Afghanistan - Articles - Zimbio

Saturday: Senator Obama Arrives in Kabul, Afghanistan

Fri, 19 Jul 2008 09:08:30 GMT

posted by Paulette

Senator Barack Obama has arrived in Afghanistan, at the start of his international tour which will include Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain.

Obama flew to the Afghan capital, Kabul, as part of an official congressional delegation. Senator Obama is hoping to address security issues, seen as the weakest aspect of his presidential bid.

In a speech earlier this week Obama said the US military should focus on Afghanistan rather than Iraq.

There has been an upsurge in fighting in recent months between Taliban rebels and international and Afghan forces.

Asked what message he would convey to Afghan and Iraqi leaders, Senator Obama said: “I’m more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking.”

Speaking to reporters before leaving, he added: “I’m going over there as a US senator. We have one president at a time, so it’s the president’s job to deliver those messages.”

As Senator Obama arrives in Kabul (local time is 8 hours 30 minutes ahead of EST - when it’s 6am on the East Coast, it’s 2:30pm Kabul time) the temperature is expected to reach a hazy and hot 102 degrees. But it’s not just the temperature that’s hot — war and heated disputes rages on in Afghanistan.

The NATO-led international force in Afghanistan rejected on Friday reports from Afghan officials that it killed more than 50 civilians in air strikes the previous day in the West of the country.

At least four men were killed in the strikes, a spokesman for the regional police command had said. Witnesses said 17 people were also wounded.

But other reports, by Shindand District Chief Mullah Lal Mohammad and a tribal elder, Haji Zalmai, said that more than 50 civilians had been killed in the strikes in the villages of Farmakan and Bakhtabad in the western province of Herat.

“ISAF has thoroughly investigated and rejects claims that ISAF forces killed more than 50 civilians in the Shindand area,” the International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

“Our extensive investigation reveals that the closest airstrikes carried out were 13 km to the South East of these villages. ISAF therefore rejects these claims as baseless.”

In a statement released the U.S. military said the raid was against “high priority Taliban targets” and that two “Taliban leaders” and a “significant number of insurgents” were also killed. It said there was no evidence of any civilian casualties.

However, the U.S. military confirmed that it had killed eight civilians in an air strike on Tuesday in the neighboring province of Farah.

The U.S. military says it is also investigating reports by Afghan officials that around 60 civilians were killed in two separate air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces this month in eastern Afghanistan.

The issue of civilian casualties is a highly sensitive one for the Western-backed government and undermines Afghan support for the presence of foreign forces that are fighting the Taliban-led insurgents in Afghanistan.

There has been a sharp rise in violence in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the hard-line Taliban in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

CNN: DID ARMY HAVE INTELLIGENCE BEFORE DEADLY AFGHAN CLASH THAT KILLED NINE U.S. SOLDIERS?

Thu, 18 Jul 2008 02:23:00 GMT

posted by CORKSPHERE

Military looking at intelligence before deadly Afghan clash

Names and hometowns of 9 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghan attack

Story Highlights
Army unit trying to set up observation post when attacked
Nine soldiers killed Sunday in fight with about 200 Taliban insurgents
Pentagon begins formal probe of battle
British say troops kill Taliban leaders

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/17/afghan.probe/index.html#cnnSTCText

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A formal investigation into an attack on a U.S. Army unit by about 200 Taliban insurgents will examine whether the Army had intelligence about a possible assault and whether the troops had access to it.

Taliban militants take up a defensive position at a undisclosed in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, on Saturday.

The fact-finding mission was launched Thursday, several military officials said, after nine American soldiers were killed in Sunday's assault in Afghanistan.

When the attack occurred, the U.S. and Afghan soldiers were scouting for a location in the remote area to set up a coalition observation point. The Taliban never breached the main coalition base near the village of Wanat in Kunar province, which borders Pakistan.
It was the deadliest attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan in three years, underscoring how the conflict is escalating.

Since May, the deaths of U.S. and allied troops have far outpaced the toll in Iraq. On Thursday, the toll in Afghanistan was 21, compared with six in Iraq.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force did not provide the nationality of a soldier who died in Afghanistan on Thursday. See casualty figures for Afghanistan, Iraq »

U.S. military officials are searching for ways to send more troops to Afghanistan in response to urgent requests from commanders there, given the increase in violence. Watch how U.S. trying to boost Afghan force »

U.S. soldiers killedThe Defense Department on Wednesday identified the U.S. soldiers killed Sunday when their outpost was overrun in Afghanistan. • 1st Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom, 24, of Aiea, Hawaii. • Sgt. Israel Garcia, 24, of Long Beach, California. • Cpl. Jonathan R. Ayers, 24, of Snellville, Georgia. • Cpl. Jason M. Bogar, 25, of Seattle, Washington. • Cpl. Jason D. Hovater, 24, of Clinton, Tennessee. • Cpl. Matthew B. Phillips, 27, of Jasper, Georgia. • Cpl. Pruitt A. Rainey, 22, of Haw River, North Carolina. • Cpl. Gunnar W. Zwilling, 20, of Florissant, Missouri. • Pfc. Sergio S. Abad, 21, of Morganfield, Kentucky.

