Sign to FREE SPC BRADLEY MANNING NOW!
Free SPC Bradley Manning, Arrested for Exposing U.S. War Crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan
End the Occupations Now
Stop the Murder and Abuse of Civilians by U.S. and NATO Military
Sign the Petition Now:
http://www.iacenter.org/iraq/freebradleymanning
A 22 year old U.S. soldier, Bradley Manning, has been arrested on suspicion of leaking classified combat video footage and secret documents to a whistle-blower website. SPC Manning, from Potomac, Maryland, is assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division and was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, located east of Baghdad. SPC Manning was arrested in Iraq and is currently being held in Kuwait pending further investigations. The WikiLeaks website posted a video which shows U.S. occupation forces shooting civilians on a Baghdad street during 2007.
The video, which was filmed by the U.S. military, shows a horrendous massacre of unarmed civilians on the ground by a helicopter gunship, accompanied by crude and insensitive remarks by the crew and ground troops associated with the assault. A Reuters reporter and two children were also wounded in the assault. The Pentagon has not questioned the validity or authenticity of the video.
Two U.S. soldiers who were part of the ground unit which took part in the attack, Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord, have written and published a letter of apology to the Iraqi people for their actions.
But those who are really responsible for this war crime, the U.S. military, far from apologizing have chosen to track down and arrest the person whom they believe released the video, Bradley Manning.
If Bradley Manning did courageously leak the video, he is to be commended for exposing a war crime, not punished. According to international law, and even the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), combatants are required to report violations of rules of combat outlined in the Geneva Conventions first laid down in 1950. And those rules of combat explicitly list the intentional shooting of unarmed civilians as a war crime.
At the Nuremberg trials in 1946, Nazi war criminals were tried and punished, not only for their own despicable acts, but for remaining silent while others committed atrocities. The operable phrase was "silence equals consent".
Many of the mainstream press and other apologists for U.S. and NATO wars and occupations have attacked Bradley Manning as a threat to national security because the video was classified. It has long been known that the U.S. government routinely classifies not only information directly associated with weapons and tactics, but anything that might make them look bad, or call into question their attempts to justify unjust wars and occupations.
There have also been reports that other classified documents and videos may have been released by Manning. The existence of such material shows that this case goes beyond a single war crime incident. It points to a broad program of criminal planning and conspiracy to commit or to cover up war crimes by the U.S. Military.
Progressive and peace-loving people everywhere must rally to defend Bradley Manning, and condemn the war crimes which he is accused of revealing.
Sign the Petition Now: http://www.iacenter.org/iraq/freebradleymanning
Petition Text:
To: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Dana K. Chipman, Congressional leaders, U.N. Secretary General Ban, members of the U.N. Security Council, U.N. member states
cc: Major media representatives, International Red Cross
Free Bradley Manning!!
End the Wars and Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Bring to Justice the U.S. Perpetrators of War Crimes, including the Pentagon
I am writing to demand that Bradley Manning, a courageous soldier deployed in Iraq, be immediately be released from custody, and that any and all charges against him be immediately dropped and that any administrative or military sanctions against him be suspended.
Bradley Manning is suspected of being responsible for the leak of a classified video filmed by the U.S. military, which shows in graphic detail the massacre of civilians by a U.S. helicopter gunship in Iraq in 2007.
Far from being punished, Bradley Manning should be commended. In fact, the Geneva Conventions of 1950, the Nuremberg war crimes trials of 1946, and even the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, not only permit, but require that violations of international law and the rules of engagement be reported. Silence equals consent!
U.S. and NATO troops who are sent to fight and occupy other countries are placed in an impossible situation. They are forced to fight and die in unjustified wars and inevitably many come to regard the entire population as their enemy.
I therefore further demand that the United States stop its aggressive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring the troops home immediately.
I also demand that a commission independent of the U.S. government or its allies be established to thoroughly and publicly investigate the events portrayed by the video allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning.
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts
14 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan Over Past Week
Eight U.S. Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan Firefight (Update2)
By Alan Katz and Jay Shankar, Bloomberg.com, Oct. 4, 2009
Eight U.S. soldiers and two Afghan troops died after militants in eastern Nuristan province attacked two outposts yesterday, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement today.
The deaths were the worst U.S. fatalities in a single engagement since July 2008, the Associated Press said.
Six other U.S. soldiers were killed in four separate incidents on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3, said Lieutenant Junior Grade Tommy Groves of the ISAF public affairs office in Kabul.
The total number of U.S. soldiers killed in and around Afghanistan as of 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Oct. 2 was 774, according a Defense Department Web site.
President Barack Obama on Sept. 30 met with top national- security and military advisers in the second of five meetings planned to decide on whether to bolster troop levels in Afghanistan by as many as 40,000 soldiers. He also met with Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen on Oct. 2.
The discussions over strategy come as public support in the U.S. for the war has slipped. Fifty-one percent of adults said the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth fighting and 46 percent said it was, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted Sept. 10 to Sept. 12. That findings reverse a March poll in which 56 percent said the war was worth fighting and 41 percent said it wasn’t.
Dawn Attack
Fighting in Nuristan began around dawn on Oct. 3 and lasted several hours, AP reported, citing Jamaludin Badar, governor of Nuristan province. Almost 300 insurgent fighters flooded the first outpost, manned by Afghan troops, then swept around it to reach the U.S. station on higher ground from both directions, the news service added, citing Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh, the provincial police chief.
Militants came from a nearby mosque and village, ISAF said in the statement. Groves, who declined to name the village, said that the fighting lasted most of the day.
“My heart goes out to the families of those we have lost and to their fellow soldiers who remained to finish this fight,” Colonel Randy George, commander of Task Force Mountain Warrior, said in the statement.
The U.S. and its allies are trying to push back the Taliban insurgency that is threatening the stability of Afghanistan and the fight against international terrorism.
The military situation in Afghanistan is “in some ways deteriorating,” and requires quick action from the U.S. and NATO to combat insurgents, McChrystal said in an Oct. 1 speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jay Shankar in Bangalore at jshankar1@bloomberg.net
By Alan Katz and Jay Shankar, Bloomberg.com, Oct. 4, 2009
Eight U.S. soldiers and two Afghan troops died after militants in eastern Nuristan province attacked two outposts yesterday, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement today.
The deaths were the worst U.S. fatalities in a single engagement since July 2008, the Associated Press said.
Six other U.S. soldiers were killed in four separate incidents on Oct. 2 and Oct. 3, said Lieutenant Junior Grade Tommy Groves of the ISAF public affairs office in Kabul.
The total number of U.S. soldiers killed in and around Afghanistan as of 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Oct. 2 was 774, according a Defense Department Web site.
President Barack Obama on Sept. 30 met with top national- security and military advisers in the second of five meetings planned to decide on whether to bolster troop levels in Afghanistan by as many as 40,000 soldiers. He also met with Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen on Oct. 2.
The discussions over strategy come as public support in the U.S. for the war has slipped. Fifty-one percent of adults said the war in Afghanistan wasn’t worth fighting and 46 percent said it was, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted Sept. 10 to Sept. 12. That findings reverse a March poll in which 56 percent said the war was worth fighting and 41 percent said it wasn’t.
Dawn Attack
Fighting in Nuristan began around dawn on Oct. 3 and lasted several hours, AP reported, citing Jamaludin Badar, governor of Nuristan province. Almost 300 insurgent fighters flooded the first outpost, manned by Afghan troops, then swept around it to reach the U.S. station on higher ground from both directions, the news service added, citing Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh, the provincial police chief.
Militants came from a nearby mosque and village, ISAF said in the statement. Groves, who declined to name the village, said that the fighting lasted most of the day.
“My heart goes out to the families of those we have lost and to their fellow soldiers who remained to finish this fight,” Colonel Randy George, commander of Task Force Mountain Warrior, said in the statement.
The U.S. and its allies are trying to push back the Taliban insurgency that is threatening the stability of Afghanistan and the fight against international terrorism.
The military situation in Afghanistan is “in some ways deteriorating,” and requires quick action from the U.S. and NATO to combat insurgents, McChrystal said in an Oct. 1 speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jay Shankar in Bangalore at jshankar1@bloomberg.net
U.S. troops stormed Afghan hospital, aid group says
CNN, Sept. 7, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. soldiers searched a hospital in central Afghanistan for Taliban fighters, tying up hospital guards and entering women's wards in violation of local customs, an aid worker said Monday.
The soldiers raided the hospital Wednesday night in Wardak province, said Anders Fange, the country director of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan.
The troops, from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, said they were looking for suspected Taliban fighters in the hospital, he said.
They tied up four hospital guards and searched patients' relatives, broke into the nutrition ward and ultrasound room, and searched the female ward of the hospital, according to the aid worker. He said the actions were disrespectful of Afghan culture.
He called the incident "simply not acceptable."
"It is not only a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict, but also a clear breach of the civil-military agreement between NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and ISAF," he said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
In a statement, the ISAF said it met Monday with staff at the medical clinic "to discuss the force's relationship with the clinic."
"Afghan National Police and International Security Assistance Forces entered the clinic on September 2, acting on a report that an insurgent commander was being treated on the premises," the statement said.
Assisted by ISAF troops, Afghan police searched the clinic to determine if the insurgent leader, who was suspected of being responsible for an earlier attack on a convoy in the area, was present, according to the statement. The ISAF said it informed the clinic staff of its reasons for entering the hospital.
Earlier, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, an ISAF spokeswoman, said the matter was under investigation. Any operation in the area would have been Afghan-led, supported by ISAF forces, she added. The U.S. Army does operate in the area.
The Swedish aid group reported the matter to Afghanistan's public health minister, who in turn was to take up the matter with the U.S. ambassador, Fange said.
The U.S. Embassy said it had heard of the allegations and was checking to see if the Ministry of Public Health had lodged a complaint or discussed the matter with American officials.
Fange said he is trying to arrange a meeting with a senior U.S. commander in Wardak province.
The Afghan Ministry of Public Health subcontracts aid groups in Afghanistan to provide what's called "Basic Package Health Services."
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan is responsible for Wardak province. The staff at the hospital work directly for the committee.
CNN's Ingrid Formanek and Wahid Mayar contributed to this report.
*************
International military violently entered SCA Hospital in Wardak
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, PRESS RELEASE, Kabul, September 6, 2009
On Wednesday evening September 2 at 10 pm coalition vehicles drove up at SCA’s Hospital in Shaniz, Wardak province along the main highway from Kabul to Ghazni. They entered the hospital compound, reportedly without giving any reason or justification for entering the hospital compound. They searched all rooms, even bathrooms, male and female wards. Rooms that were locked were forcefully entered and the doors of the malnutrition ward and the ultrasound ward were broken by force to gain entry. Upon entering the hospital they tied up four employees and two family members of patients at the hospital. SCA staffs as well as patients (even those in beds) were forced out of rooms/wards throughout the search.
On leaving the hospital at around 12 pm, IMF issued verbal "orders"/instructions; that on receiving any patient that could be an insurgent the hospital staff has to report to the Coalition Forces who would then determine if the hospital would be permitted or not of treating such patient.
“This is simply not acceptable. It is not only a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict but also a clear breach of the civil-military agreement between NGOs and ISAF. We demand guarantees from the IMF command that such violations will not be repeated and that this is made clear to commanders in the field. SCA can not and will not tolerate this kind of treatment by the IMF. Nor is the SCA bound by any orders from IMF regarding to whom treatment can be given” says Anders Fange, Country Director, SCA.
The hospital is located in an area where community acceptance is essential to the continued functioning and safety of the hospital and its staff. The hospital has faced a further intrusion on 13 July, when private security guards escorting a convoy came under attack from insurgents and sought shelter/treatment in a very aggressive manner in the hospital and proceeded to assault staff and damage property.
This latest incident comes at a time when a clinic in Paktika was attacked on 26 August by ANSF/IMF following reports of an alleged AOG commander inside. At issue, in addition to the safety of staff and patients, are perceptions amongst all parties as to the status of clearly marked hospital/medical facilities. When such facilities are no longer regarded with the sanctity which has previously been accorded, then hospitals merely become buildings and a legitimate arena to continue the conflict. Such intrusions have previously been recorded by both sides in the conflict.
For more information please contact:
Anders Fänge
Country Director SCA
+93-(0)700-299 288
anders.fange@sca.org.af
Dr. Shams
Coordinator Health Technical Unit
+93-(0)700-395 401
s.s.shams@sca.org.af
Information Unit
+93-(0)700-078 103
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, Main Jalalabad Road, Paktia Kot. Behind UNO Printing Press.
Kabul, Afghanistan. PO Box 5017
info@sca.org.af.
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. soldiers searched a hospital in central Afghanistan for Taliban fighters, tying up hospital guards and entering women's wards in violation of local customs, an aid worker said Monday.
The soldiers raided the hospital Wednesday night in Wardak province, said Anders Fange, the country director of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan.
The troops, from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, said they were looking for suspected Taliban fighters in the hospital, he said.
They tied up four hospital guards and searched patients' relatives, broke into the nutrition ward and ultrasound room, and searched the female ward of the hospital, according to the aid worker. He said the actions were disrespectful of Afghan culture.
He called the incident "simply not acceptable."
"It is not only a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict, but also a clear breach of the civil-military agreement between NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and ISAF," he said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
In a statement, the ISAF said it met Monday with staff at the medical clinic "to discuss the force's relationship with the clinic."
"Afghan National Police and International Security Assistance Forces entered the clinic on September 2, acting on a report that an insurgent commander was being treated on the premises," the statement said.
Assisted by ISAF troops, Afghan police searched the clinic to determine if the insurgent leader, who was suspected of being responsible for an earlier attack on a convoy in the area, was present, according to the statement. The ISAF said it informed the clinic staff of its reasons for entering the hospital.
Earlier, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, an ISAF spokeswoman, said the matter was under investigation. Any operation in the area would have been Afghan-led, supported by ISAF forces, she added. The U.S. Army does operate in the area.
The Swedish aid group reported the matter to Afghanistan's public health minister, who in turn was to take up the matter with the U.S. ambassador, Fange said.
The U.S. Embassy said it had heard of the allegations and was checking to see if the Ministry of Public Health had lodged a complaint or discussed the matter with American officials.
Fange said he is trying to arrange a meeting with a senior U.S. commander in Wardak province.
The Afghan Ministry of Public Health subcontracts aid groups in Afghanistan to provide what's called "Basic Package Health Services."
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan is responsible for Wardak province. The staff at the hospital work directly for the committee.
CNN's Ingrid Formanek and Wahid Mayar contributed to this report.
*************
International military violently entered SCA Hospital in Wardak
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, PRESS RELEASE, Kabul, September 6, 2009
On Wednesday evening September 2 at 10 pm coalition vehicles drove up at SCA’s Hospital in Shaniz, Wardak province along the main highway from Kabul to Ghazni. They entered the hospital compound, reportedly without giving any reason or justification for entering the hospital compound. They searched all rooms, even bathrooms, male and female wards. Rooms that were locked were forcefully entered and the doors of the malnutrition ward and the ultrasound ward were broken by force to gain entry. Upon entering the hospital they tied up four employees and two family members of patients at the hospital. SCA staffs as well as patients (even those in beds) were forced out of rooms/wards throughout the search.
On leaving the hospital at around 12 pm, IMF issued verbal "orders"/instructions; that on receiving any patient that could be an insurgent the hospital staff has to report to the Coalition Forces who would then determine if the hospital would be permitted or not of treating such patient.
