be further apart.
A visitor to the village and to three graveyards within its limits on Aug. 31 counted 42 freshly dug graves. Thirteen of the graves were so small they could hold only children; another 13 were marked with stones in the way that Afghans identify women’s graves.
Villagers questioned separately identified relatives in the graves; their names matched the accounts given by elders of the village of those who died in each of eight bomb-damaged houses and where they were buried. They were quite specific about who was killed in the airstrikes and did not count those who died for other reasons; one of the fresh graves, they said, belonged to a man who was killed when villagers demonstrated against the Afghan Army on Aug. 23.
At the battle scene, shell craters dotted the courtyards and shrapnel had gouged holes in the walls. Rooms had collapsed and mud bricks and torn clothing lay in uneven mounds where people had been digging. In two places blood was splattered on a ceiling and a wall. An old woman pushed forward with a cauldron full of jagged metal bomb fragments, and a youth presented cellphone video he said was shot on the day of the bombing; there was no time stamp.
The smell of bodies lingered in one compound, causing villagers to start digging with spades. They found the body of a baby, caked in dust, in the corner of a bombed-out room.
Cellphone images that a villager said that he shot, and seen by this reporter, showed two lines of about 20 bodies each laid out in the mosque, with the sounds of loud sobbing and villagers’ cries in the background.
An Afghan doctor who runs a clinic in a nearby village said he counted 50 to 60 bodies of civilians, most of them women and children and some of them his own patients, laid out in the village mosque on the day of the strike. The doctor, who works for a reputable nongovernmental organization here, at first gave his name but then asked that it be withheld because he feared retribution from Afghans feeding intelligence to the Americans.
The United States military, in a series of statements about the operation, has accused the villagers of spreading Taliban propaganda. Speaking on condition that their names not be used, some military officials have suggested that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites — and, by implication, that other investigators had been duped. But many villagers have connections to the Afghan police, NATO or the Americans through reconstruction projects, and they say they oppose the Taliban.
The district chief of Shindand, Lal Muhammad Umarzai, 45, said he personally counted 76 bodies that day, and he believed that more bodies were unearthed over the next two days, bringing the total to more than 90. Mr. Umarzai has been praised for bringing security to the district in the three months since his appointment and is on good terms with American and NATO forces in the region.
American military investigators said that they had interviewed him and that he had told them that he had no access to the village. But Mr. Umarzai said Taliban supporters came into the village in midmorning after the airstrikes, forcing him and the police to leave the village, but that later he was able to return and attend the burials.
The United Nations issued a statement pointing to evidence it considered conclusive that about 90 civilians were killed, some 75 of them women and children. Villagers and relatives said that the bodies were scattered in different locations; many of the victims were visiting Azizabad for a family memorial ceremony, and their relatives took their bodies back to their home villages for burial. This reporter did not visit the other villages but was given a detailed list of names and places where the remaining victims were buried.
Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them. Most of the village families were asleep when the shooting broke out, some sleeping out under mosquito nets in the yards of their houses, some inside the small domed rooms of their houses, lying close together on the floor, with up to 10 or 20 people in a room.
“I woke up when I heard shooting,” Zainab, a 26-year-old woman who doctors said was wounded in the attack, said in an interview in the Herat city hospital. “The shooting was very close to our house. We just stayed where we were because it was dangerous to go out. When the bombardment started there was smoke everywhere and we lay down to protect ourselves.”
Yakhakhan, 51, one of several men in the village working for a private security firm, and who uses just one name, said he heard shooting and was just coming out of his house when he saw his neighbor’s sons running.
“They were killed right here; they were 10 and 7 years old,” he said. In the compound next to his, he said, four entire families, including those of his two brothers, were killed. “They bombard us, they hate us, they kill us,” he said of the Americans. “God will punish them.”
A policeman, Abdul Hakim, whose four children were killed and whose wife was paralyzed, said she had told him how an Afghan informer accompanying the American Special Operations forces had entered the compound after the bombardment and shot dead her brother, Reza Khan; her father; and an uncle as they were trying to help her. She said she had heard her father plead for help and ask the Afghan: “Are you a Muslim? Why are you doing this to us?” Then she heard shots, and her father did not speak after that, he said.
A United States military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, said in an e-mail message that she was unaware of such an allegation, and that the American military did not have Afghan civilian informers accompanying its forces during the mission. Soldiers treated wounded people at the scene, which indicated that the Laws of Armed Conflict were followed, she said.
No Taliban, Villagers Say
While the American forces reported they had come under fire upon entering the village, it is not clear from whom. The villagers and the relatives of some of the people killed in the raid insisted that none of them were Taliban and that there were no Taliban present in the village. Eight of the men killed were security guards supplied by Reza Khan to a private American security company and did possess weapons, said Gul Ahmed Khan, Reza Khan’s brother. Two other security guards and three members of the local Afghan police were detained by United States forces during the raid. Four of them were released a week later.
The Khan brothers are from the most prominent family in the village and were hosting the memorial ceremony for their brother, Taimoor Shah, who was killed in a business dispute a year ago. They had cards issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated each of them as a “coordinator for the U.S.S.F.” Another brother, Haji Abdul Rashid, blamed a business rival for falsely telling the Americans that their family supported the Taliban.
American military officials in Afghanistan and Washington have stood by their much lower body count. Capt. Christian Patterson, an American military spokesman at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, said that an investigating officer, a Special Forces major, visited the village after the airstrikes. Guided by aerial photographs, he visited six burial sites within a six-mile range of the attack; only one had any freshly dug graves, about 18 to 20 in total, Captain Patterson said. The 12-page investigative report does not indicate whether they were the graves of children or women. The officer did not interview villagers, he said.
Mr. Khan, whose house is just yards from the main graveyard, which contains 24 fresh graves, said no members of the American military had entered the village since Aug. 22. Villagers living around the graveyards would have seen them, he said.
The American military also said that it had found only two wounded people, a woman and a child, at the scene, and that in a survey of clinics, doctors and hospitals of the area it had found no other wounded.
U.S. Defends Operation
In a series of statements about the operation, the American military has said that extremists who entered the village after the bombardment encouraged villagers to change their story and inflate the number of dead. Yet the Afghan government and the United Nation have stood by the victims’ families and their accounts, not least because many of the families work for the Afghan government or reconstruction projects. The villagers say they oppose the Taliban and would not let them in the village.
“You can see our I.D. cards,” said a police officer, Muhammad Alam, 35, who was accused by the Americans of being a Taliban supporter and was detained for a week after the airstrikes, then released. “If the Taliban caught me, they would slaughter me.”
Two families in the village have lost men serving in the police during recent Taliban attacks. Reza Khan, whose house was the main target of the Special Operations Forces operation, and who was shot dead in the episode, was a wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport, and with a cellphone business in the town of Herat. A recent photo of him shows a clean-shaven, slightly portly man in a suit and tie — far from the typical look of a Taliban militant.
His brother, Haji Rashid, said the American forces “should question the people who gave them the wrong information.”
“We want them brought to trial and punished for what they have done,” he added.
His claim was supported by the district chief, Mr. Umarzai, who said, “The victims did not fire on the Americans.” He said he suspected that an informer falsely told the American forces that Taliban fighters were in the village and also staged the firefight. The gunmen first fired on the police checkpoint on the edge of the village that night, he said. “When the Americans came, they laid down heavy gunfire and then they left the area. Then the Americans called in airstrikes,” he said.
Villagers also challenged the American military’s claims that it successfully conducted its planned operation against a Taliban commander, Mullah Sadiq, and a group of his men.
A man claiming to be Mullah Sadiq called Radio Liberty several days after the raid and declared that he was alive and well and was never in the village of Azizabad that night. Reporters at the radio station, who asked not to be identified, said they knew his voice well and double checked the recording with residents of Shindand and they were sure the caller was Mullah Sadiq.