A senior U.S. Army official says "all options are on the table," including the possibility of diverting a combat brigade of up to 3,000 troops to Afghanistan later this year. Those troops are now scheduled to go to Iraq.

The commanders are asking for troops as soon as possible. Several officials say it's most likely that the fastest option would be to send a small number of "enabler" troops such as security forces, helicopter units and surveillance aircraft. There is a Marine Corps unit in the region on standby for emergencies that could be sent, officials said.

In Afghanistan on Thursday, local security forces and coalition soldiers in western Afghanistan killed several insurgents in what the NATO command called a "successful operation against high-priority Taliban targets."

The operation took place in the Shindand district of Herat province. Two Taliban leaders, Haji Dawlat Khan and Haji Nasrullah Khan, and a "significant number of other insurgents" were killed, according to a statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

There was no evidence of civilian casualties or accidental damage in the operation, in which a "number of men were discovered handcuffed and imprisoned in appalling conditions in one of the insurgent compounds."

One of the toughest fronts in the war has been the southern province of Helmand.
In Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, the British Defense Ministry said, British troops killed a senior Taliban leader.

Militants breached US Afghan base

Sun, 14 Jul 2008 16:31:02 GMT

posted by dDawncrawford71

Dawn E. Crawford

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Militants breached US Afghan base

Wedding mourners tell of US raid

More than 100 insurgents breached a US outpost in north-eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing nine US troops in hours of fierce fighting, Nato says.

The militants used rocket propelled grenades and homemade mortars to bombard the base, close to Pakistan's border, from several sides.

The attack caused one of the single worst losses of life for foreign troops since operations began in 2001.

It came as international and Afghan forces fought militants in many areas.

One soldier from the US-led coalition was also killed by a bomb in the southern province of Helmand.

On Sunday, US forces said 40 insurgents had been killed in Helmand province in 24 hours. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Kunar has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict

Also on Sunday, at least six Afghan security guards escorting a Nato supply convoy were killed in a roadside bombing in Helmand's Gereshk district, according to police.

The nine US soldiers were killed in several hours of fierce fighting at the outpost at Wanat, a mountain village in Kunar province, according to a statement from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).

Insurgents pounded the Afghan army and Nato base - which had reportedly only been fully constructed days earlier - with rockets, mortars and machine guns, before breaching the compound and attacking the soldiers from inside.

Isaf and Afghan National Army forces responded with small arms, machine guns, mortars and artillery, before deploying fighter jets and apache helicopters, the statement said.

'Well organised'

A further 15 Isaf soldiers were wounded along with four Afghan troops, the statement added.

"It was a complex attack, well organised and planned," said Isaf spokesman Captain Michael Finney.

Mark Laity describes the 'very severe' fighting that took place.

"It was clear they wanted to overrun the combat outpost. They chose their positions well. It wasn't just an attempt to rush the gate."

There may also have been civilian casualties in the rugged area on the border with Kunar and Nuristan province, according to Afghan officials.

Nato says the rebels suffered heavy casualties. It did not name the attackers but there has been a sharp increase in Taleban attacks in the country, and in that region in particular, although other rebel groups are also known to operate there.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says Afghanistan's north-eastern border with Pakistan is a well-known trouble spot.

'Wedding procession' attacked

The fighting is close to where US forces were accused of killing 47 civilians in an air strike in Nangarhar province a week ago.

The US military said they were militants.

In a separate incident on Sunday, a suicide bomber killed at least 21 people, many of them children, in a market in the Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan province in the south.

No group has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.

According to the US military, the number of Taleban attacks in the east of the country has increased by 40% since last year.

More than 130 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year and recent weeks have seen a sharp rise in insurgency-related violence.

Hundreds more, including many militants and civilians, have also died in 2008.

Isaf currently has 53,000 troops from 40 countries. A separate, smaller US-led military force operates alongside it.

“Cambodiazation” of the Afghan War

Thu, 4 Jul 2008 00:23:04 GMT

posted by moinansari

Map of Afghanistan: Security declines in Afghanistan is euphimism for defeat

: Taliban Spring Offensive maps:-Barbarians at the Gate: Carving out the road to Kabul

The Battle of Maiwand was one of the most serious defeats ever sustained by the British Army in ‘India’ (Afghanistan)“

“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.”