“This is simply not acceptable. It is not only a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict but also a clear breach of the civil-military agreement between NGOs and ISAF. We demand guarantees from the IMF command that such violations will not be repeated and that this is made clear to commanders in the field. SCA can not and will not tolerate this kind of treatment by the IMF. Nor is the SCA bound by any orders from IMF regarding to whom treatment can be given” says Anders Fange, Country Director, SCA.
The hospital is located in an area where community acceptance is essential to the continued functioning and safety of the hospital and its staff. The hospital has faced a further intrusion on 13 July, when private security guards escorting a convoy came under attack from insurgents and sought shelter/treatment in a very aggressive manner in the hospital and proceeded to assault staff and damage property.
This latest incident comes at a time when a clinic in Paktika was attacked on 26 August by ANSF/IMF following reports of an alleged AOG commander inside. At issue, in addition to the safety of staff and patients, are perceptions amongst all parties as to the status of clearly marked hospital/medical facilities. When such facilities are no longer regarded with the sanctity which has previously been accorded, then hospitals merely become buildings and a legitimate arena to continue the conflict. Such intrusions have previously been recorded by both sides in the conflict.
For more information please contact:
Anders Fänge
Country Director SCA
+93-(0)700-299 288
anders.fange@sca.org.af
Dr. Shams
Coordinator Health Technical Unit
+93-(0)700-395 401
s.s.shams@sca.org.af
Information Unit
+93-(0)700-078 103
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, Main Jalalabad Road, Paktia Kot. Behind UNO Printing Press.
Kabul, Afghanistan. PO Box 5017
info@sca.org.af.
Video: Scores killed in Nato air strike in Afghanistan
A Nato air strike is said to have killed between 70 and 130 people in the Afghan province of Kunduz.
Nato say they targeted Taliban fighters who had seized two fuel tankers.
Al Jazeera's James Bays reports from a nearby village, where locals say many of the killed were civilians.
6 U.S. troops die in Afghanistan ahead of election
USATODAY.com, Aug. 19, 2009
KABUL (AP) — The U.S. military said Wednesday six American troops were killed in Afghanistan, as militants killed six election workers amid growing fears on the eve of the presidential election that insurgents would mar the vote.
Two troops were killed in gunfire in the south on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, while a third was killed in an unspecified hostile attack. The U.S. also said a roadside bomb Tuesday in the south killed two troops, while another died of noncombat-related injuries. No other details were released.
BACKGROUND: Gunfire erupts ahead of presidential vote
The deaths bring to at least 32 the number of American troops killed in the country this month, a record pace. Forty-four U.S. troops died in Afghanistan last month, the deadliest month of the eight-year war.
Attacks in the countryside killed six election workers, officials said Wednesday, one day before Afghanistan decides whether President Hamid Karzai deserves a second five-year term. In Kabul, three Taliban militants took over a bank, and gunfire and small explosions reverberated throughout the capital. Police stormed the bank and killed the three militants.
The drumbeat of attacks would appear to signal the intent of Taliban insurgents and their militant allies to disrupt Thursday's vote.
Karzai faces some three dozen presidential candidates at the polls, including his former foreign minister and top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. Islamist insurgents have threatened violence against those who take part in the election — a crucial step in President Obama's campaign to turn around the deteriorating war.
Afghanistan's electoral commission said all but one of the country's 364 districts had received voting materials. Polls open at 7 a.m. Thursday (0230 GMT Thursday, 10:30 p.m. ET Wednesday).
In a region generally considered safe, four election workers were killed Tuesday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb about 20 miles (30 kilometers) outside the capital of northeastern Badakhshan province. Officials said the four were delivering materials to a polling station.
Another two election workers were killed in Shorabak district of Kandahar province on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, said Abdul Wasai Alakozai, the chief electoral officer for southern Afghanistan.
A remote-controlled roadside bomb exploded early Wednesday near a vehicle taking voting supplies to a poll in the Chaparhar district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the governor's spokesman. The driver was slightly wounded, but the voting materials were not damaged, he said. Security forces arrested the man who detonated the bomb, he said.
The Interior Ministry says about a third of Afghanistan is at high-risk of militant attack, and that no polling stations will open in eight Afghan districts under control of militants.
The three armed men took over a branch of the Pashtani bank early Wednesday in a section of Kabul's old city still in ruins from the country's 1990s civil war. Police surrounded the building, exchanging gunfire with the attackers.
Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, head of Kabul's criminal investigations unit, said police eventually stormed the building and killed three "terrorists." Few civilians were in the area because government ministries and businesses were closed Wednesday in observance of Afghanistan's independence from British rule.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said 20 armed suicide attackers wearing explosive vests had entered Kabul and that five of them battled police. The claim could not be confirmed, but the Taliban in recent months have unleashed several attacks involving teams of insurgents assaulting government or high-profile sites.
The latest attacks were an ominous sign that the Taliban and their militant allies are determined to disrupt Thursday's election.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the rise in insurgent violence in Afghanistan reflected a deliberate campaign to intimidate voters. A shopkeeper near Wednesday's gunfire attack in Kabul, Abdul Jalal, said that if violence persisted into Thursday, he and his wife would not vote.
"Tomorrow we plan to go the polling center," said Jalal. "But if it was like today, we will not vote. Elections are a good thing for Afghanistan, but security is more important."
Attacks nationwide have increased in recent days from a daily average of about 32 to 48, said Brig. Gen. E. Tremblay, the spokesman for the NATO-led force. Even with the increase, Tremblay said that insurgents do not have the ability to widely disrupt voting at the country's 6,500 or so polling sites.
"When you're looking purely at statistics ... they're not going to be able to attack even 1% of the entire polling sites in this country," he said on Tuesday.
U.N. Secretery-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged all Afghans to vote and said that by participating in the election Afghans will help "bring fresh vigor to the country's political life, and ultimately reaffirm their commitment to contribute to the peace and prosperity of their nation."
The next president will face challenges on several fronts: the rising Taliban insurgency, internal political divisions, ethnic tensions, unemployment, the country's drug trade and corruption.
Karzai is favored to win, but if he does not get more than 50% of Thursday's vote he and the second-place finisher will face off in an October run-off. Polls show Abdullah in second place with around 25% support and Karzai's support around 45%.
Preliminary official results of the presidential election should be announced sometime Saturday evening.
Fearing that violence may dampen turnout, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement Tuesday demanding that news organizations to avoid "broadcasting any incidence of violence" between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. on election day "to ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people."
In other violence, a roadside bomb killed a district government leader and a tribal elder early Wednesday in the Registan district of Kandahar, said Ghulam Ali Wahadat, a police commander in southern Afghanistan.
Another roadside bomb in Tirin Kot, in Uruzgan province, killed three policemen, said Ali Jan, a provincial police official.
KABUL (AP) — The U.S. military said Wednesday six American troops were killed in Afghanistan, as militants killed six election workers amid growing fears on the eve of the presidential election that insurgents would mar the vote.
Two troops were killed in gunfire in the south on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, while a third was killed in an unspecified hostile attack. The U.S. also said a roadside bomb Tuesday in the south killed two troops, while another died of noncombat-related injuries. No other details were released.
BACKGROUND: Gunfire erupts ahead of presidential vote
The deaths bring to at least 32 the number of American troops killed in the country this month, a record pace. Forty-four U.S. troops died in Afghanistan last month, the deadliest month of the eight-year war.
Attacks in the countryside killed six election workers, officials said Wednesday, one day before Afghanistan decides whether President Hamid Karzai deserves a second five-year term. In Kabul, three Taliban militants took over a bank, and gunfire and small explosions reverberated throughout the capital. Police stormed the bank and killed the three militants.
The drumbeat of attacks would appear to signal the intent of Taliban insurgents and their militant allies to disrupt Thursday's vote.
Karzai faces some three dozen presidential candidates at the polls, including his former foreign minister and top challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. Islamist insurgents have threatened violence against those who take part in the election — a crucial step in President Obama's campaign to turn around the deteriorating war.
Afghanistan's electoral commission said all but one of the country's 364 districts had received voting materials. Polls open at 7 a.m. Thursday (0230 GMT Thursday, 10:30 p.m. ET Wednesday).
In a region generally considered safe, four election workers were killed Tuesday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb about 20 miles (30 kilometers) outside the capital of northeastern Badakhshan province. Officials said the four were delivering materials to a polling station.
Another two election workers were killed in Shorabak district of Kandahar province on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, said Abdul Wasai Alakozai, the chief electoral officer for southern Afghanistan.
A remote-controlled roadside bomb exploded early Wednesday near a vehicle taking voting supplies to a poll in the Chaparhar district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, the governor's spokesman. The driver was slightly wounded, but the voting materials were not damaged, he said. Security forces arrested the man who detonated the bomb, he said.
The Interior Ministry says about a third of Afghanistan is at high-risk of militant attack, and that no polling stations will open in eight Afghan districts under control of militants.
The three armed men took over a branch of the Pashtani bank early Wednesday in a section of Kabul's old city still in ruins from the country's 1990s civil war. Police surrounded the building, exchanging gunfire with the attackers.
Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, head of Kabul's criminal investigations unit, said police eventually stormed the building and killed three "terrorists." Few civilians were in the area because government ministries and businesses were closed Wednesday in observance of Afghanistan's independence from British rule.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said 20 armed suicide attackers wearing explosive vests had entered Kabul and that five of them battled police. The claim could not be confirmed, but the Taliban in recent months have unleashed several attacks involving teams of insurgents assaulting government or high-profile sites.
The latest attacks were an ominous sign that the Taliban and their militant allies are determined to disrupt Thursday's election.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the rise in insurgent violence in Afghanistan reflected a deliberate campaign to intimidate voters. A shopkeeper near Wednesday's gunfire attack in Kabul, Abdul Jalal, said that if violence persisted into Thursday, he and his wife would not vote.
"Tomorrow we plan to go the polling center," said Jalal. "But if it was like today, we will not vote. Elections are a good thing for Afghanistan, but security is more important."
Attacks nationwide have increased in recent days from a daily average of about 32 to 48, said Brig. Gen. E. Tremblay, the spokesman for the NATO-led force. Even with the increase, Tremblay said that insurgents do not have the ability to widely disrupt voting at the country's 6,500 or so polling sites.
"When you're looking purely at statistics ... they're not going to be able to attack even 1% of the entire polling sites in this country," he said on Tuesday.
U.N. Secretery-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged all Afghans to vote and said that by participating in the election Afghans will help "bring fresh vigor to the country's political life, and ultimately reaffirm their commitment to contribute to the peace and prosperity of their nation."
The next president will face challenges on several fronts: the rising Taliban insurgency, internal political divisions, ethnic tensions, unemployment, the country's drug trade and corruption.
Karzai is favored to win, but if he does not get more than 50% of Thursday's vote he and the second-place finisher will face off in an October run-off. Polls show Abdullah in second place with around 25% support and Karzai's support around 45%.
Preliminary official results of the presidential election should be announced sometime Saturday evening.
Fearing that violence may dampen turnout, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement Tuesday demanding that news organizations to avoid "broadcasting any incidence of violence" between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. on election day "to ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people."
In other violence, a roadside bomb killed a district government leader and a tribal elder early Wednesday in the Registan district of Kandahar, said Ghulam Ali Wahadat, a police commander in southern Afghanistan.
Another roadside bomb in Tirin Kot, in Uruzgan province, killed three policemen, said Ali Jan, a provincial police official.
U.S. to Resume Training Georgian Troops
By THOM SHANKER, NYTimes.com, Aug. 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — The United States is resuming a combat training mission in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to prepare its army for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, despite the risks of angering Russia, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday.
The training effort is intended to prepare Georgian troops to fight at NATO standards alongside American and allied forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon officials said.
Russian officials have been informed, American officials said. The training should not worry the Kremlin, they said, because it would not involve skills that would be useful against a large conventional force like Russia’s.
“This training mission is not about internal defenses or any capabilities that the Georgians would use at home,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “This is about the United States supporting Georgia’s contribution to the war in Afghanistan, which everybody can recognize is needed and valued and appreciated.”
At the same time, officials in Washington said, the Georgians should not see the new training mission as a military counterweight to Russian influence along Georgia’s borders and within the separatist regions they fought over.
A year ago, the republic’s brief, disastrous war with Russia froze a similar American training operation that prepared Georgian troops for deployments to Iraq.
The new training mission is scheduled to begin Sept. 1. The first members of a Marine Corps training and advising team are to arrive in Georgia on Sunday or Monday, and the number of trainers will fluctuate between 10 and 69 over the next six months.
Georgia has pledged an army battalion — about 750 troops — to Afghanistan, and it should be ready to deploy next spring, perhaps by March.
It is unlikely that Kremlin officials could offer a convincing argument that training a single Georgian Army battalion amounted to a threat to Russian security. But the new training could be seen as a launching pad for increased military relations among Washington, NATO members and a former Soviet republic that aspires to NATO membership.
The Kremlin vehemently opposes any extension of NATO’s defensive umbrella over former Soviet republics, in particular Georgia and Ukraine. At the same time, some NATO officials view Georgia’s behavior before the war last year as needlessly provocative, and have said it harmed the country’s chances for alliance membership.
Shortly after taking office, President Obama ordered the doubling of American forces in Afghanistan, to about 68,000, and the administration has sought, with little success, to persuade NATO allies to add to their combat forces.
In contrast to some NATO allies that impose restrictions on where their forces can go and what they can do in Afghanistan, the Georgian military will send its troops with none of these so-called caveats, a decision viewed by American officials as intended to indicate Georgia’s worthiness for potential alliance membership.
Officials said Georgia’s troops would probably be assigned to operations in areas of Afghanistan under Marine command, so the training mission begins that partnership.
The United States has so far rebuffed requests from Georgia to rearm its military after its humiliating defeat by Russia. When the war began, Georgia recalled an army brigade serving in Iraq and never sent it back, and the Americans training the Georgians returned home.
Georgian troops that join the Afghan mission will bring their own small-caliber weapons, but the United States and other allies will supply vehicles, including armored transports, as well as logistical support and daily supplies, according to senior Defense Department officials.
Any weapons provided to the Georgians would stay in Afghanistan, the officials said.
Some military ties between the United States and Georgia resumed after the war with Russia, but they focused on officer development, improvement of command-and-control systems, and other such areas, officials said. There have been visits by senior American military officers and government leaders — most recently Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — and NATO has conducted some military exchanges.
Administration officials familiar with discussions with Russia said American officials emphasized that Russia had endorsed the international security assistance mission in Afghanistan. For example, Russia allows overflight rights and land access for the coalition supply mission for Afghanistan.
A senior Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the diplomatic communications with Russia, acknowledged that “this is delicate for us — because while we want to be supportive of the Georgians, and look forward to their contribution in Afghanistan, we don’t want to be perceived incorrectly as supplying lethal capabilities that would elicit a Russian response.”
A version of this article appeared in print on August 14, 2009, on page A4 of the New York edition.
WASHINGTON — The United States is resuming a combat training mission in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to prepare its army for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, despite the risks of angering Russia, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday.
The training effort is intended to prepare Georgian troops to fight at NATO standards alongside American and allied forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon officials said.
Russian officials have been informed, American officials said. The training should not worry the Kremlin, they said, because it would not involve skills that would be useful against a large conventional force like Russia’s.
“This training mission is not about internal defenses or any capabilities that the Georgians would use at home,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “This is about the United States supporting Georgia’s contribution to the war in Afghanistan, which everybody can recognize is needed and valued and appreciated.”