American military officials have said that the man who called the radio program was an imposter and that they are confident they killed their target.
A senior American officer who has been briefed on the military investigation’s findings said in an e-mail message: “I will simply say that the soldiers — U.S. and Afghan — reported what they saw and found at each building site as they looked for material, weapons, bodies. I cannot explain why later the numbers are so far apart.”
Members of the Afghan government investigation commission said that the Americans were just covering up the truth. “The Americans are guilty in this incident: it is much better for them to confess the reality rather than hiding the truth,” said Abdul Salam Qazizada, a member of Parliament and the government commission from Herat Province, where the village is located.
Villagers suggested that the soldiers just counted those who died in the open and did not try to dig under the rubble. A local journalist, Reza Shir Mohammadi, said that when he visited the village on the second day after the attack, women and children were still weeping at one collapsed house, saying they still had not found their mother and siblings.
The operation in Azizabad once again raises questions for the military about whether it is worth pursuing members of the Taliban with airstrikes inside a densely populated village where civilian casualties and property damage can be so high. A similar raid in the same district by American Special Forces in April 2007, which killed 57 people, led American and NATO commanders to tighten rules on calling in airstrikes on village houses.
“This is not fair to kill 90 people for one Mullah Sadiq,” said Mr. Umarzai, the district chief. “If they continue like this, they will lose the people’s confidence in the government and the coalition forces.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Sangar Rahimi and Abdul Waheed Wafa from Afghanistan.
Filed under
Afghanistan,
airstrike,
Azizabad,
Carlotta Gall,
civilian casualties,
NATO
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, September 09, 2008
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NYT : NATO Accused of Civilian Deaths Inside Pakistan
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
NATO Accused of Civilian Deaths Inside Pakistan
By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH and JANE PERLEZ | September 4, 2008
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Two helicopters carrying American-led international forces landed in a Pakistani village in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan in the early hours of Wednesday morning and the soldiers opened fire on villagers, killing seven people, according to a spokesman for the Pakistani military.
The account by the spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, broadcast on Pakistani television on Wednesday evening, described what appeared to be a first commando attack by NATO forces against the Taliban inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has lodged a “strong protest” to the American government and reserved the right of “self defense and retaliation,” the general said. Local residents said most of the dead were women and children but this could not be immediately confirmed.
The Bush administration has admonished Pakistan in recent months for not doing enough to curb attacks by the Taliban, who keep bases inside the Pakistani tribal region and cross the border to attack American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
Coalition forces have sent missiles into the border region of Pakistan to strike against militants but commando operations by American forces into the tribal region have been under discussion in Washington. The action by the coalition forces Wednesday in the border village appeared to be an effort to stanch the Taliban raids.
According to an earlier description of the military action Wednesday given by a Taliban commander and local residents, the latest attack was aimed at three houses in the village of Jalal Khel in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan, near a known stronghold of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and less than a mile from the border with Afghanistan.
The governor of the North-West Frontier Province, Owais Ahmed Ghani, said the helicopter attack occurred at about 3 a.m. and killed 20 people.
The governor, the most powerful civilian leader in the province which abuts South Waziristan, condemned the attacks and called for retaliation by Pakistan.
An American military spokesman at Bagram airbase declined to comment on the reports. The spokesman did not deny that the attack had occurred. Often, a statement of no comment by American and NATO spokesmen in Afghanistan, where NATO and American forces are fighting militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, indicates that the coalition forces were involved in a cross-border attack.
General Abbas said the Pakistani military was angered by the coalition forces because it created “new problems” for the army in the region.
In a telephone interview, General Abbas said the soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force, which is made up of NATO and American forces, had created “new problems” for the Pakistani soldiers based along the border.
By killing civilians, General Abbas said there was now a great risk of an uprising by the tribesmen who supported the Pakistani soldiers in the border area. These tribesmen, who were opposed to the Taliban and supportive of the Pakistani forces, would now be extremely angry, he said.
“Such action are completely counter productive and can result in huge losses because it gives the civilians a cause to rise against the Pakistani military,” he said.
The Taliban commander, known by the nom de guerre Commander Malang, said the attack took place close to a Pakistani military position on the border and killed 15 people. But the Pakistani military took no action, he said.
According to Commander Malang, three helicopters flew into the Pakistani side of the border and one of them, carrying soldiers, landed. Soldiers who came out of the helicopter opened fire on people in the village, he said, while the other two helicopters hovered overhead.
The commander, who is based in the town of Wana, said he was not at the scene. He received the description via radio, he said. The soldiers “killed innocent people” in the village located adjacent to a security post of the Pakistani Frontier Corps. There was no way to immediately independently confirm the account of the Taliban leader.
The incursion of NATO and American aircraft and helicopters into Pakistan in so-called hot pursuit of Taliban militants is a contentious issue for Pakistan.
Publicly, the Pakistani authorities say their country’s sovereignty must be respected and always condemn such intrusions.
At the same time, Washington has become more vocal about increased attacks by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan to fight coalition forces.
There had been growing expectation among Pakistanis that NATO units would respond by attacking more forcefully into Pakistani territory.
The Angoor Adda area is on the border with Afghanistan, and its mud-walled compounds are known as a center of Taliban and Al Qaeda strength.
Sher Khan, a phone company employee in Angoor Adda, said in a telephone interview that 19 people were killed in the raid. He said most of the dead were women and children.
A Pakistani intelligence official in South Waziristan said in a telephone interview that a group of Taliban had crossed the border into Afghanistan before an attack late Tuesday. In response, the Afghan National Army called for air support, the intelligence official said, speaking in return for customary anonymity.
The NATO helicopters chased the Taliban militants across the border back into South Waziristan, according to the intelligence official’s account.
But the Taliban militants escaped, the official said.
Pir Zubair Shah reported from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan.
By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH and JANE PERLEZ | September 4, 2008
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Two helicopters carrying American-led international forces landed in a Pakistani village in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan in the early hours of Wednesday morning and the soldiers opened fire on villagers, killing seven people, according to a spokesman for the Pakistani military.
The account by the spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, broadcast on Pakistani television on Wednesday evening, described what appeared to be a first commando attack by NATO forces against the Taliban inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has lodged a “strong protest” to the American government and reserved the right of “self defense and retaliation,” the general said. Local residents said most of the dead were women and children but this could not be immediately confirmed.
The Bush administration has admonished Pakistan in recent months for not doing enough to curb attacks by the Taliban, who keep bases inside the Pakistani tribal region and cross the border to attack American and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
Coalition forces have sent missiles into the border region of Pakistan to strike against militants but commando operations by American forces into the tribal region have been under discussion in Washington. The action by the coalition forces Wednesday in the border village appeared to be an effort to stanch the Taliban raids.
According to an earlier description of the military action Wednesday given by a Taliban commander and local residents, the latest attack was aimed at three houses in the village of Jalal Khel in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan, near a known stronghold of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and less than a mile from the border with Afghanistan.
The governor of the North-West Frontier Province, Owais Ahmed Ghani, said the helicopter attack occurred at about 3 a.m. and killed 20 people.
The governor, the most powerful civilian leader in the province which abuts South Waziristan, condemned the attacks and called for retaliation by Pakistan.
An American military spokesman at Bagram airbase declined to comment on the reports. The spokesman did not deny that the attack had occurred. Often, a statement of no comment by American and NATO spokesmen in Afghanistan, where NATO and American forces are fighting militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, indicates that the coalition forces were involved in a cross-border attack.
General Abbas said the Pakistani military was angered by the coalition forces because it created “new problems” for the army in the region.
In a telephone interview, General Abbas said the soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force, which is made up of NATO and American forces, had created “new problems” for the Pakistani soldiers based along the border.
By killing civilians, General Abbas said there was now a great risk of an uprising by the tribesmen who supported the Pakistani soldiers in the border area. These tribesmen, who were opposed to the Taliban and supportive of the Pakistani forces, would now be extremely angry, he said.