Rudyard Kipling

NEW YORK: July 3rd, 2008: Rupee News: There are many lessons to learn from Vietnam and from Afghanistan itself. Kabul bravado exponentially related to Karzai defeats. The ISAF forces face a bad dilemna. NATO Lessons: 1880 Maiwand-Afghans defeats UK: Trained sabateurs may defect! Drones sabotaging peace deals created blowback for Pakistan! The Tet offensive of the Vietcong was a massive attack on American and South vietnamese men and material. It was daring and brave. It was well coocrdinated and took advantage of the vulnerabilities of the South and it took advantage of the American weaknesses in Viernam. The Tet offiensive was also a massive failure.

The Tet offensive however was the begining of the end of the war in South East Asia. It was during the Tet offinesive that the American public and the American soldier got tired of the war and it was during the Tet offensive that the American public decided to get out of the war.The security situation in Afghanistan has reached crisis proportions. The Taliban’s ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt; exclusive research undertaken by Senlis Afghanistan indicates that 54 per cent of Afghanistan’s landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence, primarily in southern Afghanistan, and is subject to frequent hostile activity by the insurgency.The Taliban are the de facto governing authority in significant portions of territory in the south and east, and are starting to control parts of the local economy and key infrastructure such as roads and energy supply. The insurgency also exercises a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change. Putting blame on Pakistan won’t help war on terror

The Taliban are not the Viet Cong. Let us be clear on this score. No Ho Chi Minh lights the way for them. But they have spirit and doughtiness and believe in their cause which is more than can be said of the forces they are fighting against - the United States, its increasingly befuddled NATO allies and the redoubtable military of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The Americans have made a hash of Iraq. They are getting stuck, well and truly, in Afghanistan. ….Call Baitullah Mehsud and his partisans what you will. Call them barbarians and cutthroats. But at least give them credit for being resolute fighters. American military might has not cowed them. Ayaz Amir

The “Cambodiazation” of the Vietnam was the last big expansion of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia in the 1970s. Therefore, it is responsible to begin wondering whether the expansion of the war in Pakistan will bode equally adversely on South Asia. In short, the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia a few years after the U.S. began to depart Southeast Asia. As well, Laos fell to communist forces that were supported by the North Vietnamese and other communist states.

6,727,084 tons of bombs dropped on Indo China by the US during the Vietnam War. from Vietnam Veterans Supporting Veterans

2,700,000 tons dropped by Allies in European theather 656,400 tons dropped by Allies in Pacific war
US Strategic Bombing Survey, 1945

2,756,941 tons of bombs dropped on Cambodia.

The bombing of Cambodia led to huge blowback and fueled the Vietcong insurgency and ultimately led to the Fall of Siagon

The impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide. The data demonstrates that the way a country chooses to exit a conflict can have disastrous consequences. It therefore speaks to contemporary warfare as well, including US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite many differences, a critical similarity links the war in Iraq with the Cambodian conflict: an increasing reliance on air power to battle a heterogeneous, volatile insurgency.

The US bombing of Cambodia remains a divisive and iconic topic. It was a mobilizing issue for the antiwar movement and is still cited regularly as an example of American war crimes. Writers such as Noam Chomsky, Christopher Hitchens, and William Shawcross condemned the bombing and the foreign policy it symbolized.

Japan Focus

If the Cambodian experience teaches us anything, it is that miscalculation of the consequences of civilian casualties stems partly from a failure to understand how insurgencies thrive. The motives that lead locals to help such movements don’t fit into strategic rationales like the ones set forth by Kissinger and Nixon. Those whose lives have been ruined don’t care about the geopolitics behind bomb attacks; they tend to blame the attackers. The failure of the American campaign in Cambodia lay not only in the civilian death toll during the unprecedented bombing, but also in its aftermath, when the Khmer Rouge regime rose up from the bomb craters, with tragic results. The dynamics in Iraq, or even Afghanistan, could be similar. Taylor Owen is a doctoral candidate and Trudeau Scholar at the University of Oxford. In 2004, he was a visiting fellow in the Yale Genocide Studies Program. Daily writings and published work can be found at www.taylorowen.com

Ben Kiernan, professor of history and director of the Genocide Studies Program, is the author of How Pol Pot Came to Power and The Pol Pot Regime.

This is a revised and expanded version of an article that appeared in The Walrus (Canada), October 2006. Posted at Japan Focus on May 12, 2007.

Ultimately, the “Cambodiazation” of the Vietnam War and the expansion of bombing in Laos eventually led to the greatest American backlash against America’s longest war. That is, the public began to be extremely vocal in demand that the U.S. presence in the Vietnam War and regional civil wars be brought to an end.