At the same time, officials in Washington said, the Georgians should not see the new training mission as a military counterweight to Russian influence along Georgia’s borders and within the separatist regions they fought over.
A year ago, the republic’s brief, disastrous war with Russia froze a similar American training operation that prepared Georgian troops for deployments to Iraq.
The new training mission is scheduled to begin Sept. 1. The first members of a Marine Corps training and advising team are to arrive in Georgia on Sunday or Monday, and the number of trainers will fluctuate between 10 and 69 over the next six months.
Georgia has pledged an army battalion — about 750 troops — to Afghanistan, and it should be ready to deploy next spring, perhaps by March.
It is unlikely that Kremlin officials could offer a convincing argument that training a single Georgian Army battalion amounted to a threat to Russian security. But the new training could be seen as a launching pad for increased military relations among Washington, NATO members and a former Soviet republic that aspires to NATO membership.
The Kremlin vehemently opposes any extension of NATO’s defensive umbrella over former Soviet republics, in particular Georgia and Ukraine. At the same time, some NATO officials view Georgia’s behavior before the war last year as needlessly provocative, and have said it harmed the country’s chances for alliance membership.
Shortly after taking office, President Obama ordered the doubling of American forces in Afghanistan, to about 68,000, and the administration has sought, with little success, to persuade NATO allies to add to their combat forces.
In contrast to some NATO allies that impose restrictions on where their forces can go and what they can do in Afghanistan, the Georgian military will send its troops with none of these so-called caveats, a decision viewed by American officials as intended to indicate Georgia’s worthiness for potential alliance membership.
Officials said Georgia’s troops would probably be assigned to operations in areas of Afghanistan under Marine command, so the training mission begins that partnership.
The United States has so far rebuffed requests from Georgia to rearm its military after its humiliating defeat by Russia. When the war began, Georgia recalled an army brigade serving in Iraq and never sent it back, and the Americans training the Georgians returned home.
Georgian troops that join the Afghan mission will bring their own small-caliber weapons, but the United States and other allies will supply vehicles, including armored transports, as well as logistical support and daily supplies, according to senior Defense Department officials.
Any weapons provided to the Georgians would stay in Afghanistan, the officials said.
Some military ties between the United States and Georgia resumed after the war with Russia, but they focused on officer development, improvement of command-and-control systems, and other such areas, officials said. There have been visits by senior American military officers and government leaders — most recently Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — and NATO has conducted some military exchanges.
Administration officials familiar with discussions with Russia said American officials emphasized that Russia had endorsed the international security assistance mission in Afghanistan. For example, Russia allows overflight rights and land access for the coalition supply mission for Afghanistan.
A senior Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the diplomatic communications with Russia, acknowledged that “this is delicate for us — because while we want to be supportive of the Georgians, and look forward to their contribution in Afghanistan, we don’t want to be perceived incorrectly as supplying lethal capabilities that would elicit a Russian response.”
A version of this article appeared in print on August 14, 2009, on page A4 of the New York edition.
2 Americans, 3 Brits killed in Afghanistan
Press TV, Aug. 13, 2009
Attacks on Western troops continue in Afghanistan with another three British and two US soldiers killed in the ongoing anti-insurgency operations.
Three British soldiers were killed in an explosion in the southern province of Helmand on Thursday, bringing to 199 the UK's death toll in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in late 2001.
Two US soldiers were also killed -- one in an explosion and the other in a direct fire attack -- in the south of the country on Wednesday and on Thursday.
Thousands of troops have been deployed to step up the anti-insurgency operations ahead of the August 20 polls.
However, nine districts are still under insurgent control and according to authorities, it is unlikely that polls will be held in those areas.
The International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) confirmed Thursday's deaths.
Around 30 international soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to the icasualties.org website which compiles a toll.
FTP/SME/MMN
Attacks on Western troops continue in Afghanistan with another three British and two US soldiers killed in the ongoing anti-insurgency operations.
Three British soldiers were killed in an explosion in the southern province of Helmand on Thursday, bringing to 199 the UK's death toll in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in late 2001.
Two US soldiers were also killed -- one in an explosion and the other in a direct fire attack -- in the south of the country on Wednesday and on Thursday.
Thousands of troops have been deployed to step up the anti-insurgency operations ahead of the August 20 polls.
However, nine districts are still under insurgent control and according to authorities, it is unlikely that polls will be held in those areas.
The International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) confirmed Thursday's deaths.
Around 30 international soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to the icasualties.org website which compiles a toll.
FTP/SME/MMN
U.S. & U.K. troop deaths surged in July in Afghanistan
Afghan war troop deaths surged in July
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 1, 2009
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan -- The month began with a fatal roadside bombing and ended with word that an American had died of wounds suffered in a firefight. After nearly eight years of warfare in Afghanistan, July proved by far the deadliest month yet for U.S. troops and their foreign allies.
Bombs and rocket attacks, ambushes and aviation accidents killed many of the 72 foreign troops, including 43 Americans, according to data at the website icasualties.org. Previously, the highest monthly U.S. toll was 28 in June 2008, according to the independent website.
July was also the worst month for Britain, the most important U.S. ally in Afghanistan, since the 1980s Falklands war. Twenty-two British soldiers died, spurring soul-searching in a country where a recent poll suggested that a majority of the public considers the Afghan war unwinnable.
Analysts and military officials cited a web of factors in the record death toll, including a major American military offensive in the south and a parallel push by British troops.
Also driving the increased casualty count is the growing U.S. troop presence, Western forays into previously Taliban-dominated areas and a determined, resilient insurgency.
"It's a strong example of the asymmetric nature of Taliban and insurgent tactics and procedures," said Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert with Rand Corp.
"There's been a decision to scatter and target NATO forces using tried-and-true mujahedin tactics."
About two-thirds of the coalition deaths were caused by roadside bombs, the insurgents' weapon of choice in a fight against a much more powerful enemy.
Although most bombs are relatively unsophisticated devices made with commonplace ingredients such as fertilizer, commanders say the Taliban and other militants draw a battlefield advantage from the country's vast expanse. Convoys travel among far-flung bases by road, and the insurgents keep careful watch on their comings and goings.
American and British offensives in the southern province of Helmand, a center of Afghanistan's drug trade and a longtime Taliban stronghold, account for most of the combat casualties. About 4,000 U.S. Marines are taking part in the operation, which began July 2.
A few pockets of insurgents tried to hold their ground in the face of the American offensive, the largest conducted by the Marines since the battle of Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. But most instead melted away.
Then they regrouped and commenced picking off U.S. troops in what commanders call "opportunistic" attacks. They fired mortars at isolated outposts, seeded the roads with bombs, lay in wait for small patrols.
Significant numbers of deaths also came in Afghanistan's east, where most of the foreign forces are Americans.
The east, which borders Pakistan's wild tribal areas, remains subject to large-scale infiltration by fighters under the command of Pakistan-based insurgent leaders such as Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose home base in North Waziristan has been little touched by Pakistani military feints into the border zone.
"If anything, the Haqqani network is growing stronger," said Jones, the Rand analyst.
A key factor in the troop buildup, which will increase the U.S. force in the country to 68,000 personnel by year's end, is the desire to safeguard the Aug. 20 presidential and provincial council elections. The Taliban has vowed to try to disrupt the polling.
"We want to make sure the election is free and fair and acceptable to the Afghan public," said U.S. Army Col. Wayne Shanks, the chief public affairs officer for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.
July was the first full month of command in Afghanistan by U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who assumed control of U.S. and NATO forces in mid-June.
McChrystal is seeking to change the dynamic of the conflict by reducing the number of civilian deaths and establishing trust between Western forces and local officials.
Many Afghans are almost as wary of foreign forces as they are of the insurgents.
A report released Friday by the United Nations said that more than 1,000 Afghan civilians were killed in the first half of the year, an increase of nearly one-quarter from the same period in 2008. The report blamed the Taliban and other insurgents for about 60% of the fatalities and coalition and Afghan security forces for the remainder.
laura.king@latimes.com
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 1, 2009
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan -- The month began with a fatal roadside bombing and ended with word that an American had died of wounds suffered in a firefight. After nearly eight years of warfare in Afghanistan, July proved by far the deadliest month yet for U.S. troops and their foreign allies.
Bombs and rocket attacks, ambushes and aviation accidents killed many of the 72 foreign troops, including 43 Americans, according to data at the website icasualties.org. Previously, the highest monthly U.S. toll was 28 in June 2008, according to the independent website.
July was also the worst month for Britain, the most important U.S. ally in Afghanistan, since the 1980s Falklands war. Twenty-two British soldiers died, spurring soul-searching in a country where a recent poll suggested that a majority of the public considers the Afghan war unwinnable.
Analysts and military officials cited a web of factors in the record death toll, including a major American military offensive in the south and a parallel push by British troops.
Also driving the increased casualty count is the growing U.S. troop presence, Western forays into previously Taliban-dominated areas and a determined, resilient insurgency.
"It's a strong example of the asymmetric nature of Taliban and insurgent tactics and procedures," said Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert with Rand Corp.
"There's been a decision to scatter and target NATO forces using tried-and-true mujahedin tactics."
About two-thirds of the coalition deaths were caused by roadside bombs, the insurgents' weapon of choice in a fight against a much more powerful enemy.
Although most bombs are relatively unsophisticated devices made with commonplace ingredients such as fertilizer, commanders say the Taliban and other militants draw a battlefield advantage from the country's vast expanse. Convoys travel among far-flung bases by road, and the insurgents keep careful watch on their comings and goings.
American and British offensives in the southern province of Helmand, a center of Afghanistan's drug trade and a longtime Taliban stronghold, account for most of the combat casualties. About 4,000 U.S. Marines are taking part in the operation, which began July 2.
A few pockets of insurgents tried to hold their ground in the face of the American offensive, the largest conducted by the Marines since the battle of Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. But most instead melted away.
Then they regrouped and commenced picking off U.S. troops in what commanders call "opportunistic" attacks. They fired mortars at isolated outposts, seeded the roads with bombs, lay in wait for small patrols.
Significant numbers of deaths also came in Afghanistan's east, where most of the foreign forces are Americans.
The east, which borders Pakistan's wild tribal areas, remains subject to large-scale infiltration by fighters under the command of Pakistan-based insurgent leaders such as Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose home base in North Waziristan has been little touched by Pakistani military feints into the border zone.
"If anything, the Haqqani network is growing stronger," said Jones, the Rand analyst.
A key factor in the troop buildup, which will increase the U.S. force in the country to 68,000 personnel by year's end, is the desire to safeguard the Aug. 20 presidential and provincial council elections. The Taliban has vowed to try to disrupt the polling.
"We want to make sure the election is free and fair and acceptable to the Afghan public," said U.S. Army Col. Wayne Shanks, the chief public affairs officer for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.
July was the first full month of command in Afghanistan by U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who assumed control of U.S. and NATO forces in mid-June.
McChrystal is seeking to change the dynamic of the conflict by reducing the number of civilian deaths and establishing trust between Western forces and local officials.
Many Afghans are almost as wary of foreign forces as they are of the insurgents.
A report released Friday by the United Nations said that more than 1,000 Afghan civilians were killed in the first half of the year, an increase of nearly one-quarter from the same period in 2008. The report blamed the Taliban and other insurgents for about 60% of the fatalities and coalition and Afghan security forces for the remainder.
laura.king@latimes.com
UN: Civilian deaths up 24 percent in Afghanistan
By ROBERT H. REID, AP, Google News, Aug. 1, 2009
KABUL — Civilian deaths in the escalating Afghan war soared by 24 percent during the first half of 2009 compared with the same period last year, the United Nations said Friday, blaming most of the casualties on Taliban attacks launched with little regard for civilian lives.
The U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan also pointed to stepped-up military operations by the United States and its allies, especially airstrikes, for the steady increase in Afghan civilian casualties over the past two years.
However, the report also said the number of civilians killed by the Taliban and other "anti-government forces" during the first half of the year was double those attributed to the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan government forces. The U.N. termed that a "significant shift" from 2007, when the coalition was responsible for 41 percent of civilian deaths.
Both the U.S. and some elements of the Taliban appear sensitive to the issue of civilian casualties, fearing a loss of support among the embattled Afghan population.
This month, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, issued orders to curb the use of airstrikes to hold down civilian casualties.
A new Taliban "code of conduct," attributed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, instructs fighters to make "the utmost effort" to avoid killing civilians and to curb the use of suicide attacks. NATO officials dismissed the code as propaganda.
Despite the Taliban code, the U.N. report said insurgent suicide attacks and roadside bombings claimed more civilian lives "than any other tactic used by the parties to the conflict" and were launched "in violation of the relevant principles of international law."
"Far from taking action to minimize the impact of their activities on civilians, sectors of the armed opposition appear to deliberately favor the use of indiscriminate tactics, such as the use of IEDs," the report said, referring to improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs.
"Although such attacks are frequently directed against military or government targets, they are often carried out in crowded areas with apparent disregard for the extensive injury and death they cause to civilians," the report added.
According to the U.N., at least 1,013 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year compared with 818 for the same period in 2008 — an increase of 24 percent.
Of those, 595 died as a result of Taliban attacks, many of them against "civilian traffic, residential compounds and marketplaces," the report said. International and Afghan government forces killed another 310 civilians, including 200 in 40 airstrikes, according to the U.N. The 108 other civilian deaths could not be attributed to either side, the report said.
The U.N. figures are higher than an Associated Press count of civilian deaths based on reports from Afghan and international officials. The AP count shows that 524 civilians died in the first six months of the year — a 27 percent increase over the same period last year.
The report was released at the end of the bloodiest month for U.S. and NATO forces in the nearly eight-year war. At least 42 U.S service members and 31 from other international military forces were killed in July, according to military announcements.
The U.N. said the Taliban and other insurgents have been hiding in civilian areas as part of "an active policy aimed at drawing a military response" to areas where there would be a "high likelihood" that civilians would be killed or injured.
A 36-year-old carpenter, Wazir Mohammad, believes his family fell victim to that tactic when fighting broke out last month between U.S. troops and insurgents in the village of Nangalam in the eastern province of Kunar.
As the family huddled inside their home, a rocket slammed into the ground floor, killing Mohammad's father, brother and grandmother, he said. Five other relatives were wounded. Mohammad, a 36-year-old carpenter, said he didn't know which side fired the rocket.
A doctor in the village, who uses only one name, Nizamuddin, said Taliban and U.S. forces exchange fire almost daily around the village and that rockets and mortars detonate from time to time in civilian districts.
"We are so depressed," Mohammad said by telephone. "We do not know what the future holds for us."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has publicly berated NATO commanders over civilian deaths and has called for new rules governing the conduct of Western military operations if he wins a second term in the August elections.
However, the U.N. report said the Afghan government also shares responsibility "for a rising toll in terms of civilian deaths and injuries" and the destruction of property.
The report said civilian deaths rose every month this year as compared with 2008 except February. The report cited increased fighting in urban areas, more complex Taliban attacks and the return of militants who had fled across the border into Pakistan.
May was the deadliest month, with 261 civilians killed. The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for most of the deaths, but 81 were killed by government or international forces, the U.N. said.
The U.N. also noted what it called a "new trend" in insurgent attacks. Since May, insurgents have attached magnetic explosive devices to vehicles to target civilians who have worked with government or international military forces. A provincial council candidate was killed by a magnetic bomb May 29 in Khost.
A month later, such bombs killed a translator and another individual working for the international forces.