“Such action are completely counter productive and can result in huge losses because it gives the civilians a cause to rise against the Pakistani military,” he said.
The Taliban commander, known by the nom de guerre Commander Malang, said the attack took place close to a Pakistani military position on the border and killed 15 people. But the Pakistani military took no action, he said.
According to Commander Malang, three helicopters flew into the Pakistani side of the border and one of them, carrying soldiers, landed. Soldiers who came out of the helicopter opened fire on people in the village, he said, while the other two helicopters hovered overhead.
The commander, who is based in the town of Wana, said he was not at the scene. He received the description via radio, he said. The soldiers “killed innocent people” in the village located adjacent to a security post of the Pakistani Frontier Corps. There was no way to immediately independently confirm the account of the Taliban leader.
The incursion of NATO and American aircraft and helicopters into Pakistan in so-called hot pursuit of Taliban militants is a contentious issue for Pakistan.
Publicly, the Pakistani authorities say their country’s sovereignty must be respected and always condemn such intrusions.
At the same time, Washington has become more vocal about increased attacks by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan to fight coalition forces.
There had been growing expectation among Pakistanis that NATO units would respond by attacking more forcefully into Pakistani territory.
The Angoor Adda area is on the border with Afghanistan, and its mud-walled compounds are known as a center of Taliban and Al Qaeda strength.
Sher Khan, a phone company employee in Angoor Adda, said in a telephone interview that 19 people were killed in the raid. He said most of the dead were women and children.
A Pakistani intelligence official in South Waziristan said in a telephone interview that a group of Taliban had crossed the border into Afghanistan before an attack late Tuesday. In response, the Afghan National Army called for air support, the intelligence official said, speaking in return for customary anonymity.
The NATO helicopters chased the Taliban militants across the border back into South Waziristan, according to the intelligence official’s account.
But the Taliban militants escaped, the official said.
Pir Zubair Shah reported from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan.
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NATO,
Pakistan,
Taliban
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AP : Pakistan accuses foreign troops in civilian deaths
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Pakistan accuses foreign troops in civilian deaths
September 3, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's government says a cross-border raid involving U.S.-led or NATO forces killed several civilians in a village near the Afghan border.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry described the raid in the South Waziristan region as a ground attack supported by air assets based in Afghanistan.
It said the attack caused "immense loss of civilian life" and called it a "gross violation" of Pakistani territory.
The statement said such strikes undermine joint efforts to fight terrorism.
South Waziristan is considered a militant stronghold, and the U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crackdown on insurgents who use it as a base to stage attacks inside Afghanistan.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Women and children were among 15 people killed in an attack Wednesday involving U.S.-led forces in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan, officials and a resident said.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said it had "no information to give" about the alleged operation, while a spokesman for NATO troops there denied any involvement.
The United States and Pakistan, allies in the war on terror, have had tensions over cross-border attacks, including a series of suspected American missile strikes which have killed two senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistani territory this year.
Officials gave differing accounts of the pre-dawn raid in the South Waziristan region, part of the tribal belt where officials suspect Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri are hiding. It was unclear whether any militant leaders had been killed or captured.
The governor of North West Frontier Province, the chief administrator for the tribal belt, said three coalition helicopter gunships and commandos carried out an "outrageous" attack on a village.
"At least 20 innocent civilians of Pakistan including women and children were martyred," Gov. Owais Ahmed Ghani said in a statement.
However, Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar told reporters in Lahore that homes near the border had been attacked by NATO aircraft and made no mention of ground forces.
Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said it also had reports that 15 people, including women and children, died in the attack near Angoor Ada, a town in South Waziristan.
Officials said both the army and the Foreign Ministry were investigating.
Habib Khan Wazir, an area resident, said the incident occurred in a village called Musa Nikow. Wazir said he heard the sound of helicopters and then an exchange of fire between the assailants and other residents.
"Later, I saw 15 bodies inside and outside two homes. They had been shot in the head," Wazir told an AP reporter by telephone.
He said the dead included women and children and that all were civilians. He claimed that the attackers were American and Afghan troops, and didn't know if any of them had been wounded.
"There was darkness at the time when the Americans came and killed our innocent people," Wazir said. "We would have not allowed them to go back alive if they had come to our village in daylight."
He said the funerals of the slain people would be held in the village later Wednesday.
The U.S. embassy in Islamabad declined to comment.
American officials say Pakistan's tribal regions along the Afghan border have turned into havens for al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants involved in attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. South Waziristan is the base for Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud.
The U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crack down on the militancy inside its territory, and there have been debates in Washington over how far the U.S. can go in carrying out its own strikes.
AP reported last year that U.S. rules of engagement allowed ground forces to go a little over six miles into Pakistan when in hot pursuit, and when forces were targeted or fired on by the enemy. U.S. rules allow aircraft to go 10 miles into Pakistan air space.
Pakistani officials protest that cross-border strikes are a violation of their sovereignty. They plead with U.S. and NATO commanders to share intelligence and allow Pakistani troops to carry out all raids on their territory.
Relations took a hit earlier this year when Pakistan said coalition aircraft bombed one of its border posts, killing 11 troops.
However, the civilian government has also taken a tough line against militants, and sought to persuade a skeptical public that security forces are fighting Islamic extremists for Pakistan's sake, not for Washington.
Ghani, who was appointed governor under ousted ex-President Pervez Musharraf and is expected to be replaced shortly, said Wednesday's incident was a "direct assault" on Pakistan.
"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," he said in a statement.
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul contributed to this report.
September 3, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's government says a cross-border raid involving U.S.-led or NATO forces killed several civilians in a village near the Afghan border.
A statement from the Foreign Ministry described the raid in the South Waziristan region as a ground attack supported by air assets based in Afghanistan.
It said the attack caused "immense loss of civilian life" and called it a "gross violation" of Pakistani territory.
The statement said such strikes undermine joint efforts to fight terrorism.
South Waziristan is considered a militant stronghold, and the U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crackdown on insurgents who use it as a base to stage attacks inside Afghanistan.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — Women and children were among 15 people killed in an attack Wednesday involving U.S.-led forces in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan, officials and a resident said.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said it had "no information to give" about the alleged operation, while a spokesman for NATO troops there denied any involvement.
The United States and Pakistan, allies in the war on terror, have had tensions over cross-border attacks, including a series of suspected American missile strikes which have killed two senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistani territory this year.
Officials gave differing accounts of the pre-dawn raid in the South Waziristan region, part of the tribal belt where officials suspect Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri are hiding. It was unclear whether any militant leaders had been killed or captured.
The governor of North West Frontier Province, the chief administrator for the tribal belt, said three coalition helicopter gunships and commandos carried out an "outrageous" attack on a village.
"At least 20 innocent civilians of Pakistan including women and children were martyred," Gov. Owais Ahmed Ghani said in a statement.
However, Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar told reporters in Lahore that homes near the border had been attacked by NATO aircraft and made no mention of ground forces.
Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said it also had reports that 15 people, including women and children, died in the attack near Angoor Ada, a town in South Waziristan.
Officials said both the army and the Foreign Ministry were investigating.
Habib Khan Wazir, an area resident, said the incident occurred in a village called Musa Nikow. Wazir said he heard the sound of helicopters and then an exchange of fire between the assailants and other residents.
"Later, I saw 15 bodies inside and outside two homes. They had been shot in the head," Wazir told an AP reporter by telephone.
He said the dead included women and children and that all were civilians. He claimed that the attackers were American and Afghan troops, and didn't know if any of them had been wounded.
"There was darkness at the time when the Americans came and killed our innocent people," Wazir said. "We would have not allowed them to go back alive if they had come to our village in daylight."
He said the funerals of the slain people would be held in the village later Wednesday.
The U.S. embassy in Islamabad declined to comment.
