Afghanistan Updates

[Neo]

January 26, 2007 Friday

$10.6bn more for America’s new Afghan strategy

BRUSSELS, Jan 25: The United States plans to increase its aid to insurgency-hit Afghanistan by $10.6 billion over the next two years, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced on Thursday.

“The challenges of the last several months have demonstrated that we want to and we should redouble our efforts” in Afghanistan, Ms Rice said. She told reporters accompanying her to a Nato meeting in Brussels that $8.6 billion of the aid would be for training and equipment for Afghan security forces and $2 billion for reconstruction.

It comes amid growing fears that the Taliban, backed by Al-Qaeda fighters and drug runners, will mount a new offensive against Nato-led troops in coming months as warmer weather returns.

A senior US official called the new aid “a very significant increase” over previous aid, which since 2001 has totalled $14.2 billion. The official said that the $8.6 billion package will in part finance an increase in the Afghan army by 70,000 soldiers and police forces by 82,000.

The $2billion in reconstruction aid will go to roads, electrical power supplies, rural development and counter-narcotics operations, the US official said.

Ms Rice said that Bush would ask Congress to commit this additional aid for Afghanistan in a supplemental 2007 budget. The senior official said it would be spread out over the next two years.

Some 33,000 troops from 37 nations under the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) are trying to help spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government to more lawless outlying regions.

But the Taliban have been waging a robust insurgency over the last year, particularly in the south and east of the strife-torn country. Around 4,000 people were killed in the insurgency last year and US officials say there were nearly 140 suicide attacks, up from 27 in 2005.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/01/26/top12.htm

 

[kidwaibhai]

the americans can give as much money as they can they will eventually lose in afghanistan because the people hate all nato forces its just a matter of time before they all run away like little girls

 

[Neo]

Monday, January 29, 2007

Washington sending mobile taskforce for Afghanistan

* Force to arrive as NATO commander ends tenure

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The US is sending to Afghanistan a mobile taskforce that the outgoing British commander of Nato forces, General David Richards, has been pleading for throughout his nine-month tenure, writes Christina Lamb.

According to The Sunday Times newspaper, the so-called theatre taskforce, which arrives as Richards ends his command next Sunday, will be based partly at Kandahar airport and partly in the east as a rapid reaction unit that can mobilise when troops are in difficulties.

“It’s bittersweet,” said a senior British officer. “We’d been pleading for one all year and now an American general is taking command, they send one.”

Last week has seen a flurry of activity from Washington, which has decided to focus its energies on what is being referred to as a “winnable war” in contrast to Iraq.

Aside from the theatre taskforce, the newspaper reports, the Pentagon has instructed a brigade of 3,200 men from the 10th Mountain Division to stay on in Afghanistan. Their tour of duty was due to end next month.

AFP adds: US-led and Afghan troops battled insurgents in three separate clashes in southern Afghanistan at the weekend, killing several of the rebels, the coalition said Sunday.

An Afghan soldier also died from injuries suffered during the fighting on Saturday in the southern province of Uruzgan, the US-led coalition said in a statement. In one clash, coalition and Afghan soldiers called in air support after being attacked near the town of Char Chino.

“The engagement resulted in the death of some insurgents and the capture of three others,” the coalition said. Coalition special operation forces clashed with insurgents in two separate engagements and again called for close air support.

“These engagements lasted more than six hours and resulted in more insurgent deaths,” the statement said, without estimating how many of the fighters had been killed.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\01\29\story_29-1-2007_pg1_6

 

[salman77]

Pakistan: Afghan Refugee Must Return Home

The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; 6:34 AM

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Pakistan's prime minister appealed to the European Union on Tuesday to help repatriate some 3 million Afghan refugees, a move he said would help clear his country of militants blamed for attacks in border regions.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said his government plans to restrict the cross-border movement of people to prevent militants from Afghanistan infiltrating Pakistan. The measures will include fencing off parts of the porous 1,700-mile border which runs through rugged mountains and deserts and is not clearly demarcated at places where it splits tribes.

Pakistan has deployed some 80,000 troops along its Afghan border to track down militants coming from the northwest. Aziz said refugee camps along the border are safe havens and training grounds for people who are a threat to the security of Pakistan and the world.

"We want to restrict movement of people across the border. We want the refugees to go gradually back home to Afghanistan," he said during a visit to Brussels for talks at EU and NATO headquarters.

"These 3 million people ... have to live in better conditions and that is where the EU and the rest of the world can help resettle people," Aziz told the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee. "The return of refugees is critical to controlling terrorism in the region."

The Afghan government has accused Pakistan of failing to crack down on Taliban insurgents based in Pakistan who launch attacks across the border. Pakistan blames Afghanistan for not doing enough to control the frontier.