Music shops and other places selling "immoral" goods such as DVDs have also been targeted. In an April attack, a young boy was killed when a bomb placed in his wheelbarrow exploded prematurely 50 feet from a government building in Aybak city. The boy had no knowledge of the bomb, the report said.
Associated Press Writers Amir Shah and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul and Bradley Klapper in Geneva contributed to this report.
KABUL — Civilian deaths in the escalating Afghan war soared by 24 percent during the first half of 2009 compared with the same period last year, the United Nations said Friday, blaming most of the casualties on Taliban attacks launched with little regard for civilian lives.
The U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan also pointed to stepped-up military operations by the United States and its allies, especially airstrikes, for the steady increase in Afghan civilian casualties over the past two years.
However, the report also said the number of civilians killed by the Taliban and other "anti-government forces" during the first half of the year was double those attributed to the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan government forces. The U.N. termed that a "significant shift" from 2007, when the coalition was responsible for 41 percent of civilian deaths.
Both the U.S. and some elements of the Taliban appear sensitive to the issue of civilian casualties, fearing a loss of support among the embattled Afghan population.
This month, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, issued orders to curb the use of airstrikes to hold down civilian casualties.
A new Taliban "code of conduct," attributed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, instructs fighters to make "the utmost effort" to avoid killing civilians and to curb the use of suicide attacks. NATO officials dismissed the code as propaganda.
Despite the Taliban code, the U.N. report said insurgent suicide attacks and roadside bombings claimed more civilian lives "than any other tactic used by the parties to the conflict" and were launched "in violation of the relevant principles of international law."
"Far from taking action to minimize the impact of their activities on civilians, sectors of the armed opposition appear to deliberately favor the use of indiscriminate tactics, such as the use of IEDs," the report said, referring to improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs.
"Although such attacks are frequently directed against military or government targets, they are often carried out in crowded areas with apparent disregard for the extensive injury and death they cause to civilians," the report added.
According to the U.N., at least 1,013 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year compared with 818 for the same period in 2008 — an increase of 24 percent.
Of those, 595 died as a result of Taliban attacks, many of them against "civilian traffic, residential compounds and marketplaces," the report said. International and Afghan government forces killed another 310 civilians, including 200 in 40 airstrikes, according to the U.N. The 108 other civilian deaths could not be attributed to either side, the report said.
The U.N. figures are higher than an Associated Press count of civilian deaths based on reports from Afghan and international officials. The AP count shows that 524 civilians died in the first six months of the year — a 27 percent increase over the same period last year.
The report was released at the end of the bloodiest month for U.S. and NATO forces in the nearly eight-year war. At least 42 U.S service members and 31 from other international military forces were killed in July, according to military announcements.
The U.N. said the Taliban and other insurgents have been hiding in civilian areas as part of "an active policy aimed at drawing a military response" to areas where there would be a "high likelihood" that civilians would be killed or injured.
A 36-year-old carpenter, Wazir Mohammad, believes his family fell victim to that tactic when fighting broke out last month between U.S. troops and insurgents in the village of Nangalam in the eastern province of Kunar.
As the family huddled inside their home, a rocket slammed into the ground floor, killing Mohammad's father, brother and grandmother, he said. Five other relatives were wounded. Mohammad, a 36-year-old carpenter, said he didn't know which side fired the rocket.
A doctor in the village, who uses only one name, Nizamuddin, said Taliban and U.S. forces exchange fire almost daily around the village and that rockets and mortars detonate from time to time in civilian districts.
"We are so depressed," Mohammad said by telephone. "We do not know what the future holds for us."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has publicly berated NATO commanders over civilian deaths and has called for new rules governing the conduct of Western military operations if he wins a second term in the August elections.
However, the U.N. report said the Afghan government also shares responsibility "for a rising toll in terms of civilian deaths and injuries" and the destruction of property.
The report said civilian deaths rose every month this year as compared with 2008 except February. The report cited increased fighting in urban areas, more complex Taliban attacks and the return of militants who had fled across the border into Pakistan.
May was the deadliest month, with 261 civilians killed. The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for most of the deaths, but 81 were killed by government or international forces, the U.N. said.
The U.N. also noted what it called a "new trend" in insurgent attacks. Since May, insurgents have attached magnetic explosive devices to vehicles to target civilians who have worked with government or international military forces. A provincial council candidate was killed by a magnetic bomb May 29 in Khost.
A month later, such bombs killed a translator and another individual working for the international forces.
Music shops and other places selling "immoral" goods such as DVDs have also been targeted. In an April attack, a young boy was killed when a bomb placed in his wheelbarrow exploded prematurely 50 feet from a government building in Aybak city. The boy had no knowledge of the bomb, the report said.
Associated Press Writers Amir Shah and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul and Bradley Klapper in Geneva contributed to this report.
July is deadliest for US-led forces in Afghanistan
By ROBERT H. REID, AP, Google News, July 15, 2009
KABUL (AP) — July is shaping up as the deadliest month of the Afghan war for U.S.-led international forces, with the number killed already matching the highest full-month toll of the nearly eight-year conflict, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
As of Wednesday, at least 46 international troops, including 24 Americans, had been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to statements by the U.S. military and the NATO command. That matches the tolls for the two previous deadliest months — June and August of 2008.
The rate of deaths in July — about three a day — is approaching some of the highest levels of the Iraq war.
The latest reported deaths occurred Tuesday. They include an American soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan and two Turks, including a colonel, who died in a traffic accident in the north of the country.
In addition, six Ukrainian civilians and a 6-year-old Afghan were killed Tuesday when an Mi-6 transport helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan. The helicopter's owners in the former Soviet republic of Modova said the helicopter was shot down, and the Taliban claimed responsibility.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell acknowledged that the U.S. has lost troops "at an alarming rate this month."
He told reporters that July has been "an extraordinarily difficult month for all of us who are so heavily invested in trying to better the situation in Afghanistan."
U.S. commanders have been expecting higher casualties since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year to curb a resurgent Taliban that threatens not only the U.S.-backed Kabul government but also Afghanistan's nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan.
There are about 57,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan, and the number is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009.
Obama's decision has effectively shifted the focus on the global war against Islamic extremism from Iraq, where the United States still maintains about 130,000 troops. Only two U.S. service members have died in Iraq this month — both from non-hostile causes, according to the Pentagon.
With the increase in troops heading for Afghanistan, the U.S. has stepped up the tempo of combat operations. About 4,000 U.S. Marines this month launched their biggest offensive since 2001 to break the Taliban stranglehold on the southern province of Helmand, the center of the country's opium poppy cultivation and a major insurgent smuggling route from Pakistan.
British forces, meanwhile, have been locked in fierce combat with Taliban fighters in another part of Helmand. Britain's 9,000-strong military force has lost 15 soldiers this month — including eight in a 24-hour period. Those deaths have prompted national debate in Britain over whether the Afghan conflict is winnable.
For their part, the Taliban have increased their attacks, including deadly roadside or suicide bombings that rose by 25 percent in the first four months of 2009 over the same period last year. The U.S. command expects bombings to rise 50 percent this year to 5,700 — up from 3,800 last year.
Other deaths this month among international forces include four Canadian soldiers and one Italian paratrooper.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week that international troops in Afghanistan face a difficult summer of intense fighting. He has long called on other NATO allies, and European nations, to play a larger role in combat operations in Afghanistan and insisted that the Afghan army should provide larger numbers of soldiers.
The Afghan government provided only about 650 soldiers and police to join the ongoing Marine offensive in Helmand.
During a visit to Helmand on Wednesday, the outgoing chief of the British army, Gen. Richard Dannatt, said the international mission needs more soldiers to control territory won from the Taliban to give Afghans more confidence in security and wean them away from the Taliban.
"I have said before, we can have effect where we have boots on the ground. I don't mind whether the feet in those boots are British, American or Afghan. But we need more, to have the persistent effect to give the people confidence in us," Dannatt told BBC radio from the British base in the Helmand town of Sangin. "That is the top line and the bottom line."
The U.S. is sending thousands more soldiers to train Afghanistan's police and army.
Obama said Tuesday that he hopes military operations in Afghanistan can move to a different phase after the Afghan presidential election set for Aug. 20. Obama said he is looking for an exit strategy in which the Afghan army, police, courts and government take more responsibility for the country's security.
During last year's election campaign, Obama accused President George W. Bush of diverting U.S. resources from the war in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida's leadership planned the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, to what he termed an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
KABUL (AP) — July is shaping up as the deadliest month of the Afghan war for U.S.-led international forces, with the number killed already matching the highest full-month toll of the nearly eight-year conflict, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
As of Wednesday, at least 46 international troops, including 24 Americans, had been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to statements by the U.S. military and the NATO command. That matches the tolls for the two previous deadliest months — June and August of 2008.
The rate of deaths in July — about three a day — is approaching some of the highest levels of the Iraq war.
The latest reported deaths occurred Tuesday. They include an American soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan and two Turks, including a colonel, who died in a traffic accident in the north of the country.
In addition, six Ukrainian civilians and a 6-year-old Afghan were killed Tuesday when an Mi-6 transport helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan. The helicopter's owners in the former Soviet republic of Modova said the helicopter was shot down, and the Taliban claimed responsibility.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell acknowledged that the U.S. has lost troops "at an alarming rate this month."
He told reporters that July has been "an extraordinarily difficult month for all of us who are so heavily invested in trying to better the situation in Afghanistan."
U.S. commanders have been expecting higher casualties since President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year to curb a resurgent Taliban that threatens not only the U.S.-backed Kabul government but also Afghanistan's nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan.
There are about 57,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan, and the number is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009.
Obama's decision has effectively shifted the focus on the global war against Islamic extremism from Iraq, where the United States still maintains about 130,000 troops. Only two U.S. service members have died in Iraq this month — both from non-hostile causes, according to the Pentagon.
With the increase in troops heading for Afghanistan, the U.S. has stepped up the tempo of combat operations. About 4,000 U.S. Marines this month launched their biggest offensive since 2001 to break the Taliban stranglehold on the southern province of Helmand, the center of the country's opium poppy cultivation and a major insurgent smuggling route from Pakistan.
British forces, meanwhile, have been locked in fierce combat with Taliban fighters in another part of Helmand. Britain's 9,000-strong military force has lost 15 soldiers this month — including eight in a 24-hour period. Those deaths have prompted national debate in Britain over whether the Afghan conflict is winnable.
For their part, the Taliban have increased their attacks, including deadly roadside or suicide bombings that rose by 25 percent in the first four months of 2009 over the same period last year. The U.S. command expects bombings to rise 50 percent this year to 5,700 — up from 3,800 last year.
Other deaths this month among international forces include four Canadian soldiers and one Italian paratrooper.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week that international troops in Afghanistan face a difficult summer of intense fighting. He has long called on other NATO allies, and European nations, to play a larger role in combat operations in Afghanistan and insisted that the Afghan army should provide larger numbers of soldiers.
The Afghan government provided only about 650 soldiers and police to join the ongoing Marine offensive in Helmand.
During a visit to Helmand on Wednesday, the outgoing chief of the British army, Gen. Richard Dannatt, said the international mission needs more soldiers to control territory won from the Taliban to give Afghans more confidence in security and wean them away from the Taliban.
"I have said before, we can have effect where we have boots on the ground. I don't mind whether the feet in those boots are British, American or Afghan. But we need more, to have the persistent effect to give the people confidence in us," Dannatt told BBC radio from the British base in the Helmand town of Sangin. "That is the top line and the bottom line."
The U.S. is sending thousands more soldiers to train Afghanistan's police and army.
Obama said Tuesday that he hopes military operations in Afghanistan can move to a different phase after the Afghan presidential election set for Aug. 20. Obama said he is looking for an exit strategy in which the Afghan army, police, courts and government take more responsibility for the country's security.
During last year's election campaign, Obama accused President George W. Bush of diverting U.S. resources from the war in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida's leadership planned the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, to what he termed an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
2 U.S. Marines killed in Afghanistan on Monday
CNN.com, July 14, 2009
Two U.S. Marines died Monday during a "hostile incident" in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
No further details were immediately available in their deaths.
"We deeply mourn the loss of these determined service members, who died in combat defending our freedom and the just cause of Afghans," said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
"This is a moment of great sorrow for these members' families and friends, and I extend my deepest condolences to them during this difficult time."
The deaths come as almost 4,000 Marines and sailors, along with several hundred Afghan security forces, are working to clear Taliban militants from population centers in the Helmand river valley, in the south of the country.
British forces launched a similar offensive in the province in late June.
The push, called Operation Khanjar, is targeting militants in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and poppy-growing region.
The forces are trying to gain and hold ground in the perilous region ahead of national elections this August.
Two U.S. Marines died Monday during a "hostile incident" in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
No further details were immediately available in their deaths.
"We deeply mourn the loss of these determined service members, who died in combat defending our freedom and the just cause of Afghans," said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
"This is a moment of great sorrow for these members' families and friends, and I extend my deepest condolences to them during this difficult time."
The deaths come as almost 4,000 Marines and sailors, along with several hundred Afghan security forces, are working to clear Taliban militants from population centers in the Helmand river valley, in the south of the country.
British forces launched a similar offensive in the province in late June.
The push, called Operation Khanjar, is targeting militants in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and poppy-growing region.
The forces are trying to gain and hold ground in the perilous region ahead of national elections this August.
Afghans turn to Taliban in fear of own police
By Peter Graff, Reuters, Yahoo! News, July 12, 2009
PANKELA, Afghanistan (Reuters) – As British troops moved into the village newly freed from Taliban control, they heard one message from the anxious locals: for God's sake do not bring back the Afghan police.
U.S. and British troops have launched a campaign to seize control of Helmand province, about half of which was in Taliban hands, and restore Afghan government institutions.
But as they advance, they are learning uncomfortable facts about their local allies: villagers say the government's police force was so brutal and corrupt that they welcomed the Taliban as liberators.
"The police would stop people driving on motorcycles, beat them and take their money," said Mohammad Gul, an elder in the village of Pankela, which British troops have been securing for the past three days after flying in by helicopter.
He pointed to two compounds of neighbors where pre-teen children had been abducted by police to be used for the local practice of "bachabazi," or sex with pre-pubescent boys.
"If the boys were out in the fields, the police would come and rape them," he said. "You can go to any police base and you will see these boys. They hold them until they are finished with them and then let the child go."
The Interior Ministry in Kabul said it would contact police commanders in the area before responding in detail.
When the Taliban arrived in the village 10 months ago and drove the police out, local people rejoiced, said Mohammad Rasul, a toothless elderly farmer who keeps a few cows and chickens in a neatly tended orchard of pomegranate trees, figs and grape vines.
Although his own son was killed by a Taliban roadside bomb five years ago, Rasul said the fighters earned their welcome in the village by treating people with respect.
"We were happy (after the Taliban arrived). The Taliban never bothered us," he said.
Before the Taliban arrived, the police had come to his house with a powerful landlord he called a "tyrant," who put a rifle in his face, searched through his compound and demanded money.
"If (the British) bring these people back, we can't live here. If they come back, I am sure they will burn everything," Rasul said.
MINES, SNIPERS
The British effort, Operation Panther's Claw, has focused on the Babaji district north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, an area of lush fields, vineyards and orchards, watered by carefully tended streams and canals fed by the Helmand river.
Taliban fighters have sown the area with homemade mines and sniper nests, inflicting the worst casualties of the war. At least 15 British soldiers have been killed in the past 12 days.