American advice is not considered the best medicine for Pakistan’s ills. Pakistan considers the following American actions as anti-Pakistan and not in good faith:

a.The Nuclear deal with India which is considered as discriminatory towards Pakistan.

b. The establishment of an non-Pashtun Northern Alliance regime in Kabul and the perpetuation of the anti-Pakistanc. The USA has been unable to restrain India and Kabul from interfering in Pakistan’s affairs.

d. The USA has not signed an FTA with Pakistan and refuses to allow free import of Textiles to the USA.

e. Amerca has not invested in Pakistani infrastructure improvement like freeways, Hi-speed trains, airports and sea-portsf. The American media is working on some sort of an anti-Pakistan agenda as if on cue

Qandhar now Kabul later: The Taliban Tet offensive

Saving Pashtuns of old “Afghanistan” in Afghania. Eradicating Pashtun plight. Ending occupation.

Notes:

[1] The New York Times, May 3 and 10, 2007.

[2] Seymour Hersh, “Up in the Air. Where is the Iraq war headed next?” The New Yorker, Dec 5, 2005.

DEFEAT: The Afghan situation continues to deteriorate

Fri, 5 Jul 2008 16:18:06 GMT

posted by moinansari

: Defeat in Afghanistan: Yankee Go Home

THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL: Defeat in Afghanistan is not only inevitable it is visible right now

: Defeat in Afghanistan: Remember Maiwand

To solve the problems of the incompetent Afghan warlords and their sponsors, NATO and ISAF forces— they asked Washington to send in the marines. Well the US marines arrived and got stuck in the same morass. Most of Afghanistan is in Pashtun hands (wrongly labelled Taliban). The Pashtuns are a conglomeration of many diverse and divergent groups who are all fighting occupation.

The marines arrived. As in any guerrilla warfare, when an overwhelming body or force arrives. the opposing guerrillas melt away into the population. When the overwhelming body of force attacks the villages, the innocent are victimized and this balloons the ranks of the guerrillas. This has been happening in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.

: British defeats at Maiwand and other places

Every day that the occupiers remain in Afghanistan, the insurgents keep on gaining ground. Eventually the occupiers get tired and leave. Afghan history is a testament to the retreat of the Macedonians, the Mongols, the Britishers, and the Russians.

Mr. Karzai the Mayor of Kabul is buying an island in the UAE. His brother is the biggest drug war lords in the world and the entire Northern Alliance is stepped deep in drug smuggling.

: Defeated & dejected in a Helmund dust storm

Afghanistan plight grows worse for U.S. By LOLITA C. BALDOR and FISNIK ABRASHI The Associated Press
WASHINGTON | The situation on the ground in Afghanistan continues to escalate.

The U.S. military said Friday that airstrikes by its attack helicopters hit two vehicles carrying insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. The province’s governor said 22 civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed.

This comes one day after the Pentagon decided to extend the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

The Pentagon’s decision comes as violence in Afghanistan has increased markedly over recent weeks. June was the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war began in 2001, with 28 combat fatalities.

Militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month.

Violence has claimed more than 2,100 lives so far this year. And more than 8,000 people were killed in insurgency-related attacks in Afghanistan last year - the most since the U.S.-led war began.

The nation’s top military officer, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that more U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan.

However, Mullen said the military does not have sufficient forces to send because of the war in Iraq.

Mullen said insurgent Taliban and extremist forces in Afghanistan have become “a very complex problem” that is tied to the drug trade, a failing economy and the porous Pakistan border.

1st Lt. Nathan Perry, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said Friday that the airstrikes in Nuristanprovince hit militants who earlier attacked a U.S. military base with mortars.

The helicopters identified the militants’ firing positions, tracked them down and destroyed the vehicles they were traveling in, Perry said.

“These were combatants. These were people who were firing on us,” Perry said. “We have no reports of noncombatant injuries.”

He gave no account of casualties in the vehicles.

But Nuristan’s governor, Tamim Nuristani, said 22 civilians were killed in the Waygal district of Nuristan province. It was impossible to independently verify any of the claims because of the remoteness of the area.

Meanwhile, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October, said Marine Col. David Lapan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, has repeatedly said he did not intend to extend or replace the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, calling their deployment there an extraordinary, one-time effort to help tamp down the increasing violence in the south. Asked about the possibility of an extension in early May, Gates said he would “be loath to do that.” He added that “no one has suggested even the possibility of extending that rotation.”

Lapan said Thursday that commanders in Afghanistan asked that the Marines stay longer.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrellsaid the longer tour does not open the door to an extension beyond the 30 days, nor to the possibility of replacing them with other U.S. troops when they come out in November.

He added that commanders in Afghanistan “asked for 30 more days to milk the fighting season to the bitter end and cement the gains they have made in the south.”

Commanders faced with increasing violence have said they need at least 7,500 more troops in Afghanistan. And President Bush and defense officials have said they hope to identify additional units by the end of the year that could go to Afghanistan early next year

: Defeat in Afghanistan: Yankee Go home