The EU provides some $65 million in aid to Pakistan annually. Aziz welcomed the aid, but said trade with the EU was more important for Pakistan, and called for more access of Pakistani goods to the European market.

The annual volume of trade between Pakistan and the European Union is about $9 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013000308.html

 

[Janbaz]

Karzai offers Taliban peace talks

KABUL (Agencies) - Afghanistan observed Ashura under heavy security Monday as President Hamid Karzai said he prayed for the insurgency-hit country’s freedom from the “evil coming from outside”.
“I wish peace and development for all Muslims of the world, pray for our soil’s deliverance from calamities coming from outside, from the evil coming from outside,” he told the event.
He also said he prayed for the “guidance” of those who plotted against Afghanistan, referring to neighbouring Pakistan where the Taliban and their Islamic allies have sanctuaries.
“May God guide those who make plots against our country to the right path and pray for a free and happy Afghanistan,” he said. Karzai offered peace talks with a resurgent Taliban after the bloodiest year since the hardline Islamists were ousted in 2001 and amid warnings of a violent spring offensive.
“While we are fighting for our honour, we still open the door for talks and negotiations with our enemy who is after our annihilation and is shedding our blood,” he told the crowd.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan will get its first rapid reaction taskforce with the arrival of a new US military division this week, a spokesman said Monday, a resource the commander of the NATO-led force has requested for months.
The 82nd Airborne Division is due to officially take command of foreign military operations in the east of the country Friday under the NATO-led force that covers the entire nation.
It brings with it a rapid reaction unit of about 700 soldiers that is likely to be based at the Kandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Colonel Thomas Collins told AFP.
The unit will be ready for deployment at the request of the NATO-led ISAF, which has troops across the country and was engaged in heavy fighting with Taliban insurgents last year. “It gives the ISAF commander a rapid reaction force that can respond very quickly to various contingencies throughout Afghanistan,” Collins said.
Under “extraordinary circumstances” the troops will be able to parachute into areas they are needed, he said.
Meanwhile, the European Union confirmed here on Monday it would contribute 600 million euros ($775m) in aid to Afghanistan over the next four years.
EU commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said one of the main thrusts of the funding would be to bolster the judiciary in order to fight corruption in the strife-torn country. She said the training would try to ensure that judges “can do in the future what we take for granted” in the West.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta denied that a military offensive would hamper reconstruction efforts.
“We believe that we need to stabilise the situation before terrorist groups can reform,” he told journalists.

The Nation.
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/jan-2007/30/index9.php.

 

[Neo]

March 10, 2007
Tornado jets for Afghanistan

BERLIN: The German parliament on Friday approved a decision to send six Tornado jets to Afghanistan to carry out reconnaissance missions for Nato in the fight against the Taliban.

Members of the Bundestag lower house approved the mission by 405 to 157 votes.

Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung has said the aircraft will be manned by about 500 German soldiers and could be deployed in Afghanistan by mid-April.

The Tornados, which can supply aerial images of Taliban positions, will be stationed at Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

Germany has in recent months come under strong pressure from its Nato allies to increase its military presence in Afghanistan as international forces seek to crush a Taliban insurgency.

But the Tornado mission has proved highly controversial and Jung has had to give reluctant MPs assurances that the fighter jets will not be sent into combat.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/03/10/top18.htm

 

[KashifAsrar]

Group warns Germany and Austria to quit Afghanistan

DUBAI, March 10 (Reuters) - An Islamist group called on Germany and Austria on Saturday to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan to prevent attacks against the two countries.

"Why would you (Germany) want all this (economic interests) threatened for the sake of Bush and his band?" the Voice of the Khalifate said in a video posted on an Islamist Web site used by militants, including al Qaeda.

"Isn't it stupid to encourage the mujahideen to launch attacks in your country?"

The speaker pointed out that Austria relied on tourism for an important part of its revenue, adding: "This situation would change if there is a security threat and Austria becomes a country targeted by the mujahideen."

The tape also featured a portion of an old video of al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

It appeared on the same day, on the same Web site, as a video issued by a little-known militant group in Iraq which said it would kill two hostages, a German woman and her son, in 10 days unless Berlin withdrew its troops from Afghanistan.

Germany opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq but has around 3,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO force stationed there since U.S.-led troops in 2001 toppled the Taliban, which had harboured al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"Austria has no interest in such a war ... which is a war between the Mujahideen and America and whoever aligns itself with it," said the masked speaker on the Arabic-language Khalifate video, which carried German subtitles.

In Vienna, an Austrian Defence Ministry spokesman said his country had just five officers in Afghanistan and was not planning to send more troops. (Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker in Vienna)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10644060.htm