Further south, some 4,000 U.S. Marines have met less resistance after seizing three districts of the lower Helmand River valley in an air and ground assault.
The aim is to impose Afghan government control over most of the province in time for an August 20 presidential poll.
But commanders say holding the area for the longer term will depend on bringing in credible local security forces.
The United States has spent lavishly in the past eight years to build up the Afghan National Army (ANA).
But it left training the Afghan National Police (ANP) to Germany, which spent a fraction as much, sending a small number of civilian instructors.
The result is a police force that is widely acknowledged to be unprepared for work in a combat zone: the ANP suffered three times as many deaths as the ANA last year.
Washington is rushing to make up the gap, sending 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan this year to focus mainly on professionalizing the police.
Entire police forces are being removed from districts and sent to remote locations for intensive eight-week training.
Major Al Steele, commander of Bravo Company of 3 SCOTS, the Black Watch, who met elders in Pankela, acknowledged their concerns but said foreign forces were working on it.
"We have heard a lot of complaints about the ANP, but the Coalition Forces and the ANA are working together well, and the ANP are getting better," he told Gul Mohammad, squatting outside the elder's mud-walled compound.
The elder shrugged and flipped his prayer beads.
"Every time we heard that new ANP would come. But the old ANP would come back and it would be just like in the past."
"The people here trust the Taliban," he said. "If the police come back and behave the same way, we will support the Taliban to drive them out."
(Editing by Paul Tait and Myra MacDonald)
PANKELA, Afghanistan (Reuters) – As British troops moved into the village newly freed from Taliban control, they heard one message from the anxious locals: for God's sake do not bring back the Afghan police.
U.S. and British troops have launched a campaign to seize control of Helmand province, about half of which was in Taliban hands, and restore Afghan government institutions.
But as they advance, they are learning uncomfortable facts about their local allies: villagers say the government's police force was so brutal and corrupt that they welcomed the Taliban as liberators.
"The police would stop people driving on motorcycles, beat them and take their money," said Mohammad Gul, an elder in the village of Pankela, which British troops have been securing for the past three days after flying in by helicopter.
He pointed to two compounds of neighbors where pre-teen children had been abducted by police to be used for the local practice of "bachabazi," or sex with pre-pubescent boys.
"If the boys were out in the fields, the police would come and rape them," he said. "You can go to any police base and you will see these boys. They hold them until they are finished with them and then let the child go."
The Interior Ministry in Kabul said it would contact police commanders in the area before responding in detail.
When the Taliban arrived in the village 10 months ago and drove the police out, local people rejoiced, said Mohammad Rasul, a toothless elderly farmer who keeps a few cows and chickens in a neatly tended orchard of pomegranate trees, figs and grape vines.
Although his own son was killed by a Taliban roadside bomb five years ago, Rasul said the fighters earned their welcome in the village by treating people with respect.
"We were happy (after the Taliban arrived). The Taliban never bothered us," he said.
Before the Taliban arrived, the police had come to his house with a powerful landlord he called a "tyrant," who put a rifle in his face, searched through his compound and demanded money.
"If (the British) bring these people back, we can't live here. If they come back, I am sure they will burn everything," Rasul said.
MINES, SNIPERS
The British effort, Operation Panther's Claw, has focused on the Babaji district north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, an area of lush fields, vineyards and orchards, watered by carefully tended streams and canals fed by the Helmand river.
Taliban fighters have sown the area with homemade mines and sniper nests, inflicting the worst casualties of the war. At least 15 British soldiers have been killed in the past 12 days.
Further south, some 4,000 U.S. Marines have met less resistance after seizing three districts of the lower Helmand River valley in an air and ground assault.
The aim is to impose Afghan government control over most of the province in time for an August 20 presidential poll.
But commanders say holding the area for the longer term will depend on bringing in credible local security forces.
The United States has spent lavishly in the past eight years to build up the Afghan National Army (ANA).
But it left training the Afghan National Police (ANP) to Germany, which spent a fraction as much, sending a small number of civilian instructors.
The result is a police force that is widely acknowledged to be unprepared for work in a combat zone: the ANP suffered three times as many deaths as the ANA last year.
Washington is rushing to make up the gap, sending 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan this year to focus mainly on professionalizing the police.
Entire police forces are being removed from districts and sent to remote locations for intensive eight-week training.
Major Al Steele, commander of Bravo Company of 3 SCOTS, the Black Watch, who met elders in Pankela, acknowledged their concerns but said foreign forces were working on it.
"We have heard a lot of complaints about the ANP, but the Coalition Forces and the ANA are working together well, and the ANP are getting better," he told Gul Mohammad, squatting outside the elder's mud-walled compound.
The elder shrugged and flipped his prayer beads.
"Every time we heard that new ANP would come. But the old ANP would come back and it would be just like in the past."
"The people here trust the Taliban," he said. "If the police come back and behave the same way, we will support the Taliban to drive them out."
(Editing by Paul Tait and Myra MacDonald)
5 More U.S. Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan
4 Marines Killed in Afghan Bomb Blasts
5th U.S. Service Member Dies of Wounds; Americans Being Killed in Afghanistan at Record Pace
By Jason Straziuso, AP, CBS News, July 12, 2009
Bomb blasts killed four U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of American troops have deployed in recent weeks as part of an offensive in the country's dangerous drug-producing region, an official said Sunday.
The four Marines died Saturday in Helmand province, where about 4,000 troops this month launched the largest Marine operation in Afghanistan since 2001. U.S. forces have met little resistance but face the danger of roadside bombs everywhere they travel.
A fifth U.S. service member wounded in June died of wounds in the U.S. on Friday, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, who confirmed the deaths of the four Marines. The four killed Saturday were initially identified as Army soldiers.
The five deaths bring to 106 the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year - a record pace. Last year 151 U.S. troops died in the country.
The U.S. casualties come on the heels of eight British deaths in Helmand during a 24-hour period that ended Friday, deaths that have triggered a debate in Britain about its role in Afghanistan. Britain has now lost more troops in Afghanistan than it did in Iraq.
President Barack Obama called Britain's contribution critically important in an interview with Sky News broadcast Sunday.
"My heart goes out to the families of those British soldiers," he said. "Great Britain has played an extraordinary role in this coalition, understanding that we cannot allow either Afghanistan or Pakistan to be a safe haven for al Qaeda, those who with impunity blow up train stations in London or buildings in New York."
Mr. Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan earlier this year to help quell an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency. Some 10,000 Marines and 4,000 soldiers from the Stryker Brigade - the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based in Fort Lewis, Washington - are deploying in the south, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace and stronghold.
The troops are expected to help provide security for the country's August presidential election and help train army and police units who U.S. officials hope can one day provide security for the country.
In other violence around the country, international troops and Afghan police killed 12 Taliban insurgents in a gun battle in southern Afghanistan, police said Sunday.
The joint force attacked a compound north of the capital of Uruzgan province where the militants were hiding Saturday evening, sparking the fighting, police spokesman Mohammad Musa said. He said no Afghan police or international troops were killed.
In eastern Kunar province, meanwhile, one civilian was killed and five wounded when shelling from a gun battle between insurgents and Afghan and international forces hit a house.
Provincial Police Chief Gen. Abdul Jalal Jalal said everyone in the house initially survived Saturday's blast, but one man died from his injuries after being rushed to a hospital. Jalal said it was unclear which side fired the shots that hit the house.
Also Saturday, at least six police officers were killed by roadside bombs - two in southern Helmand province and at least four south of Kabul in Logar province, officials said.
In Logar, the officers were driving in a private car in Charkh district when the explosion hit, said provincial police chief Gen. Mustafa Mosseini.
NATO forces, who secured the site and treated one wounded officer, said in a statement that four police were killed. Mosseini said five officers died.
The bombing in Helmand took place Saturday night in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, killing two police and wounding three, said Dawood Ahmadi, the governor's spokesman.
Police officers are regular targets of Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan. Mosseini said the officers had been traveling in a civilian car in order to avoid drawing the attention of potential attackers.
In another gun battle in eastern Paktia province between insurgents and Afghan police, two militants and one police officer were killed, said Rahullah Samon, a spokesman for the governor.
By Associated Press Writer Jason Straziuso; AP writers Amir Shah in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
5th U.S. Service Member Dies of Wounds; Americans Being Killed in Afghanistan at Record Pace
By Jason Straziuso, AP, CBS News, July 12, 2009
Bomb blasts killed four U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of American troops have deployed in recent weeks as part of an offensive in the country's dangerous drug-producing region, an official said Sunday.
The four Marines died Saturday in Helmand province, where about 4,000 troops this month launched the largest Marine operation in Afghanistan since 2001. U.S. forces have met little resistance but face the danger of roadside bombs everywhere they travel.
A fifth U.S. service member wounded in June died of wounds in the U.S. on Friday, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, who confirmed the deaths of the four Marines. The four killed Saturday were initially identified as Army soldiers.
The five deaths bring to 106 the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year - a record pace. Last year 151 U.S. troops died in the country.
The U.S. casualties come on the heels of eight British deaths in Helmand during a 24-hour period that ended Friday, deaths that have triggered a debate in Britain about its role in Afghanistan. Britain has now lost more troops in Afghanistan than it did in Iraq.
President Barack Obama called Britain's contribution critically important in an interview with Sky News broadcast Sunday.
"My heart goes out to the families of those British soldiers," he said. "Great Britain has played an extraordinary role in this coalition, understanding that we cannot allow either Afghanistan or Pakistan to be a safe haven for al Qaeda, those who with impunity blow up train stations in London or buildings in New York."
Mr. Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan earlier this year to help quell an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency. Some 10,000 Marines and 4,000 soldiers from the Stryker Brigade - the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based in Fort Lewis, Washington - are deploying in the south, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace and stronghold.
The troops are expected to help provide security for the country's August presidential election and help train army and police units who U.S. officials hope can one day provide security for the country.
In other violence around the country, international troops and Afghan police killed 12 Taliban insurgents in a gun battle in southern Afghanistan, police said Sunday.
The joint force attacked a compound north of the capital of Uruzgan province where the militants were hiding Saturday evening, sparking the fighting, police spokesman Mohammad Musa said. He said no Afghan police or international troops were killed.
In eastern Kunar province, meanwhile, one civilian was killed and five wounded when shelling from a gun battle between insurgents and Afghan and international forces hit a house.
Provincial Police Chief Gen. Abdul Jalal Jalal said everyone in the house initially survived Saturday's blast, but one man died from his injuries after being rushed to a hospital. Jalal said it was unclear which side fired the shots that hit the house.
Also Saturday, at least six police officers were killed by roadside bombs - two in southern Helmand province and at least four south of Kabul in Logar province, officials said.
In Logar, the officers were driving in a private car in Charkh district when the explosion hit, said provincial police chief Gen. Mustafa Mosseini.
NATO forces, who secured the site and treated one wounded officer, said in a statement that four police were killed. Mosseini said five officers died.
The bombing in Helmand took place Saturday night in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, killing two police and wounding three, said Dawood Ahmadi, the governor's spokesman.
Police officers are regular targets of Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan. Mosseini said the officers had been traveling in a civilian car in order to avoid drawing the attention of potential attackers.
In another gun battle in eastern Paktia province between insurgents and Afghan police, two militants and one police officer were killed, said Rahullah Samon, a spokesman for the governor.
By Associated Press Writer Jason Straziuso; AP writers Amir Shah in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
7 American troops killed in Afghan incidents
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2009
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan -- Seven American service members were killed Monday in Afghanistan, the largest one-day death toll here in months for U.S. troops.
The deaths -- two in the south, four in the north and one in the east -- reflected in part the intensifying conflict in a large swath of the south, where a major U.S. offensive is underway. But they also signaled Taliban insurgents' determination to push into areas that have been relatively quiet, such as Afghanistan's northern tier, and to keep up pressure on American forces in the east, which borders Pakistan's volatile tribal areas.
At least six of the deaths were caused by improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs -- the insurgents' weapon of choice -- said a statement by NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
Afghan civilians again proved vulnerable to the violence. Two were killed when a suicide bomber attacked the outer gate of the sprawling North Atlantic Treaty Organization base at Kandahar, the alliance's main hub in the south. The area where the attacker struck was a gate widely used by Afghan workers entering the base, far from the main part of the military installation. Western troops are usually traveling in armored convoys when they pass through the base's outer ring of defenses.
The deaths of the four American troops in the north, in Kunduz province, when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, were unusual not only because the area suffers relatively few such attacks, but also because there are not many U.S. troops there. Most American military personnel are deployed in the south and east, both of which are centers of insurgent activity.
The troops who died in Kunduz had been involved in training Afghan security forces, U.S. military officials said.
In the east, a U.S. soldier died of injuries sustained in a firefight with militants, an American military spokesman said. Eastern Afghanistan had been the scene two days earlier of a tightly coordinated insurgent attack on a remote base that killed two American troops. On Monday, a Taliban website claimed responsibility for the capture of a U.S. soldier who was reported missing June 30 in the east.
No details were released about the two Americans killed in southern Afghanistan, but it appeared that they were not part of a 4,000-strong U.S. Marine Corps force seeking to assert control in the lower Helmand River valley. The offensive, which began last week, is described as the largest American-staged assault since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power.
U.S. military officials have acknowledged that it will take some time to determine whether mistrustful tribal leaders and residents in Helmand province will accept the presence of the Marines, let alone welcome the American troops. Afghan officials in the province who allied themselves with the government and Western forces in the past often found themselves at the mercy of the Taliban whenever the attention of thinly spread coalition troops -- mostly British, until the arrival this spring and summer of about 8,000 U.S. Marines -- was diverted elsewhere.
As a centerpiece of the current offensive, the Marines, accompanied by about 600 Afghan troops, intend to set up small bases and hold the territory, all the while forging relationships with the local leadership, U.S. commanders have said.
In recent days, Marines have pushed as far south as the district of Khan Neshin, a longtime Taliban stronghold, the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan said in a statement. It said government control had been restored in the district for the first time in several years.
laura.king@latimes.com
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan -- Seven American service members were killed Monday in Afghanistan, the largest one-day death toll here in months for U.S. troops.
The deaths -- two in the south, four in the north and one in the east -- reflected in part the intensifying conflict in a large swath of the south, where a major U.S. offensive is underway. But they also signaled Taliban insurgents' determination to push into areas that have been relatively quiet, such as Afghanistan's northern tier, and to keep up pressure on American forces in the east, which borders Pakistan's volatile tribal areas.
At least six of the deaths were caused by improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs -- the insurgents' weapon of choice -- said a statement by NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
Afghan civilians again proved vulnerable to the violence. Two were killed when a suicide bomber attacked the outer gate of the sprawling North Atlantic Treaty Organization base at Kandahar, the alliance's main hub in the south. The area where the attacker struck was a gate widely used by Afghan workers entering the base, far from the main part of the military installation. Western troops are usually traveling in armored convoys when they pass through the base's outer ring of defenses.
The deaths of the four American troops in the north, in Kunduz province, when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb, were unusual not only because the area suffers relatively few such attacks, but also because there are not many U.S. troops there. Most American military personnel are deployed in the south and east, both of which are centers of insurgent activity.
The troops who died in Kunduz had been involved in training Afghan security forces, U.S. military officials said.
In the east, a U.S. soldier died of injuries sustained in a firefight with militants, an American military spokesman said. Eastern Afghanistan had been the scene two days earlier of a tightly coordinated insurgent attack on a remote base that killed two American troops. On Monday, a Taliban website claimed responsibility for the capture of a U.S. soldier who was reported missing June 30 in the east.