American officials say Pakistan's tribal regions along the Afghan border have turned into havens for al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants involved in attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. South Waziristan is the base for Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud.
The U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crack down on the militancy inside its territory, and there have been debates in Washington over how far the U.S. can go in carrying out its own strikes.
AP reported last year that U.S. rules of engagement allowed ground forces to go a little over six miles into Pakistan when in hot pursuit, and when forces were targeted or fired on by the enemy. U.S. rules allow aircraft to go 10 miles into Pakistan air space.
Pakistani officials protest that cross-border strikes are a violation of their sovereignty. They plead with U.S. and NATO commanders to share intelligence and allow Pakistani troops to carry out all raids on their territory.
Relations took a hit earlier this year when Pakistan said coalition aircraft bombed one of its border posts, killing 11 troops.
However, the civilian government has also taken a tough line against militants, and sought to persuade a skeptical public that security forces are fighting Islamic extremists for Pakistan's sake, not for Washington.
Ghani, who was appointed governor under ousted ex-President Pervez Musharraf and is expected to be replaced shortly, said Wednesday's incident was a "direct assault" on Pakistan.
"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," he said in a statement.
Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul contributed to this report.
Filed under
Afghanistan,
civilian casualties,
NATO,
Pakistan
by Winter Patriot
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WaPo : 10 French Soldiers Killed by Taliban
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
10 French Soldiers Killed by Taliban
Fighters in Afghanistan Also Target NATO Base
By Candace Rondeaux | Washington Post Foreign Service | August 20, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 19 -- In unusually large and well-coordinated attacks in eastern Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents killed 10 French paratroopers in a mountain road ambush and at least six suicide bombers attempted to storm a NATO alliance base, NATO and Afghan officials said Tuesday.
The ambush, the deadliest single attack on the French military since 1983, led French President Nicolas Sarkozy to fly to Afghanistan to offer condolences and emphasize that France would stay in the war despite public misgivings at home. France recently sent 700 more soldiers to the country.
In the Afghan war, high death counts among international troops have usually been the result of aircraft being shot down or cleverly placed bombs. Monday's attack on the French, however, was carried out by massed Taliban fighters. Likewise, suicide attacks are normally the work of lone bombers, but at the NATO base, six came together.
As violence in Iraq has settled down in the past year, it has been on the upswing in Afghanistan, with the Taliban showing increasing boldness and sophistication. In the last three months, more foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq, making this year one of the most lethal since U.S.-led military operations began in Afghanistan in 2001.
The fighting with the French began late Monday afternoon when about 100 insurgents ambushed a French-led reconnaissance patrol near the town of Sarobi, about 40 miles east of Kabul, according to French and NATO officials. Shortly after the ambush, air support and a quick-reaction force of NATO and Afghan soldiers were sent to reinforce the French patrol, which also suffered 21 wounded.
Gen. Mohammed Zaher Azimi, chief spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said at least 13 insurgents were killed and 14 were injured in the exchanges. Azimi said that heavy fighting continued well into Tuesday morning but that NATO and Afghan soldiers were close to clearing the area of insurgents by late afternoon.
The death toll was the highest the French armed forces had suffered anywhere in a single incident since 1983, when 58 troops died in a suicide attack in Beirut carried out in tandem with one that killed 241 U.S. service members.
The NATO base that the suicide bombers targeted was in Khost province. On Monday, a car bomb was detonated outside the base, killing 10 Afghans and wounding 13. A second car bomb was seized before it went off, NATO said. On Tuesday, insurgents followed up with a second attack.
Arsala Jamal, governor of Khost province, said he believed that as many as 10 suicide bombers may have taken part in Tuesday's assault. By his account, the trouble began when 10 to 15 Taliban fighters were seen approaching the base, known as Camp Salerno. NATO troops repelled them with heavy gunfire from the ground and helicopters, Jamal said.
Three of the bombers were killed when they detonated vests laden with explosives, the alliance said, and three others were fatally shot before they could set off their bombs. No NATO casualties were reported.
France has about 1,670 troops in Afghanistan, NATO officials said. Sarkozy agreed to augment his forces there in March after the United States called on its allies in NATO to step up their involvement in the military mission. The war is unpopular in many European NATO countries, where polls show people seeing no end to a conflict that is taking an ever-higher cost.
On Tuesday, Sarkozy said in a statement that the attack would not diminish France's support for the war in Afghanistan. "My determination is intact," he said. "France is determined to continue the struggle against terrorism for democracy and freedom. The cause is just."
Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, expressed sorrow over the losses. "This is a difficult time right now for the families and friends of those who died or were injured," Blanchette said in a statement. "The lives of these soldiers are irreplaceable, but this loss does not deter ISAF from supporting the people of Afghanistan in their fight against the enemies of peace and stability."
The battle on the outskirts of Kabul occurred amid increasing concern that Taliban insurgents were preparing a major attack on the capital itself. Insurgents have mounted several serious attacks on NATO and Afghan soldiers as well as civilians in areas near the eastern, western and southern edges of the city in recent months. Several rockets have been fired at the city.
The increased fighting has raised the international death toll. The Associated Press found that at least 44 international troops died in Afghanistan in June, compared to about 30 in Iraq
And, last week, three Western aid workers were killed by Taliban fighters who ambushed their marked convoy in Logar province, about 40 miles south of Kabul. The incident prompted the aid agency, the International Rescue Committee, to temporarily suspend its operations in the region.
Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said the mission's head, Kai Eide, recently met with several nongovernmental organizations to discuss growing security concerns in the region. In an effort to help minimize the threat to aid workers on highways, the United Nations has decided to increase the number of seats available to workers with such groups on its flights across the country, Siddique said. "We haven't seen this many security incidents since 2001," he said. "The security challenge we face is increasing."
Siddique added that Afghan security forces appear to be stepping up to the challenge. Noting the deployment Monday of about 7,000 Afghan soldiers and police in and around Kabul because of Independence Day celebrations, Siddique said increased involvement of Afghan forces appears to be helping to buttress the capital's defenses.
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.
Fighters in Afghanistan Also Target NATO Base
By Candace Rondeaux | Washington Post Foreign Service | August 20, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 19 -- In unusually large and well-coordinated attacks in eastern Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents killed 10 French paratroopers in a mountain road ambush and at least six suicide bombers attempted to storm a NATO alliance base, NATO and Afghan officials said Tuesday.
The ambush, the deadliest single attack on the French military since 1983, led French President Nicolas Sarkozy to fly to Afghanistan to offer condolences and emphasize that France would stay in the war despite public misgivings at home. France recently sent 700 more soldiers to the country.
In the Afghan war, high death counts among international troops have usually been the result of aircraft being shot down or cleverly placed bombs. Monday's attack on the French, however, was carried out by massed Taliban fighters. Likewise, suicide attacks are normally the work of lone bombers, but at the NATO base, six came together.
As violence in Iraq has settled down in the past year, it has been on the upswing in Afghanistan, with the Taliban showing increasing boldness and sophistication. In the last three months, more foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq, making this year one of the most lethal since U.S.-led military operations began in Afghanistan in 2001.
The fighting with the French began late Monday afternoon when about 100 insurgents ambushed a French-led reconnaissance patrol near the town of Sarobi, about 40 miles east of Kabul, according to French and NATO officials. Shortly after the ambush, air support and a quick-reaction force of NATO and Afghan soldiers were sent to reinforce the French patrol, which also suffered 21 wounded.
Gen. Mohammed Zaher Azimi, chief spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said at least 13 insurgents were killed and 14 were injured in the exchanges. Azimi said that heavy fighting continued well into Tuesday morning but that NATO and Afghan soldiers were close to clearing the area of insurgents by late afternoon.
The death toll was the highest the French armed forces had suffered anywhere in a single incident since 1983, when 58 troops died in a suicide attack in Beirut carried out in tandem with one that killed 241 U.S. service members.
