Posts Tagged ‘2009’

KABUL — Europe may send 5,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, Britain’s prime minister said Friday — affirming support for the NATO mission as the Obama administration nears a decision on increasing American troop levels. The announcement came as the Taliban struck again in the capital. A suicide car bomber blasted a U.S. convoy near an American military base in Kabul, injuring nine American soldiers and 10 contract security guards. Three Afghans were killed in the attack — the biggest in Kabul in the last two weeks. Brown said the NATO strategy must be to encourage a greater role for Afghan forces so that international troops “can start coming home.” His remarks were made a day after he met with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The NATO chief said that other allied nations have privately pledged more help, but Rasmussen stopped short of saying that countries would send more troops. “We need our other NATO allies to help,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC in a London interview.

He said he has been contacting governments both inside and outside the 45-member NATO-led coalition, asking them to send more soldiers to train and mentor Afghan forces so they can take responsibility for security in their own country. He estimated as many as 5,000 troops could be raised from that effort. Brown has already agreed to send 500 more soldiers to Britain’s 9,000-member force in Afghanistan, despite declining support for the war among the British public. His assurances that other countries would boost their own troop numbers appeared to be an attempt to show the British public that others are willing to assume a heavier burden in Afghanistan, despite public unease over rising casualties and an Afghan government perceived as corrupt and resistant to reform. “There has got to be burden-sharing amongst the alliance, and I am sending people around Europe to persuade other countries that they should commit more troops,” Brown said. “We are having some success. But as the debate over these last few months has shown, there is a lot more that we have to do.” NATO said Friday that more troops and resources are needed, but other countries are unlikely to commit more forces until Obama announces his decision. Read the rest of this entry »

Afghan President Hamid Karzai left for Turkey on Sunday to attend the 25th Economic and Trade Forum of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), a statement released by his office said, Xinhua reported. The visit came at the invitation of his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul. During the visit, the Afghan president would deliver a speech and exchange views with the participants on boosting economic and trade cooperation among the Muslim countries, the statement added. The five-day conference which opened in Istanbul on Thursday would be concluded on Monday. This is Karzai’s first foreign tour after winning his second-term in the presidential election early this month.Source

AT Update : The Number of people dead were about 90 according to SBS World News.

Source – The United Nations has called for an investigation into a NATO air strike which killed up to 90 people in Afghanistan. NATO aircraft bombed two fuel tankers which had been hijacked by the Taliban. NATO says most of the dead were members of the Taliban, but local officials say 20 to 30 civilians were also killed and injured. Local police and government leaders say dozens of civilians were gathered around the tanker, trying to scavenge fuel before it was hit. Witnesses say the dead and injured were severely burnt. The UN mission in Afghanistan is sending investigators to the scene near the northern city of Kunduz and NATO also says it will fully investigate the reports of civilian casualties. NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, says the leader of international troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, had spoken to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the air strike. “An investigation team has been sent already to the scene led by an Admiral from ISAF headquarters,” Read the rest of this entry »

The Afghan army has taken direct control of security in the southern city of Kandahar after the deadliest attack in the country in more than a year. The move is supposed to be temporary and is part of a new security plan for the city. It comes after Kandahar was hit by two major attacks in as many days. On Tuesday at least 40 people were killed and dozens more wounded in a truck bombing. Twenty-four hours later a rocket hit the city’s main square, destroying several stores. Al Jazeera’s correspondent Zeina Khodr, who is in Kandahar, says the two attacks have prompted Afghan authorities to change the way they deal with security in what is regarded as the country’s most dangerous city. She said that prior to the attacks the many different security agencies that operate in Kandahar rarely cooperated or shared information, contributing to lapses in security. Mohammed Riza, a soldier with the Afghan army, told Al Jazeera the military was better trained to maintain security in the city and had better resources than the local police. “The police force is weak,” he said. “They only have one magazine of bullets – our soldiers have 15.” International forces, particularly Canadian troops, are helping to support the Afghan army, strengthening security at the entrances to the city.

The mayor of Kandahar province, Ghulam Haidar Hameedi, said they were praying for such incidents never to happen again. Memorial

Kandahar residents have become used to years of violence, but the scale of the recent attacks, particularly Tuesday’s truck bombing, has left many stunned. On Thursday Afghan officials and local residents held a memorial in honour of the attack victims by slaughtering a cow. According to the Afghan interior ministry, Tuesday’s blast came from remote-controlled explosives planted in a truck, but it is not known who planted the device. A Taliban spokesman on Wednesday denied any responsibility, and said that the group condemned the attack. The recent violence in Kandahar comes as the war-torn country awaits results from last week’s election. According to the latest results Hamid Karzai, the incumbent president, has extended his lead over his top challenger Abdullah Abdullah, although he remains short of the 50 per cent he needs to avoid a two-man runoff.

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) – U.S. envoys and lawmakers have bluntly warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai that American patience is running out, citing concerns about allegations of fraud and corruption and attempts to prejudge the outcome of last week’s election, participants said on Thursday. Karzai met twice with U.S. President Barack Obama’s envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, after the Aug. 20 presidential election, including a private lunch in Kabul that turned “tense” when the U.S. envoy raised the possibility of a run-off. After that confrontation, the two finished dessert and shook hands, officials said. U.S. tensions with Karzai, in meetings with Holbrooke and a visiting delegation of U.S. senators, reflected both election-time stress and growing discord in American relations with the man who has been leading Afghanistan since the Taliban was overthrown in 2001.
Endemic government corruption and his close ties with former militia leaders have eroded Karzai’s support, both with the Afghan people and with Washington policymakers. The Obama administration was particularly disturbed by Karzai’s last-minute alliance with Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, officials said. “He (Karzai) has hurt himself in the eyes of a lot of people,” a Western observer close to U.S. deliberations explained of Dostum’s role in Karzai’s campaign. U.S. officials say Dostom, who fought for Afghanistan’s Soviet-backed Communist government and later switched sides repeatedly during years of factional civil war, may be responsible for war crimes. Karzai justified the move to Washington, telling officials he believed Dostum, who enjoys the overwhelming backing of ethnic Uzbeks in the north of Afghanistan, delivered key votes that could put him over the top. Read the rest of this entry »