No details were released about the two Americans killed in southern Afghanistan, but it appeared that they were not part of a 4,000-strong U.S. Marine Corps force seeking to assert control in the lower Helmand River valley. The offensive, which began last week, is described as the largest American-staged assault since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power.
U.S. military officials have acknowledged that it will take some time to determine whether mistrustful tribal leaders and residents in Helmand province will accept the presence of the Marines, let alone welcome the American troops. Afghan officials in the province who allied themselves with the government and Western forces in the past often found themselves at the mercy of the Taliban whenever the attention of thinly spread coalition troops -- mostly British, until the arrival this spring and summer of about 8,000 U.S. Marines -- was diverted elsewhere.
As a centerpiece of the current offensive, the Marines, accompanied by about 600 Afghan troops, intend to set up small bases and hold the territory, all the while forging relationships with the local leadership, U.S. commanders have said.
In recent days, Marines have pushed as far south as the district of Khan Neshin, a longtime Taliban stronghold, the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan said in a statement. It said government control had been restored in the district for the first time in several years.
laura.king@latimes.com
U.S. Faces Resentment in Afghan Region
By CARLOTTA GALL, The New York Times, July 2, 2009
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — The mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan, presenting incoming American forces with an even harder job than expected in reversing military losses to the Taliban and winning over the population.
Villagers in some districts have taken up arms against foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger after losing relatives in airstrikes, several community representatives interviewed said. Others have been moved to join the insurgents out of poverty or simply because the Taliban’s influence is so pervasive here.
On Thursday morning, 4,000 American Marines began a major offensive to try to take back the region from the strongest Taliban insurgency in the country. The Marines are part of a larger deployment of additional troops being ordered by the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, to concentrate not just on killing Taliban fighters but on protecting the population.
Yet Taliban control of the countryside is so extensive in provinces like Kandahar and Helmand that winning districts back will involve tough fighting and may ignite further tensions, residents and local officials warn. The government has no presence in 5 of Helmand’s 13 districts, and in several others, like Nawa, it holds only the district town, where troops and officials live virtually under siege.
The Taliban’s influence is so strong in rural areas that much of the local population has accepted their rule and is watching the United States troop buildup with trepidation. Villagers interviewed in late June said that they preferred to be left alone under Taliban rule and complained about artillery fire and airstrikes by foreign forces.
“We Muslims don’t like them — they are the source of danger,” said a local villager, Hajji Taj Muhammad, of the foreign forces. His house in Marja, a town west of this provincial capital that has been a major opium trading post and Taliban base, was bombed two months ago, he said.
The southern provinces have suffered the worst civilian casualties since NATO’s deployment to the region in 2006. Thousands of people have already been displaced by fighting and taken refuge in the towns.
“Now there are more people siding with the Taliban than with the government,” said Abdul Qadir Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in southern Afghanistan.
In many places, people have never seen or felt the presence of the Afghan government, or foreign forces, except through violence, but the Taliban are a known quantity, community leaders said.
“People are hostages of the Taliban, but they look at the coalition also as the enemy, because they have not seen anything good from them in seven or eight years,” said Hajji Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, a district council leader from Nadali in Helmand Province.
Foreign troops continue to make mistakes that enrage whole sections of this deeply tribal society, like the killing of a tribal elder’s son and his wife as they were driving to their home in Helmand two months ago. Only their baby daughter survived. The tribal elder, Reis-e-Baghran, a former member of the Taliban who reconciled with the government, is one of the most influential figures in Helmand.
The infusion of more American troops into southern Afghanistan is aimed at ending a stalemate between NATO and Taliban forces. The governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, said extra forces were needed since the Taliban were now so entrenched in the region that they had permanent bases.
Last year an American Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2,400 men secured a small but critical area in the district of Garmser in southern Helmand, choking off Taliban supply routes from the Pakistani border while reopening the town for commerce. The operation had a crippling effect on Taliban forces operating farther north in neighboring Oruzgan Province, according to Jelani Popal, who oversees local affairs for President Hamid Karzai’s government.
This year military officials hope to replicate that operation in more places, according to Lt. Gen. James Dutton, the British deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The extra forces will be critical to create confidence among the locals and persuade insurgents to give up the fight, said Mr. Mangal, the Helmand governor. Yet he and others warn that there will be more bloodshed and that the large influx of foreign forces could prompt a backlash.
In parts of Helmand and Kandahar, resentment and frustration are rampant. People who traveled to Lashkar Gah from the districts complained of continued civilian suffering and questioned American intentions. “They come here just to fight, not to bring peace,” said Allah Nazad, a farmer.
People from Marja said that foreign troops carrying out counternarcotics operations conducted nighttime raids on houses, sometimes killed people inside their homes, and used dogs that bit the occupants.
“The people are very scared of the night raids,” said Spin Gul, a local farmer. “When they have night raids, the people join the Taliban and fight.”
“Who are the Taliban? They are local people,” interjected another man, who did not give his name. One man, Hamza, said he would fight if foreigners raided his house. “I will not allow them,” he said. “I will fight them to the last drop of blood.”
Many do not side with the Taliban out of choice, however, and could be won over, community leaders said.
Fazel Muhammad, a member of the district council of Panjwai, an area west of Kandahar, said he knew people who were laying mines for the Taliban in order to feed their families. He estimated that 80 percent of insurgents were local people driven to fight out of poverty and despair. Offered another way out, only 2 percent would support the Taliban, he said.
Yet mistrust of the government remains so strong that even if the Taliban were defeated militarily, the government and the American-led coalition would find the population reluctant to cooperate, said Hajji Abdullah Jan, the leader of the provincial council of Helmand. “These people will still not trust the government,” he said. “Even if security is 100 percent, it will take time because the government did not keep its promises in the past.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 3, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — The mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan, presenting incoming American forces with an even harder job than expected in reversing military losses to the Taliban and winning over the population.
Villagers in some districts have taken up arms against foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger after losing relatives in airstrikes, several community representatives interviewed said. Others have been moved to join the insurgents out of poverty or simply because the Taliban’s influence is so pervasive here.
On Thursday morning, 4,000 American Marines began a major offensive to try to take back the region from the strongest Taliban insurgency in the country. The Marines are part of a larger deployment of additional troops being ordered by the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, to concentrate not just on killing Taliban fighters but on protecting the population.
Yet Taliban control of the countryside is so extensive in provinces like Kandahar and Helmand that winning districts back will involve tough fighting and may ignite further tensions, residents and local officials warn. The government has no presence in 5 of Helmand’s 13 districts, and in several others, like Nawa, it holds only the district town, where troops and officials live virtually under siege.
The Taliban’s influence is so strong in rural areas that much of the local population has accepted their rule and is watching the United States troop buildup with trepidation. Villagers interviewed in late June said that they preferred to be left alone under Taliban rule and complained about artillery fire and airstrikes by foreign forces.
“We Muslims don’t like them — they are the source of danger,” said a local villager, Hajji Taj Muhammad, of the foreign forces. His house in Marja, a town west of this provincial capital that has been a major opium trading post and Taliban base, was bombed two months ago, he said.
The southern provinces have suffered the worst civilian casualties since NATO’s deployment to the region in 2006. Thousands of people have already been displaced by fighting and taken refuge in the towns.
“Now there are more people siding with the Taliban than with the government,” said Abdul Qadir Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in southern Afghanistan.
In many places, people have never seen or felt the presence of the Afghan government, or foreign forces, except through violence, but the Taliban are a known quantity, community leaders said.
“People are hostages of the Taliban, but they look at the coalition also as the enemy, because they have not seen anything good from them in seven or eight years,” said Hajji Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, a district council leader from Nadali in Helmand Province.
Foreign troops continue to make mistakes that enrage whole sections of this deeply tribal society, like the killing of a tribal elder’s son and his wife as they were driving to their home in Helmand two months ago. Only their baby daughter survived. The tribal elder, Reis-e-Baghran, a former member of the Taliban who reconciled with the government, is one of the most influential figures in Helmand.
The infusion of more American troops into southern Afghanistan is aimed at ending a stalemate between NATO and Taliban forces. The governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, said extra forces were needed since the Taliban were now so entrenched in the region that they had permanent bases.
Last year an American Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2,400 men secured a small but critical area in the district of Garmser in southern Helmand, choking off Taliban supply routes from the Pakistani border while reopening the town for commerce. The operation had a crippling effect on Taliban forces operating farther north in neighboring Oruzgan Province, according to Jelani Popal, who oversees local affairs for President Hamid Karzai’s government.
This year military officials hope to replicate that operation in more places, according to Lt. Gen. James Dutton, the British deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The extra forces will be critical to create confidence among the locals and persuade insurgents to give up the fight, said Mr. Mangal, the Helmand governor. Yet he and others warn that there will be more bloodshed and that the large influx of foreign forces could prompt a backlash.
In parts of Helmand and Kandahar, resentment and frustration are rampant. People who traveled to Lashkar Gah from the districts complained of continued civilian suffering and questioned American intentions. “They come here just to fight, not to bring peace,” said Allah Nazad, a farmer.
People from Marja said that foreign troops carrying out counternarcotics operations conducted nighttime raids on houses, sometimes killed people inside their homes, and used dogs that bit the occupants.
“The people are very scared of the night raids,” said Spin Gul, a local farmer. “When they have night raids, the people join the Taliban and fight.”
“Who are the Taliban? They are local people,” interjected another man, who did not give his name. One man, Hamza, said he would fight if foreigners raided his house. “I will not allow them,” he said. “I will fight them to the last drop of blood.”
Many do not side with the Taliban out of choice, however, and could be won over, community leaders said.
Fazel Muhammad, a member of the district council of Panjwai, an area west of Kandahar, said he knew people who were laying mines for the Taliban in order to feed their families. He estimated that 80 percent of insurgents were local people driven to fight out of poverty and despair. Offered another way out, only 2 percent would support the Taliban, he said.
Yet mistrust of the government remains so strong that even if the Taliban were defeated militarily, the government and the American-led coalition would find the population reluctant to cooperate, said Hajji Abdullah Jan, the leader of the provincial council of Helmand. “These people will still not trust the government,” he said. “Even if security is 100 percent, it will take time because the government did not keep its promises in the past.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 3, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.
McChrystal warns of greater casualties in Afghanistan
Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal tells a Senate committee that the strategy that worked in Iraq won't translate to Afghanistan, and that greater cooperation with Pakistan is needed.
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- President Obama's pick to lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan warned Tuesday that casualties are likely to increase as the military steps up its campaign against insurgents.
Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal also voiced skepticism that Taliban guerrillas could be persuaded to sever their ties with Al Qaeda; a similar strategy was crucial in McChrystal's success as commander of special operations forces in Iraq.
"I don't think that the Taliban have any reason right now to turn their back on Al Qaeda," McChrystal said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, his first public remarks since being selected last month to lead an overhauled U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
One reason is that the Taliban is widely perceived in the region as prevailing against coalition forces. He also cited intermarriage among Al Qaeda members and Taliban-connected tribes along the border with Pakistan. "They've created connections that are beyond just organizational," he said.
McChrystal, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, is expected to make sweeping changes in the U.S. approach to a war effort that has suffered setbacks since the rout of the Taliban government in 2001.
President Obama has ordered an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last month fired the U.S. commander there, Gen. David D. McKiernan, to bring "fresh thinking" to the battle.
McChrystal said his strategy will rely heavily on bolstering U.S. intelligence collection, reducing civilian casualties and dramatically speeding up the training of Afghan security forces.
The Obama administration wants to expand the Afghan forces to 134,000 troops from 86,000. But McChrystal made it clear that the number of troops needed probably will rise well beyond that.
"Success will not be quick or easy," McChrystal said. "Casualties will likely increase."
McChrystal, a specialist in guerrilla warfare who is known for his ascetic lifestyle and extreme fitness regimen, was credited for his inventive use of special operations teams in Iraq to track down Abu Musab Zarqawi and other insurgents.
But in the Afghan conflict, insurgents routinely retreat across the border to safety in Pakistan. McChrystal all but ruled out U.S. operations in Pakistan as "not valid," while acknowledging a need to share intelligence and expertise with the Pakistani government.
He also launched what is likely to be a continuing effort to prod the Pakistanis to broaden their current assault on the Taliban, describing the situation there in potentially dire terms.
A U.S. defeat in Afghanistan probably would lead to civil war there, the return of Al Qaeda and the creation of a new haven for Taliban groups that have challenged the Pakistan government, he said.
Asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) whether that sequence could lead to the collapse of Pakistan, McChrystal replied: "Sir, I think it's very likely. And then, of course, that's a nuclear-armed state so you've got nuclear weapons under questionable control at that point."
McChrystal was also asked about his role in the Army's misleading accounts of the death of Army Ranger and former professional football player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan in 2004.
A Pentagon inspector general report faulted McChrystal for signing off on a Silver Star citation that suggested Tillman had been killed by enemy fire, even though officials knew Tillman had been accidentally killed by fellow soldiers. The report did credit McChrystal with trying to call the matter to the attention of his superiors.
"We failed the family. And I was part of that, and I apologize for it," McChrystal said. He said, however, that he believed the Silver Star was warranted.
greg.miller@latimes.com
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, June 3, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- President Obama's pick to lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan warned Tuesday that casualties are likely to increase as the military steps up its campaign against insurgents.
Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal also voiced skepticism that Taliban guerrillas could be persuaded to sever their ties with Al Qaeda; a similar strategy was crucial in McChrystal's success as commander of special operations forces in Iraq.
"I don't think that the Taliban have any reason right now to turn their back on Al Qaeda," McChrystal said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, his first public remarks since being selected last month to lead an overhauled U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
One reason is that the Taliban is widely perceived in the region as prevailing against coalition forces. He also cited intermarriage among Al Qaeda members and Taliban-connected tribes along the border with Pakistan. "They've created connections that are beyond just organizational," he said.
McChrystal, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, is expected to make sweeping changes in the U.S. approach to a war effort that has suffered setbacks since the rout of the Taliban government in 2001.
President Obama has ordered an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last month fired the U.S. commander there, Gen. David D. McKiernan, to bring "fresh thinking" to the battle.
McChrystal said his strategy will rely heavily on bolstering U.S. intelligence collection, reducing civilian casualties and dramatically speeding up the training of Afghan security forces.
The Obama administration wants to expand the Afghan forces to 134,000 troops from 86,000. But McChrystal made it clear that the number of troops needed probably will rise well beyond that.
"Success will not be quick or easy," McChrystal said. "Casualties will likely increase."
McChrystal, a specialist in guerrilla warfare who is known for his ascetic lifestyle and extreme fitness regimen, was credited for his inventive use of special operations teams in Iraq to track down Abu Musab Zarqawi and other insurgents.
But in the Afghan conflict, insurgents routinely retreat across the border to safety in Pakistan. McChrystal all but ruled out U.S. operations in Pakistan as "not valid," while acknowledging a need to share intelligence and expertise with the Pakistani government.
He also launched what is likely to be a continuing effort to prod the Pakistanis to broaden their current assault on the Taliban, describing the situation there in potentially dire terms.
A U.S. defeat in Afghanistan probably would lead to civil war there, the return of Al Qaeda and the creation of a new haven for Taliban groups that have challenged the Pakistan government, he said.
Asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) whether that sequence could lead to the collapse of Pakistan, McChrystal replied: "Sir, I think it's very likely. And then, of course, that's a nuclear-armed state so you've got nuclear weapons under questionable control at that point."