The NATO base that the suicide bombers targeted was in Khost province. On Monday, a car bomb was detonated outside the base, killing 10 Afghans and wounding 13. A second car bomb was seized before it went off, NATO said. On Tuesday, insurgents followed up with a second attack.
Arsala Jamal, governor of Khost province, said he believed that as many as 10 suicide bombers may have taken part in Tuesday's assault. By his account, the trouble began when 10 to 15 Taliban fighters were seen approaching the base, known as Camp Salerno. NATO troops repelled them with heavy gunfire from the ground and helicopters, Jamal said.
Three of the bombers were killed when they detonated vests laden with explosives, the alliance said, and three others were fatally shot before they could set off their bombs. No NATO casualties were reported.
France has about 1,670 troops in Afghanistan, NATO officials said. Sarkozy agreed to augment his forces there in March after the United States called on its allies in NATO to step up their involvement in the military mission. The war is unpopular in many European NATO countries, where polls show people seeing no end to a conflict that is taking an ever-higher cost.
On Tuesday, Sarkozy said in a statement that the attack would not diminish France's support for the war in Afghanistan. "My determination is intact," he said. "France is determined to continue the struggle against terrorism for democracy and freedom. The cause is just."
Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, expressed sorrow over the losses. "This is a difficult time right now for the families and friends of those who died or were injured," Blanchette said in a statement. "The lives of these soldiers are irreplaceable, but this loss does not deter ISAF from supporting the people of Afghanistan in their fight against the enemies of peace and stability."
The battle on the outskirts of Kabul occurred amid increasing concern that Taliban insurgents were preparing a major attack on the capital itself. Insurgents have mounted several serious attacks on NATO and Afghan soldiers as well as civilians in areas near the eastern, western and southern edges of the city in recent months. Several rockets have been fired at the city.
The increased fighting has raised the international death toll. The Associated Press found that at least 44 international troops died in Afghanistan in June, compared to about 30 in Iraq
And, last week, three Western aid workers were killed by Taliban fighters who ambushed their marked convoy in Logar province, about 40 miles south of Kabul. The incident prompted the aid agency, the International Rescue Committee, to temporarily suspend its operations in the region.
Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said the mission's head, Kai Eide, recently met with several nongovernmental organizations to discuss growing security concerns in the region. In an effort to help minimize the threat to aid workers on highways, the United Nations has decided to increase the number of seats available to workers with such groups on its flights across the country, Siddique said. "We haven't seen this many security incidents since 2001," he said. "The security challenge we face is increasing."
Siddique added that Afghan security forces appear to be stepping up to the challenge. Noting the deployment Monday of about 7,000 Afghan soldiers and police in and around Kabul because of Independence Day celebrations, Siddique said increased involvement of Afghan forces appears to be helping to buttress the capital's defenses.
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.
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France,
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WSJ : NATO Statement on Georgia Conflict
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Statement on Georgia Conflict
From NATO Foreign Ministers | August 19, 2008
Meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Foreign Ministers held at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, on 19 August 2008
The North Atlantic Council met in special Ministerial session on 19 August 2008, expressed its grave concern over the situation in Georgia and discussed its wider implications for Euro-Atlantic stability and security. A peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict in Georgia must be based on full respect for the principles of Georgia's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity recognised by international law and UN Security Council resolutions. We deplore all loss of life, civilian casualties, and damage to civilian infrastructure that has resulted from the conflict. We are assisting humanitarian relief efforts. We met with the Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Alexander Stubb, to discuss the key issues which he believed needed to be addressed.
We welcome the agreement reached and signed by Georgia and Russia, through the diplomatic efforts of the European Union, the OSCE and the US, to end the hostilities and to bring about a political solution to the conflict. We stand fully behind these efforts. We stress the urgency of swift, complete, and good faith implementation of the agreement, including a new international mechanism to monitor respect for these engagements. Military action must cease definitively and military forces must return to their positions held prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Fully international discussions must begin on the modalities for security and stability in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Economic activity in Georgia, including international aviation and shipping, must not be hindered.
We are gravely concerned by the humanitarian situation. Allied governments are working together, and in concert with international organisations and others in the international community, to ensure that the civilian populations affected by the conflict have the assistance they need to meet immediate and ongoing humanitarian needs. We call on all parties, in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law, to ensure access for international humanitarian relief efforts to all affected populations.
We have also agreed today to support Georgia, upon its request, in a number of areas. In addition, we have agreed to task the North Atlantic Council in Permanent Session to develop with Georgia rapidly the modalities for a NATO-Georgia Commission. This Commission will supervise the process set in hand at Bucharest, including the measures of support agreed at today's meeting. These measures are intended to assist Georgia, a valued and long-standing Partner of NATO, to assess the damage caused by the military action and to help restore critical services necessary for normal public life and economic activity. Georgia's recovery, security and stability are important to the Alliance. NATO will continue to cooperate with Georgia in the framework of the Partnership for Peace and Georgia's Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO, and will review any additional Georgian requests for assistance. We also welcomed the fact that a number of our governments have indicated that they will actively support measures to help the economic reconstruction of Georgia.
The conflict between Georgia and Russia has compromised regional stability and security. We deeply deplore the use of force in the conflict between Georgia and Russia. We reiterate that there is no military solution to the unresolved conflicts. We remind all parties that peaceful conflict resolution is a key principle of the Partnership for Peace Framework Document.
We remain concerned by Russia's actions during this crisis and remind Russia of its responsibility for maintaining security and order in the areas where it exercises control, especially in light of continuing reports of Russia's deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure. Russian military action has been disproportionate and inconsistent with its peacekeeping role, as well as incompatible with the principles of peaceful conflict resolution set out in the Helsinki Final Act, the NATO-Russia Founding Act and the Rome Declaration. We call on Russia to take immediate action to withdraw its troops from the areas it is supposed to leave under the six-principle agreement signed by President Saakashvili and President Medvedev. The Alliance is considering seriously the implications of Russia's actions for the NATO-Russia relationship. In 2002, we established the NATO-Russia Council, a framework for discussions with Russia, including on issues that divide the Alliance and Russia. We have determined that we cannot continue with business as usual. We call on Moscow to demonstrate -- both in word and deed -- its continued commitment to the principles upon which we agreed to base our relationship.
We reaffirmed our commitment to the decisions taken by Heads of State and Government at the Bucharest Summit in April 2008, including those regarding Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations, and we will continue our intensive engagement with Georgia to address in December the questions pertaining to its Membership Action Plan application, taking into account developments until that time.
Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
From NATO Foreign Ministers | August 19, 2008
Meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of Foreign Ministers held at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, on 19 August 2008
The North Atlantic Council met in special Ministerial session on 19 August 2008, expressed its grave concern over the situation in Georgia and discussed its wider implications for Euro-Atlantic stability and security. A peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict in Georgia must be based on full respect for the principles of Georgia's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity recognised by international law and UN Security Council resolutions. We deplore all loss of life, civilian casualties, and damage to civilian infrastructure that has resulted from the conflict. We are assisting humanitarian relief efforts. We met with the Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Alexander Stubb, to discuss the key issues which he believed needed to be addressed.
We welcome the agreement reached and signed by Georgia and Russia, through the diplomatic efforts of the European Union, the OSCE and the US, to end the hostilities and to bring about a political solution to the conflict. We stand fully behind these efforts. We stress the urgency of swift, complete, and good faith implementation of the agreement, including a new international mechanism to monitor respect for these engagements. Military action must cease definitively and military forces must return to their positions held prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Fully international discussions must begin on the modalities for security and stability in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Economic activity in Georgia, including international aviation and shipping, must not be hindered.
We are gravely concerned by the humanitarian situation. Allied governments are working together, and in concert with international organisations and others in the international community, to ensure that the civilian populations affected by the conflict have the assistance they need to meet immediate and ongoing humanitarian needs. We call on all parties, in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law, to ensure access for international humanitarian relief efforts to all affected populations.
We have also agreed today to support Georgia, upon its request, in a number of areas. In addition, we have agreed to task the North Atlantic Council in Permanent Session to develop with Georgia rapidly the modalities for a NATO-Georgia Commission. This Commission will supervise the process set in hand at Bucharest, including the measures of support agreed at today's meeting. These measures are intended to assist Georgia, a valued and long-standing Partner of NATO, to assess the damage caused by the military action and to help restore critical services necessary for normal public life and economic activity. Georgia's recovery, security and stability are important to the Alliance. NATO will continue to cooperate with Georgia in the framework of the Partnership for Peace and Georgia's Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO, and will review any additional Georgian requests for assistance. We also welcomed the fact that a number of our governments have indicated that they will actively support measures to help the economic reconstruction of Georgia.
The conflict between Georgia and Russia has compromised regional stability and security. We deeply deplore the use of force in the conflict between Georgia and Russia. We reiterate that there is no military solution to the unresolved conflicts. We remind all parties that peaceful conflict resolution is a key principle of the Partnership for Peace Framework Document.
We remain concerned by Russia's actions during this crisis and remind Russia of its responsibility for maintaining security and order in the areas where it exercises control, especially in light of continuing reports of Russia's deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure. Russian military action has been disproportionate and inconsistent with its peacekeeping role, as well as incompatible with the principles of peaceful conflict resolution set out in the Helsinki Final Act, the NATO-Russia Founding Act and the Rome Declaration. We call on Russia to take immediate action to withdraw its troops from the areas it is supposed to leave under the six-principle agreement signed by President Saakashvili and President Medvedev. The Alliance is considering seriously the implications of Russia's actions for the NATO-Russia relationship. In 2002, we established the NATO-Russia Council, a framework for discussions with Russia, including on issues that divide the Alliance and Russia. We have determined that we cannot continue with business as usual. We call on Moscow to demonstrate -- both in word and deed -- its continued commitment to the principles upon which we agreed to base our relationship.
We reaffirmed our commitment to the decisions taken by Heads of State and Government at the Bucharest Summit in April 2008, including those regarding Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations, and we will continue our intensive engagement with Georgia to address in December the questions pertaining to its Membership Action Plan application, taking into account developments until that time.
Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Dawn : Afghan interpreter killed as blast hits NATO troops
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Afghan interpreter killed as blast hits NATO troops
August 19, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug 19 (AFP): A bomb struck NATO soldiers in Afghanistan on Tuesday, with initial reports saying an interpreter was killed and troops had suffered casualties, an Afghan official and the force said.
The Taliban movement said its men had carried out the bombing which was caused by a roadside land mine.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed the blast in Kandahar province's Panjwayi district.
Panjwayi police chief Mohammad Isa said: “An Afghan interpreter has been killed and a soldier and a 12-year-old boy have been wounded.”
August 19, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Aug 19 (AFP): A bomb struck NATO soldiers in Afghanistan on Tuesday, with initial reports saying an interpreter was killed and troops had suffered casualties, an Afghan official and the force said.
The Taliban movement said its men had carried out the bombing which was caused by a roadside land mine.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed the blast in Kandahar province's Panjwayi district.
Panjwayi police chief Mohammad Isa said: “An Afghan interpreter has been killed and a soldier and a 12-year-old boy have been wounded.”
Filed under
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Mohammad Isa,
NATO,
Taliban
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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NYT : Pentagon Considers Adding Forces in Afghanistan
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Pentagon Considers Adding Forces in Afghanistan
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER | May 3, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said.
They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.
The planning began in recent weeks, reflecting a growing resignation to the fact that NATO is unable or unwilling to contribute more troops despite public pledges of an intensified effort in Afghanistan from the presidents and prime ministers who attended an alliance summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, last month.
The shortfalls in troop commitments have cast doubt on claims by President Bush and his aides that NATO was stepping up to provide more help in Afghanistan, where the government of President Hamid Karzai faces a resurgent threat from the Taliban and remnants of Al Qaeda.
The increasing proportion of United States troops, from about half to about two-thirds of the foreign troops in Afghanistan, would be likely to result in what one senior administration official described as “the re-Americanization” of the war.
“There are simply going to be more American forces than we’ve ever had there,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing future military planning.
A dozen NATO countries have pledged a total of about 2,000 troops, according to senior NATO officials, who provided the information on condition of anonymity according to standard diplomatic rules. Senior alliance commanders in Afghanistan have said they need about 10,000 more troops.
Only one country so far has actually begun preparing more troops to deploy: France, which is sending 700 to Afghanistan, NATO officials said.
Few of the additional troops are expected to arrive any time soon, the officials added.
Officials stressed that no formal new American deployment plans for Afghanistan had been presented to the Pentagon or the White House, and that the decision could be left to the next president, though they would not rule out the prospect that Mr. Bush would order a troop increase.
Mr. Bush has long faced criticism that the Iraq war distracted the country from confronting the Qaeda threat in Afghanistan, and Democrats as well as Republicans have expressed general support for shifting more attention to Afghanistan.
There are about 62,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about 34,000 of them American, up from just 25,000 American troops in 2005. The American troops are divided into a force of 16,000 who operate under NATO command and 18,000 who conduct counterterrorism and other missions under American command outside the NATO structure, according to Pentagon statistics. The initial planning under way would send about two additional brigades of American forces, or about 7,000 troops, to Afghanistan next year. That would meet two-thirds of what commanders have portrayed in recent months as a shortfall of three brigades, or about 10,000 troops, including combat forces, trainers, intelligence officers and crews for added helicopters and troop carriers.
Bush administration officials initially argued that NATO should fill that void, because the American military was overextended in Iraq. And publicly, the administration has remained mostly supportive of the alliance effort, with the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, declaring at the NATO meeting last month that in addressing the problems in Afghanistan, “NATO’s answer today is help is on the way.”
The weeks leading up to the meeting included intense lobbying to increase troop commitments and lift some restrictions on how national troops operate and where. Over a private dinner in Bucharest, Mr. Bush and other leaders listened to their counterparts make their pledges. Only France announced its pledge publicly.
According to an accounting of the pledges compiled by NATO officials at the end of the meeting, Georgia, whose application for a fast track to membership was rebuffed, pledged 500 troops. Poland pledged 400 in addition to the 1,000 there now to operate and maintain eight helicopters. The Czech Republic pledged 120 special operations soldiers.
Italy, Romania and Greece made promises for military or police training teams. Azerbaijan, not a member of NATO, offered to more than double its current force, adding 45 troops. New Zealand offered “a modest increase” to support a civil provincial reconstruction team. Two other nations promised to consider contributions but asked NATO leaders not to disclose their pledges because of their domestic political situations.
The results of the NATO session disappointed commanders in Afghanistan. A NATO military spokesman issued a diplomatically worded statement this week. “In the run-up to and during the Bucharest meeting, nations added extra contributions,” the statement from Kabul said. “However, shortfalls still exist.”
Julianne Smith, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan policy institute, said the meeting did not live up to the expectations or the public celebration during the session.
“If you look at what the NATO commanders got, it’s hard to see the silver lining,” she said.
As with previous shortfalls in NATO commitments, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates could be prompted to fill the void, perhaps deploying other American forces to replace the 3,200 marines who arrived in recent weeks in what was described as a one-time, seven-month stop-gap deployment.
Mr. Gates did say publicly last month that the United States was prepared to commit additional forces to Afghanistan in 2009, but he put no number on the anticipated American troop increase.
A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates made the announcement after consulting with Mr. Bush, arguing for a public statement that would prove to NATO allies that the United States remained wholly committed to the Afghan mission despite strains of the war in Iraq.
Senior officials said the 7,000 troops were about the most the American military could add to Afghanistan in 2009.