McChrystal was also asked about his role in the Army's misleading accounts of the death of Army Ranger and former professional football player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan in 2004.
A Pentagon inspector general report faulted McChrystal for signing off on a Silver Star citation that suggested Tillman had been killed by enemy fire, even though officials knew Tillman had been accidentally killed by fellow soldiers. The report did credit McChrystal with trying to call the matter to the attention of his superiors.
"We failed the family. And I was part of that, and I apologize for it," McChrystal said. He said, however, that he believed the Silver Star was warranted.
greg.miller@latimes.com
Israel Still Shelling Gaza & Killing Palestinians
Israel says that the last IDF soldier has left the Gaza Strip but tanks & troops remain on the border ready to resume the "operation" if they deem it necessary.
Israeli completes Gaza troop pullout
By AMY TEIBEL, AP, Jan. 21, 2009
JERUSALEM (AP) — The last Israeli troops left the Gaza Strip before dawn Wednesday, the military said, as Israel dispatched its foreign minister to Europe in a bid to rally international support to end arms smuggling into the Hamas-ruled territory.
The timing of the pullout reflected Israeli hopes to defuse the crisis in Gaza before President Barack Obama entered the White House. The military said troops remain massed on the Israeli side of the border and are poised to take action if militants violate a fragile three-day cease-fire.
The troops' exit marked the end of an Israeli offensive that ravaged Gaza and left a total of 1,284 Palestinians dead and 4,336 wounded, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (the figures are over 1300 killed & over 5500 wounded and more bodies are being found in the rubble as of Jan. 21-DD/ACFJ). The rights group, which has dispatched researchers to collect the names of the dead, said 894 of those killed were civilians.
The Israeli military says 500 Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting. Gaza's militant groups claim only some 150 of the dead were armed fighters.
Israel launched the offensive to permanently halt years of militant rocket fire on growing numbers of Israelis and to halt the smuggling of arms that turned Hamas into a potent threat to much of southern Israel. But by Wednesday, some of the tunnels on the Egyptian border appeared to be back in business, with workers clearing blocked passageways, bulldozers carrying out other repairs, and fuel already being brought from Egypt into Gaza, according to AP Television News footage.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was heading to Brussels on Wednesday, hoping to clinch a deal committing the European Union to contribute forces, ships and technology to anti-smuggling operations, Israeli officials said.
Last week, the U.S. signed an anti-smuggling deal with Israel calling for expanded intelligence cooperation between the two countries and other U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe.
Gaza remained tense Wednesday. Israeli navy ships fired rounds of machine-gun fire at the beaches of northern Gaza, and the military said a Gazan fishing vessel had strayed into an area declared off-limits by the Israeli navy.
The death toll in Gaza has provoked international outrage. In Israel, however, the war has strong backing, because it is seen as a legitimate response to militants who now have one-eighth of the population within rocket range.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon left the region early Wednesday after touring Gaza and southern Israel. Ban called for an investigation into the Israeli shelling of U.N. compounds in Gaza during the fighting, which he termed "outrageous." He also called militant rocket attacks against Israel "appalling and unacceptable."
The Israeli military said it has launched an internal investigation into allegations about its use of white phosphorus munitions. U.N. officials and human rights groups have alleged Israel used such weapons, typically employed to illuminate targets or create smoke screens. Amnesty International has said Israel's firing of white phosphorus shells in densely populated residential areas of Gaza is a war crime.
Both sides declared cease-fires that went into effect Sunday, but the arrangements remain shaky. Israel reported mortar shelling from Gaza on Tuesday, and the Palestinians say Israeli troops shot and killed two Gaza farmers along the border after the truce took hold.
The fighting ended before Israel achieved its aims, though world leaders have pledged to assist in efforts to keep militants from restocking war-depleted arsenals.
The U.S. has promised to supply detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations in the region. The equipment and training would be used to monitor Gaza's land and sea borders.
The Israeli-American agreement also calls for the U.S. to expand work with its NATO partners, particularly in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and eastern Africa.
At the signing ceremony in Washington, Livni described the deal as "a vital complement for a cessation of hostility" in the troubled region. Shortly after, she said she hoped European countries, notably Britain, France and Germany, would work out similar agreements with the Israelis.
Although signed by the Bush administration on its last working day, the agreement is binding on the Obama administration.
Most of the smuggling was carried out through tunnels underneath the eight-mile (15-kilometer) border between Egypt and Gaza border. Egypt has proved unable or unwilling to halt the flow of weapons and medium-range rockets coming through the tunnels, alongside fuel and consumer goods.
Israel bombed most of the tunnels during the offensive.
Iran, one of Hamas' main backers, rejected the international attempt to deny the militant group weapons. In statements reported Wednesday on the Web site of Iranian state TV, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that as Israel is well-armed, it would be wrong to question the Palestinians about obtaining weapons.
Israel says Iran provides the group with cash, weapons and training. Tehran denies giving any weapons to Hamas.
Gaza remained tense Wednesday. Israeli navy ships fired rounds of machine-gun fire at the beaches of northern Gaza, and the military said a Gazan fishing vessel had strayed into an area declared off-limits by the Israeli navy.
...the Palestinians say Israeli troops shot and killed two Gaza farmers along the border after the truce took hold.
The U.S. has promised to supply detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations in the region. The equipment and training would be used to monitor Gaza's land and sea borders.
The Israeli-American agreement also calls for the U.S. to expand work with its NATO partners, particularly in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and eastern Africa.
Israeli completes Gaza troop pullout
By AMY TEIBEL, AP, Jan. 21, 2009
JERUSALEM (AP) — The last Israeli troops left the Gaza Strip before dawn Wednesday, the military said, as Israel dispatched its foreign minister to Europe in a bid to rally international support to end arms smuggling into the Hamas-ruled territory.
The timing of the pullout reflected Israeli hopes to defuse the crisis in Gaza before President Barack Obama entered the White House. The military said troops remain massed on the Israeli side of the border and are poised to take action if militants violate a fragile three-day cease-fire.
The troops' exit marked the end of an Israeli offensive that ravaged Gaza and left a total of 1,284 Palestinians dead and 4,336 wounded, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (the figures are over 1300 killed & over 5500 wounded and more bodies are being found in the rubble as of Jan. 21-DD/ACFJ). The rights group, which has dispatched researchers to collect the names of the dead, said 894 of those killed were civilians.
The Israeli military says 500 Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting. Gaza's militant groups claim only some 150 of the dead were armed fighters.
Israel launched the offensive to permanently halt years of militant rocket fire on growing numbers of Israelis and to halt the smuggling of arms that turned Hamas into a potent threat to much of southern Israel. But by Wednesday, some of the tunnels on the Egyptian border appeared to be back in business, with workers clearing blocked passageways, bulldozers carrying out other repairs, and fuel already being brought from Egypt into Gaza, according to AP Television News footage.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was heading to Brussels on Wednesday, hoping to clinch a deal committing the European Union to contribute forces, ships and technology to anti-smuggling operations, Israeli officials said.
Last week, the U.S. signed an anti-smuggling deal with Israel calling for expanded intelligence cooperation between the two countries and other U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe.
Gaza remained tense Wednesday. Israeli navy ships fired rounds of machine-gun fire at the beaches of northern Gaza, and the military said a Gazan fishing vessel had strayed into an area declared off-limits by the Israeli navy.
The death toll in Gaza has provoked international outrage. In Israel, however, the war has strong backing, because it is seen as a legitimate response to militants who now have one-eighth of the population within rocket range.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon left the region early Wednesday after touring Gaza and southern Israel. Ban called for an investigation into the Israeli shelling of U.N. compounds in Gaza during the fighting, which he termed "outrageous." He also called militant rocket attacks against Israel "appalling and unacceptable."
The Israeli military said it has launched an internal investigation into allegations about its use of white phosphorus munitions. U.N. officials and human rights groups have alleged Israel used such weapons, typically employed to illuminate targets or create smoke screens. Amnesty International has said Israel's firing of white phosphorus shells in densely populated residential areas of Gaza is a war crime.
Both sides declared cease-fires that went into effect Sunday, but the arrangements remain shaky. Israel reported mortar shelling from Gaza on Tuesday, and the Palestinians say Israeli troops shot and killed two Gaza farmers along the border after the truce took hold.
The fighting ended before Israel achieved its aims, though world leaders have pledged to assist in efforts to keep militants from restocking war-depleted arsenals.
The U.S. has promised to supply detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations in the region. The equipment and training would be used to monitor Gaza's land and sea borders.
The Israeli-American agreement also calls for the U.S. to expand work with its NATO partners, particularly in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and eastern Africa.
At the signing ceremony in Washington, Livni described the deal as "a vital complement for a cessation of hostility" in the troubled region. Shortly after, she said she hoped European countries, notably Britain, France and Germany, would work out similar agreements with the Israelis.
Although signed by the Bush administration on its last working day, the agreement is binding on the Obama administration.
Most of the smuggling was carried out through tunnels underneath the eight-mile (15-kilometer) border between Egypt and Gaza border. Egypt has proved unable or unwilling to halt the flow of weapons and medium-range rockets coming through the tunnels, alongside fuel and consumer goods.
Israel bombed most of the tunnels during the offensive.
Iran, one of Hamas' main backers, rejected the international attempt to deny the militant group weapons. In statements reported Wednesday on the Web site of Iranian state TV, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that as Israel is well-armed, it would be wrong to question the Palestinians about obtaining weapons.
Israel says Iran provides the group with cash, weapons and training. Tehran denies giving any weapons to Hamas.
U.S. hidden hand pushes Ossetia war
Sara Flounders, Workers World, Aug. 13, 2008
Aug. 13—Long before Aug. 8, when the leaders of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus Mountains south of Russia, attacked a small autonomous region known as South Ossetia, the U.S. military was deeply involved in Georgia. Washington is no innocent bystander in this bloody struggle, which provoked a response by Russia that now dominates the news.
Georgia’s well-organized and massive military assault set the city of Tskhinvali, South Ossetia’s capital, aflame within hours, destroying the parliament building, the university and the main hospital. According to AP interviews with survivors, there was hardly a single building left undamaged. Eduard Kokoity, the South Ossetian leader, estimated that more than 1,400 civilians were killed in the assault. (Reuters, Aug. 8)
Russian military forces then struck back at Georgia’s military bases, airfields and the main Black Sea port of Poti. Most news coverage in the West, however, is slanted to give the impression that Russia initiated the conflict with Georgia.
Many of the hundreds of recent articles detail the significance of Georgia as a strategic transit point for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea. But what connection this conflict may have to other U.S. maneuvers in this strategic region is barely mentioned.
Even as Russia is preoccupied with a war on its border and world attention is focused on South Ossetia, the Bush administration has sent two additional U.S. Navy carrier groups to the seas around Iran.
U.S. armed, trained Georgia’s army
Washington does not claim credit for the invasion of South Ossetia ordered by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, especially now that his forces have been routed. The roads back to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi are littered with tanks and other military vehicles abandoned by Georgian soldiers in their mad scramble to return home. (BBC News, Aug. 12)
But at the time of the invasion, the White House made clear its political support for Saakashvili and Georgia has been closely allied with the U.S. military in its war in Iraq.
The U.S. and NATO have heavily armed and trained the Georgian military. There are U.S. military “advisers” in Georgia today. A thousand U.S. Marines from the Third Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment just finished three weeks of joint maneuvers there called “Operation Immediate Response.”
In the period leading up to Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, the Pentagon had supplied Georgia with hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery weapons, rocket launchers and dozens of combat helicopters and anti-aircraft missile systems. Hundreds of other weapons systems have poured in from other NATO members and from Israel. (Interfax, Aug. 7)
In exchange Georgia had provided the third-largest military force in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But on Aug. 10 the U.S. began ferrying the 2,000 Georgian troops out of Iraq to the war zone in Georgia.
Along with the “advisers” and U.S. troops sent for maneuvers, U.S.-origin mercenaries and privatized military trainers function in Georgia. Tens of thousands of “civil society” operatives, international consultants, policy experts and technical assistants operate in Georgia, Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics.
NATO divided over Georgia
NATO, a U.S.-dominated alliance of imperialist military powers, has been divided over Washington’s demands for expansion. The April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, nearly broke up over Washington’s provocative proposals.
The U.S. demanded further expansion of NATO eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia, two countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and that both border Russia. Despite deep popular opposition in Poland and the Czech Republic, the U.S. military also pushed ahead with a plan to place a U.S. anti-missile system in each of these two countries, raising another threat to Russia.
At the Bucharest meeting, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg strongly and openly opposed Bush’s demands to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. Some of these governments said they felt apprehensive about U.S. recognition of Kosovo’s secession from Serbia. This secession was in direct violation of United Nations agreements and even the conditions the U.S. imposed on Serbia in the cease-fire agreement in 1999, which ended NATO’s terror bombing of Yugoslavia.
NATO postponed its decision on the status of Georgia and Ukraine until December. But Washington has refused to wait until the December NATO meeting. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Georgia on July 10 and strongly reiterated U.S. support for Georgia’s membership in NATO.
NATO expansion
For 40 years the NATO military alliance was comprised of wealthy, industrialized imperialist countries that had prospered from generations of colonial plunder. It was essentially an anti-Soviet alliance to halt the spread of socialist revolutions in Europe. NATO used military might, nuclear blackmail, economic sabotage, espionage and terror to protect and expand the private corporate wealth of its members.
Using the 1992-1999 war against Yugoslavia to justify its expansion and intervention, NATO has now grown from 16 members before that war to 26 members and 38 nations in four different “partnership” arrangements, as Canadian Gen. Ray Henault of the NATO Military Committee boasted in his Chairman’s Report in April. NATO has spread its field of intervention far beyond its original North Atlantic area to Eastern Europe, Africa and Afghanistan.
Many of the new members and “partners” of this military bloc are former socialist countries from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that have become captured ministates—economic colonies of European and U.S. imperialism.
However, the reestablishment of capitalist private ownership over the resources and production of this vast region of the globe did not pacify U.S. imperialism, which sees competing capitalist development in Russia also as a threat. U.S. corporate power is determined to allow only dependent colonial subjects. Any country seeking to control its own development or resources, regardless of its social system, is targeted. This is as true for Russia as it is for Iran, China or Venezuela.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. corporate power has attempted to establish control over the vast energy resources of Central Asia and the nations of the Caucasus region, the Caspian Sea and Black Sea.
Through NATO’s military expansion, the Pentagon has sought to encircle Russia. Again and again U.S. corporations have used Washington’s intelligence agencies and U.S.-based, corporate-funded nongovernmental organizations to cynically manipulate national antagonisms, tensions and claims throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Republics.
Ossetia’s status
For 70 years South Ossetia, though bordered on three sides by Georgia, held the status of an Autonomous Oblast (Region) within the Soviet Federation. Its population is 70,000. The neighboring Republic of North Ossetia-Alania has maintained its status as an autonomous republic within the present-day Russian Federation. The Ossetians have a distinct Persian-related language and culture. Schools, publishing houses and theaters helped preserve Ossetian nationality within the Soviet Union.
With the collapse of socialist planning in the Soviet Union, socialist solidarity among its constituent nations broke down. The capitalist market brought chaos and upheaval that hit hardest at the many small nationalities as the Soviet Union ended. Contending gangs of privatizers seeking to grab hold of nationally owned property fueled and manipulated nationalist sentiment.