After the offensive to rout Al Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American forces steadily rose to about 5,000 by March of 2002, according to government statistics. American deployments increased to 16,000 by March of 2003, and then dropped for a year during the initial phase of combat in Iraq. The American commitment to Afghanistan rose again, to about 25,000, in 2005.
Officials said preliminary discussions were under way within the Pentagon as to whether, and how, the command structure in Afghanistan might be altered to fit the new reality of a greater American presence. But officials stressed that these talks were also in their initial stages.
Representative Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington who recently toured Afghanistan, complained that NATO’s commitment was “still not what it should be.” But he praised the deployment of the 3,200 marines, who have been operating in volatile areas near Kandahar. “That is potentially a game changer,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Bush, at a Rose Garden news conference this week, appeared to be laying the groundwork for a long-term mission in Afghanistan.
“I wish we had completely eliminated the radicals who kill innocent people to achieve objectives, but that hasn’t happened yet,” he said Tuesday. “And so I think it’s very much in our interests to continue helping the young democracy. And we will.”
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER | May 3, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said.
They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.
The planning began in recent weeks, reflecting a growing resignation to the fact that NATO is unable or unwilling to contribute more troops despite public pledges of an intensified effort in Afghanistan from the presidents and prime ministers who attended an alliance summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, last month.
The shortfalls in troop commitments have cast doubt on claims by President Bush and his aides that NATO was stepping up to provide more help in Afghanistan, where the government of President Hamid Karzai faces a resurgent threat from the Taliban and remnants of Al Qaeda.
The increasing proportion of United States troops, from about half to about two-thirds of the foreign troops in Afghanistan, would be likely to result in what one senior administration official described as “the re-Americanization” of the war.
“There are simply going to be more American forces than we’ve ever had there,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing future military planning.
A dozen NATO countries have pledged a total of about 2,000 troops, according to senior NATO officials, who provided the information on condition of anonymity according to standard diplomatic rules. Senior alliance commanders in Afghanistan have said they need about 10,000 more troops.
Only one country so far has actually begun preparing more troops to deploy: France, which is sending 700 to Afghanistan, NATO officials said.
Few of the additional troops are expected to arrive any time soon, the officials added.
Officials stressed that no formal new American deployment plans for Afghanistan had been presented to the Pentagon or the White House, and that the decision could be left to the next president, though they would not rule out the prospect that Mr. Bush would order a troop increase.
Mr. Bush has long faced criticism that the Iraq war distracted the country from confronting the Qaeda threat in Afghanistan, and Democrats as well as Republicans have expressed general support for shifting more attention to Afghanistan.
There are about 62,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about 34,000 of them American, up from just 25,000 American troops in 2005. The American troops are divided into a force of 16,000 who operate under NATO command and 18,000 who conduct counterterrorism and other missions under American command outside the NATO structure, according to Pentagon statistics. The initial planning under way would send about two additional brigades of American forces, or about 7,000 troops, to Afghanistan next year. That would meet two-thirds of what commanders have portrayed in recent months as a shortfall of three brigades, or about 10,000 troops, including combat forces, trainers, intelligence officers and crews for added helicopters and troop carriers.
Bush administration officials initially argued that NATO should fill that void, because the American military was overextended in Iraq. And publicly, the administration has remained mostly supportive of the alliance effort, with the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, declaring at the NATO meeting last month that in addressing the problems in Afghanistan, “NATO’s answer today is help is on the way.”
The weeks leading up to the meeting included intense lobbying to increase troop commitments and lift some restrictions on how national troops operate and where. Over a private dinner in Bucharest, Mr. Bush and other leaders listened to their counterparts make their pledges. Only France announced its pledge publicly.
According to an accounting of the pledges compiled by NATO officials at the end of the meeting, Georgia, whose application for a fast track to membership was rebuffed, pledged 500 troops. Poland pledged 400 in addition to the 1,000 there now to operate and maintain eight helicopters. The Czech Republic pledged 120 special operations soldiers.
Italy, Romania and Greece made promises for military or police training teams. Azerbaijan, not a member of NATO, offered to more than double its current force, adding 45 troops. New Zealand offered “a modest increase” to support a civil provincial reconstruction team. Two other nations promised to consider contributions but asked NATO leaders not to disclose their pledges because of their domestic political situations.
The results of the NATO session disappointed commanders in Afghanistan. A NATO military spokesman issued a diplomatically worded statement this week. “In the run-up to and during the Bucharest meeting, nations added extra contributions,” the statement from Kabul said. “However, shortfalls still exist.”
Julianne Smith, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan policy institute, said the meeting did not live up to the expectations or the public celebration during the session.
“If you look at what the NATO commanders got, it’s hard to see the silver lining,” she said.
As with previous shortfalls in NATO commitments, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates could be prompted to fill the void, perhaps deploying other American forces to replace the 3,200 marines who arrived in recent weeks in what was described as a one-time, seven-month stop-gap deployment.
Mr. Gates did say publicly last month that the United States was prepared to commit additional forces to Afghanistan in 2009, but he put no number on the anticipated American troop increase.
A senior Pentagon official said Mr. Gates made the announcement after consulting with Mr. Bush, arguing for a public statement that would prove to NATO allies that the United States remained wholly committed to the Afghan mission despite strains of the war in Iraq.
Senior officials said the 7,000 troops were about the most the American military could add to Afghanistan in 2009.
After the offensive to rout Al Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American forces steadily rose to about 5,000 by March of 2002, according to government statistics. American deployments increased to 16,000 by March of 2003, and then dropped for a year during the initial phase of combat in Iraq. The American commitment to Afghanistan rose again, to about 25,000, in 2005.
Officials said preliminary discussions were under way within the Pentagon as to whether, and how, the command structure in Afghanistan might be altered to fit the new reality of a greater American presence. But officials stressed that these talks were also in their initial stages.
Representative Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington who recently toured Afghanistan, complained that NATO’s commitment was “still not what it should be.” But he praised the deployment of the 3,200 marines, who have been operating in volatile areas near Kandahar. “That is potentially a game changer,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Bush, at a Rose Garden news conference this week, appeared to be laying the groundwork for a long-term mission in Afghanistan.
“I wish we had completely eliminated the radicals who kill innocent people to achieve objectives, but that hasn’t happened yet,” he said Tuesday. “And so I think it’s very much in our interests to continue helping the young democracy. And we will.”
NYT : Panel Questions Canadian Role in Afghanistan
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Panel Questions Canadian Role in Afghanistan
By IAN AUSTEN | January 23, 2008
OTTAWA — A government panel said Tuesday that the Canadian military should withdraw from a combat role in Afghanistan next year unless it is reinforced with 1,000 additional troops from other NATO countries.
Canadians are divided about the role their military should play in Afghanistan after legislative approval for the country’s current combat mission in the province of Kandahar ends in February 2009. The deaths of a diplomat and 77 soldiers, most of which have occurred since mid-2006, have caused some politicians to call for a return to a reconstruction role or even a complete troop withdrawal.
Canada has a combat force of about 2,400 soldiers in the country.
The report from the panel, a five-member group led by John Manley, a lawyer and former deputy prime minister, emphasized the importance of continuing the Canadian combat mission. But it also echoed popular resentment in Canada that other NATO countries are sending troops to the region under orders to avoid combat.
“We are going to need to see more troops in Kandahar Province or this mission will not succeed,” Mr. Manley told reporters after giving the report to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative who appointed the panel. “We’ve heard it again and again: ‘This is NATO’s most important mission.’ Well, it’s time for the rhetoric to end.”
During their three months of study, the panel members said, they heard criticism of the efforts of some other NATO countries, including comments from unidentified NATO commanders.
Some countries, the panel said in the report, notably the United States, Britain and Canada, “have borne more than a proportionate share of war fighting in Afghanistan.”
Mr. Harper, who has suggested that Canada should stay at least until 2011, said he would study the report. Canada’s Parliament, where no opposition party favors extending the combat mission, will vote on the country’s next move, probably by this spring.