The reactionary, pro-capitalist leadership in Georgia suddenly abolished South Ossetia’s autonomous status and rights and annexed the small nation, as they did with Abkhazia, another small, autonomous nation strategically located on the Black Sea and surrounded by Georgia. In the resulting struggle, South Ossetia and Abkhazia each declared their independence from Georgia in 1991.
This led to a 17-year standoff, with both Georgian and Russian “peacekeepers” stationed in South Ossetia. The latest Georgian attack ended the standoff with a de facto attempt at annexation.
Abkhazia has similarly declared its independence from Georgia. Georgia’s military onslaught against South Ossetia could well have spilled over into an attack on Abkhazia.
Given the scope of the operation and the active influence of U.S. forces in Georgia, it is hard to believe that Washington could have been uninformed of Saakashvili’s decision to launch an all-out war against South Ossetia.
Within the United Nations Security Council, U.S. and British representatives blocked a Russian-drafted resolution calling on Georgia and South Ossetia to immediately put down their weapons. The U.S. rejected the three-sentence statement that would have required both sides “to renounce the use of force.” It was a clear confirmation of U.S. support for Georgia’s continued “use of force” against the small Ossetian nationality.
However, Russia succeeded in repelling Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia. So as of Aug. 13, Georgia and Russia agreed to a “peace plan” brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Saakashvili is already criticizing the West generally, and the Bush administration in particular, for not coming to his aid—indicating that this puppet of Washington, who spent his time as a New York lawyer before being set up as a politician in post-Soviet Georgia, may believe he had the go-ahead from his imperialist masters to carry out a reckless attack on both Russians and Ossetians in the small autonomous region.
Aug. 13—Long before Aug. 8, when the leaders of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus Mountains south of Russia, attacked a small autonomous region known as South Ossetia, the U.S. military was deeply involved in Georgia. Washington is no innocent bystander in this bloody struggle, which provoked a response by Russia that now dominates the news.
Georgia’s well-organized and massive military assault set the city of Tskhinvali, South Ossetia’s capital, aflame within hours, destroying the parliament building, the university and the main hospital. According to AP interviews with survivors, there was hardly a single building left undamaged. Eduard Kokoity, the South Ossetian leader, estimated that more than 1,400 civilians were killed in the assault. (Reuters, Aug. 8)
Russian military forces then struck back at Georgia’s military bases, airfields and the main Black Sea port of Poti. Most news coverage in the West, however, is slanted to give the impression that Russia initiated the conflict with Georgia.
Many of the hundreds of recent articles detail the significance of Georgia as a strategic transit point for oil and gas from the Caspian Sea. But what connection this conflict may have to other U.S. maneuvers in this strategic region is barely mentioned.
Even as Russia is preoccupied with a war on its border and world attention is focused on South Ossetia, the Bush administration has sent two additional U.S. Navy carrier groups to the seas around Iran.
U.S. armed, trained Georgia’s army
Washington does not claim credit for the invasion of South Ossetia ordered by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, especially now that his forces have been routed. The roads back to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi are littered with tanks and other military vehicles abandoned by Georgian soldiers in their mad scramble to return home. (BBC News, Aug. 12)
But at the time of the invasion, the White House made clear its political support for Saakashvili and Georgia has been closely allied with the U.S. military in its war in Iraq.
The U.S. and NATO have heavily armed and trained the Georgian military. There are U.S. military “advisers” in Georgia today. A thousand U.S. Marines from the Third Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment just finished three weeks of joint maneuvers there called “Operation Immediate Response.”
In the period leading up to Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, the Pentagon had supplied Georgia with hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery weapons, rocket launchers and dozens of combat helicopters and anti-aircraft missile systems. Hundreds of other weapons systems have poured in from other NATO members and from Israel. (Interfax, Aug. 7)
In exchange Georgia had provided the third-largest military force in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But on Aug. 10 the U.S. began ferrying the 2,000 Georgian troops out of Iraq to the war zone in Georgia.
Along with the “advisers” and U.S. troops sent for maneuvers, U.S.-origin mercenaries and privatized military trainers function in Georgia. Tens of thousands of “civil society” operatives, international consultants, policy experts and technical assistants operate in Georgia, Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics.
NATO divided over Georgia
NATO, a U.S.-dominated alliance of imperialist military powers, has been divided over Washington’s demands for expansion. The April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, nearly broke up over Washington’s provocative proposals.
The U.S. demanded further expansion of NATO eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia, two countries that were once part of the Soviet Union and that both border Russia. Despite deep popular opposition in Poland and the Czech Republic, the U.S. military also pushed ahead with a plan to place a U.S. anti-missile system in each of these two countries, raising another threat to Russia.
At the Bucharest meeting, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg strongly and openly opposed Bush’s demands to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. Some of these governments said they felt apprehensive about U.S. recognition of Kosovo’s secession from Serbia. This secession was in direct violation of United Nations agreements and even the conditions the U.S. imposed on Serbia in the cease-fire agreement in 1999, which ended NATO’s terror bombing of Yugoslavia.
NATO postponed its decision on the status of Georgia and Ukraine until December. But Washington has refused to wait until the December NATO meeting. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Georgia on July 10 and strongly reiterated U.S. support for Georgia’s membership in NATO.
NATO expansion
For 40 years the NATO military alliance was comprised of wealthy, industrialized imperialist countries that had prospered from generations of colonial plunder. It was essentially an anti-Soviet alliance to halt the spread of socialist revolutions in Europe. NATO used military might, nuclear blackmail, economic sabotage, espionage and terror to protect and expand the private corporate wealth of its members.
Using the 1992-1999 war against Yugoslavia to justify its expansion and intervention, NATO has now grown from 16 members before that war to 26 members and 38 nations in four different “partnership” arrangements, as Canadian Gen. Ray Henault of the NATO Military Committee boasted in his Chairman’s Report in April. NATO has spread its field of intervention far beyond its original North Atlantic area to Eastern Europe, Africa and Afghanistan.
Many of the new members and “partners” of this military bloc are former socialist countries from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that have become captured ministates—economic colonies of European and U.S. imperialism.
However, the reestablishment of capitalist private ownership over the resources and production of this vast region of the globe did not pacify U.S. imperialism, which sees competing capitalist development in Russia also as a threat. U.S. corporate power is determined to allow only dependent colonial subjects. Any country seeking to control its own development or resources, regardless of its social system, is targeted. This is as true for Russia as it is for Iran, China or Venezuela.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. corporate power has attempted to establish control over the vast energy resources of Central Asia and the nations of the Caucasus region, the Caspian Sea and Black Sea.
Through NATO’s military expansion, the Pentagon has sought to encircle Russia. Again and again U.S. corporations have used Washington’s intelligence agencies and U.S.-based, corporate-funded nongovernmental organizations to cynically manipulate national antagonisms, tensions and claims throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Republics.
Ossetia’s status
For 70 years South Ossetia, though bordered on three sides by Georgia, held the status of an Autonomous Oblast (Region) within the Soviet Federation. Its population is 70,000. The neighboring Republic of North Ossetia-Alania has maintained its status as an autonomous republic within the present-day Russian Federation. The Ossetians have a distinct Persian-related language and culture. Schools, publishing houses and theaters helped preserve Ossetian nationality within the Soviet Union.
With the collapse of socialist planning in the Soviet Union, socialist solidarity among its constituent nations broke down. The capitalist market brought chaos and upheaval that hit hardest at the many small nationalities as the Soviet Union ended. Contending gangs of privatizers seeking to grab hold of nationally owned property fueled and manipulated nationalist sentiment.
The reactionary, pro-capitalist leadership in Georgia suddenly abolished South Ossetia’s autonomous status and rights and annexed the small nation, as they did with Abkhazia, another small, autonomous nation strategically located on the Black Sea and surrounded by Georgia. In the resulting struggle, South Ossetia and Abkhazia each declared their independence from Georgia in 1991.
This led to a 17-year standoff, with both Georgian and Russian “peacekeepers” stationed in South Ossetia. The latest Georgian attack ended the standoff with a de facto attempt at annexation.
Abkhazia has similarly declared its independence from Georgia. Georgia’s military onslaught against South Ossetia could well have spilled over into an attack on Abkhazia.
Given the scope of the operation and the active influence of U.S. forces in Georgia, it is hard to believe that Washington could have been uninformed of Saakashvili’s decision to launch an all-out war against South Ossetia.
Within the United Nations Security Council, U.S. and British representatives blocked a Russian-drafted resolution calling on Georgia and South Ossetia to immediately put down their weapons. The U.S. rejected the three-sentence statement that would have required both sides “to renounce the use of force.” It was a clear confirmation of U.S. support for Georgia’s continued “use of force” against the small Ossetian nationality.
However, Russia succeeded in repelling Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia. So as of Aug. 13, Georgia and Russia agreed to a “peace plan” brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Saakashvili is already criticizing the West generally, and the Bush administration in particular, for not coming to his aid—indicating that this puppet of Washington, who spent his time as a New York lawyer before being set up as a politician in post-Soviet Georgia, may believe he had the go-ahead from his imperialist masters to carry out a reckless attack on both Russians and Ossetians in the small autonomous region.
Officials: 9 US troops killed in Afghanistan
JASON STRAZIUSO, AP, July 13, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan - A multi-pronged militant assault on a small, remote U.S. base killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15 Sunday in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years, officials said.
The attack on the U.S. outpost came the same day a suicide bomber targeting a police patrol killed 24 people, while U.S. coalition and Afghan soldiers killed 40 militants elsewhere in the south.
The militant assault on the American troops began around 4:30 a.m. in a dangerous region close to the Pakistan border and lasted throughout the day.
Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
Nine U.S. troops were killed in the attack, a Western official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the troops' nationalities.
NATO confirmed nine of its soldiers had been killed and 15 wounded. Four Afghan soldiers also were wounded, NATO said.
"Although no final assessment has been made, it is believed insurgents suffered heavy casualties during several hours of fighting," NATO said in a statement.
Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, the top U.S. military spokeswoman in Afghanistan, said she could not comment because the fight was ongoing.
The attack appeared to be the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American troops were killed — also in Kunar province — when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Those troops were on their way to rescue a four-man team of Navy SEALs caught in a militant ambush. Three SEALs were killed, the fourth was rescued days later by a farmer.
Sunday's attack came during a period of rising violence in Afghanistan. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June. Last Monday, a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 58 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.
In two other incidents this month, an Afghan government commission found that U.S. aircraft killed 47 civilians during a bombing run in Nangarhar province, while a separate incident in Nuristan province is alleged by an Afghan officials to have killed 22 civilians.
The high casualty tolls have prompted the International Committee of the Red Cross this week to ask all sides to show restraint and avoid civilian casualties. But violence continued around the country on Sunday.
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol Sunday in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing 24 people.
The bomb attack on a police patrol at a busy intersection of the Deh Rawood district killed five police officers and 19 civilians, wounding more than 30 others, said Juma Gul Himat, Uruzgan's police chief. Most of those killed and wounded were shopkeepers and young boys selling goods in the street, he said.
Elsewhere, Taliban militants executed two women in central Afghanistan late Saturday after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a U.S. base.
The women, dressed in blue burqas, were shot and killed just outside Ghazni city in central Afghanistan, said Sayed Ismal, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor. He called the two "innocent local people."
Taliban fighters told Associated Press Television News the two women were executed for allegedly running a prostitution ring catering to U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors at a U.S. base in Ghazni city.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a U.S. military spokesman, said he had not heard allegations "anything close to that nature."
Meanwhile, at least 40 militants were killed following an attack on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces in Helmand province, the coalition said in a statement.
The militants attacked the combined forces near Sangin on Saturday from "multiple concealed and fortified positions," the coalition said. Thirty "enemy boats" and several small bridges have been destroyed on the Helmand River during two days of fighting, it said.
A soldier with NATO's International Security Assistance Force died in a roadside blast in Helmand province Sunday, a statement said. The soldier's nationality was not released and it wasn't clear if the death was connected to the two-day battle.
More than 2,300 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.
In the country's north, a soldier serving with ISAF died of wounds caused by an explosion Saturday, the military alliance said in a statement. The statement did not give any further details of the explosion. The soldier's nationality was not been disclosed.
There are nearly 53,000 troops from 40 nations serving the ISAF in Afghanistan.
___
Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar and Rahim Faiez and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul contributed to this report.
KABUL, Afghanistan - A multi-pronged militant assault on a small, remote U.S. base killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15 Sunday in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years, officials said.
The attack on the U.S. outpost came the same day a suicide bomber targeting a police patrol killed 24 people, while U.S. coalition and Afghan soldiers killed 40 militants elsewhere in the south.
The militant assault on the American troops began around 4:30 a.m. in a dangerous region close to the Pakistan border and lasted throughout the day.
Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
Nine U.S. troops were killed in the attack, a Western official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the troops' nationalities.
NATO confirmed nine of its soldiers had been killed and 15 wounded. Four Afghan soldiers also were wounded, NATO said.
"Although no final assessment has been made, it is believed insurgents suffered heavy casualties during several hours of fighting," NATO said in a statement.
Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, the top U.S. military spokeswoman in Afghanistan, said she could not comment because the fight was ongoing.
The attack appeared to be the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American troops were killed — also in Kunar province — when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Those troops were on their way to rescue a four-man team of Navy SEALs caught in a militant ambush. Three SEALs were killed, the fourth was rescued days later by a farmer.
Sunday's attack came during a period of rising violence in Afghanistan. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June. Last Monday, a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 58 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.
In two other incidents this month, an Afghan government commission found that U.S. aircraft killed 47 civilians during a bombing run in Nangarhar province, while a separate incident in Nuristan province is alleged by an Afghan officials to have killed 22 civilians.
The high casualty tolls have prompted the International Committee of the Red Cross this week to ask all sides to show restraint and avoid civilian casualties. But violence continued around the country on Sunday.
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol Sunday in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing 24 people.
The bomb attack on a police patrol at a busy intersection of the Deh Rawood district killed five police officers and 19 civilians, wounding more than 30 others, said Juma Gul Himat, Uruzgan's police chief. Most of those killed and wounded were shopkeepers and young boys selling goods in the street, he said.
Elsewhere, Taliban militants executed two women in central Afghanistan late Saturday after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a U.S. base.
The women, dressed in blue burqas, were shot and killed just outside Ghazni city in central Afghanistan, said Sayed Ismal, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor. He called the two "innocent local people."
Taliban fighters told Associated Press Television News the two women were executed for allegedly running a prostitution ring catering to U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors at a U.S. base in Ghazni city.
1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a U.S. military spokesman, said he had not heard allegations "anything close to that nature."
Meanwhile, at least 40 militants were killed following an attack on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces in Helmand province, the coalition said in a statement.
The militants attacked the combined forces near Sangin on Saturday from "multiple concealed and fortified positions," the coalition said. Thirty "enemy boats" and several small bridges have been destroyed on the Helmand River during two days of fighting, it said.
A soldier with NATO's International Security Assistance Force died in a roadside blast in Helmand province Sunday, a statement said. The soldier's nationality was not released and it wasn't clear if the death was connected to the two-day battle.
More than 2,300 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.
In the country's north, a soldier serving with ISAF died of wounds caused by an explosion Saturday, the military alliance said in a statement. The statement did not give any further details of the explosion. The soldier's nationality was not been disclosed.
There are nearly 53,000 troops from 40 nations serving the ISAF in Afghanistan.
___
Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar and Rahim Faiez and Fisnik Abrashi in Kabul contributed to this report.
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