By IAN AUSTEN | January 23, 2008
OTTAWA — A government panel said Tuesday that the Canadian military should withdraw from a combat role in Afghanistan next year unless it is reinforced with 1,000 additional troops from other NATO countries.
Canadians are divided about the role their military should play in Afghanistan after legislative approval for the country’s current combat mission in the province of Kandahar ends in February 2009. The deaths of a diplomat and 77 soldiers, most of which have occurred since mid-2006, have caused some politicians to call for a return to a reconstruction role or even a complete troop withdrawal.
Canada has a combat force of about 2,400 soldiers in the country.
The report from the panel, a five-member group led by John Manley, a lawyer and former deputy prime minister, emphasized the importance of continuing the Canadian combat mission. But it also echoed popular resentment in Canada that other NATO countries are sending troops to the region under orders to avoid combat.
“We are going to need to see more troops in Kandahar Province or this mission will not succeed,” Mr. Manley told reporters after giving the report to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative who appointed the panel. “We’ve heard it again and again: ‘This is NATO’s most important mission.’ Well, it’s time for the rhetoric to end.”
During their three months of study, the panel members said, they heard criticism of the efforts of some other NATO countries, including comments from unidentified NATO commanders.
Some countries, the panel said in the report, notably the United States, Britain and Canada, “have borne more than a proportionate share of war fighting in Afghanistan.”
Mr. Harper, who has suggested that Canada should stay at least until 2011, said he would study the report. Canada’s Parliament, where no opposition party favors extending the combat mission, will vote on the country’s next move, probably by this spring.
Filed under
Afghanistan,
Canada,
lawyers,
NATO
by Winter Patriot
on Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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Guardian : Gates Doubts Europeans' War Commitment
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Gates Doubts Europeans' War Commitment
By ROBERT BURNS | AP Military Writer | October 25, 2007
HEIDELBERG, Germany (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday questioned the commitment of some NATO allies to winning in Afghanistan, saying the outcome there is at "real risk" because some European nations are unwilling to provide enough troops and resources to the mission.
"In Afghanistan a handful of allies are paying the price and bearing the burdens," he told a conference of army leaders from 38 European nations organized by the chief of U.S. Army Europe.
"The failure to meet commitments puts the Afghan mission - and with it, the credibility of NATO - at real risk," he added in remarks that were notably critical of European governments that have been close security, political and economic partners of the United States for more than five decades.
He also said restrictions that some allies put on how and where their troops can operate in Afghanistan have unfairly burdened other coalition partners and "done real harm" to the overall war effort.
The United States has 26,000 troops in Afghanistan and the non-U.S. total is 23,000. For the past year, NATO has had overall command of the forces, other than 13,000 U.S. troops doing counterterrorism missions. In that period, violence led by the Taliban has increased, although Gates said NATO should take credit for blunting a spring offensive by the Taliban, especially in the south.
Gates spoke hours after leaving a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, where U.S.-led efforts to provide sufficient troops for the Afghanistan mission was a central topic.
His audience in Heidelberg included army chiefs from most NATO countries, plus their counterparts from other European nations. It was the first time an American secretary of defense had addressed the group, known as the Conference of European Armies. It also was the first time since the annual gatherings began in 1991 that reporters were allowed to cover part of the proceedings.
Gates said before the NATO session that he was not satisfied with the allies' efforts. In Heidelberg he was more direct and specific, telling the army chiefs that the stakes in Afghanistan are great.
"If an alliance of the world's greatest democracies cannot summon the will to get the job done in a mission that we agree is morally just and vital to our security," he told the European army generals, "then our citizens may begin to question both the worth of the mission and the utility of the 60-year-old trans-Atlantic security project itself," referring to NATO, which was created in 1949.
He cited one example that has been a particular irritant to Pentagon officials - the allies' failure to provide a small number of helicopters to perform a mission deemed essential by the overall commander in Afghanistan. In the meantime, the U.S. military has bridged that gap, though reluctantly.
"Consider that earlier this year the U.S. extended its aviation bridging force in Afghanistan - in Kandahar - because the mightiest and wealthiest military alliance in the history of the world was unable to produce 16 helicopters needed by the ISAF commander - 16," Gates said. He used the acronym for the International Security Assistance Force, which is the NATO-led group that commands coalition forces.
His remarks drew little reaction from the generals in his audience, who applauded politely when he finished. They chuckled when he recalled being surprised to find himself at a topless beach on the French island of Guadeloupe in 1978 as a member of an advance team sent from Washington to plan a NATO summit.
"Luckily, the Guadeloupe summit later went off without a problem, but I must admit, my notes from that seaside meeting were quite incomplete due to nearby distractions," he said with a laugh.
After his Heidelberg stop Gates headed back to Washington, completing a five-day trip that also took him to Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
By ROBERT BURNS | AP Military Writer | October 25, 2007
HEIDELBERG, Germany (AP) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday questioned the commitment of some NATO allies to winning in Afghanistan, saying the outcome there is at "real risk" because some European nations are unwilling to provide enough troops and resources to the mission.
"In Afghanistan a handful of allies are paying the price and bearing the burdens," he told a conference of army leaders from 38 European nations organized by the chief of U.S. Army Europe.
"The failure to meet commitments puts the Afghan mission - and with it, the credibility of NATO - at real risk," he added in remarks that were notably critical of European governments that have been close security, political and economic partners of the United States for more than five decades.
He also said restrictions that some allies put on how and where their troops can operate in Afghanistan have unfairly burdened other coalition partners and "done real harm" to the overall war effort.
The United States has 26,000 troops in Afghanistan and the non-U.S. total is 23,000. For the past year, NATO has had overall command of the forces, other than 13,000 U.S. troops doing counterterrorism missions. In that period, violence led by the Taliban has increased, although Gates said NATO should take credit for blunting a spring offensive by the Taliban, especially in the south.
Gates spoke hours after leaving a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, where U.S.-led efforts to provide sufficient troops for the Afghanistan mission was a central topic.
His audience in Heidelberg included army chiefs from most NATO countries, plus their counterparts from other European nations. It was the first time an American secretary of defense had addressed the group, known as the Conference of European Armies. It also was the first time since the annual gatherings began in 1991 that reporters were allowed to cover part of the proceedings.
Gates said before the NATO session that he was not satisfied with the allies' efforts. In Heidelberg he was more direct and specific, telling the army chiefs that the stakes in Afghanistan are great.
"If an alliance of the world's greatest democracies cannot summon the will to get the job done in a mission that we agree is morally just and vital to our security," he told the European army generals, "then our citizens may begin to question both the worth of the mission and the utility of the 60-year-old trans-Atlantic security project itself," referring to NATO, which was created in 1949.
He cited one example that has been a particular irritant to Pentagon officials - the allies' failure to provide a small number of helicopters to perform a mission deemed essential by the overall commander in Afghanistan. In the meantime, the U.S. military has bridged that gap, though reluctantly.
"Consider that earlier this year the U.S. extended its aviation bridging force in Afghanistan - in Kandahar - because the mightiest and wealthiest military alliance in the history of the world was unable to produce 16 helicopters needed by the ISAF commander - 16," Gates said. He used the acronym for the International Security Assistance Force, which is the NATO-led group that commands coalition forces.
His remarks drew little reaction from the generals in his audience, who applauded politely when he finished. They chuckled when he recalled being surprised to find himself at a topless beach on the French island of Guadeloupe in 1978 as a member of an advance team sent from Washington to plan a NATO summit.
"Luckily, the Guadeloupe summit later went off without a problem, but I must admit, my notes from that seaside meeting were quite incomplete due to nearby distractions," he said with a laugh.
After his Heidelberg stop Gates headed back to Washington, completing a five-day trip that also took him to Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
Filed under
Afghanistan,
NATO,
Robert Gates
by Winter Patriot
on Thursday, October 25, 2007
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