GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – US President Barack Obama promised to “finish the job” begun in Afghanistan, in a speech pronounced during a surprise visit to a US military base in the country, Wednesday morning 2 May.
The president’s speech, which takes place a year after Osama Bin Laden’s death and broadcast from Bagram Air Base to prime-time audiences in the US, stated that US troops would not be kept in dangerous circumstances “a single day longer than is absolutely required for our national security”, but he pledged to “end this war responsibly”.
Obama had met Afghan president Hamid Karzai in a secret midnight meeting in which the two men signed a long-term strategic partnership valid till 2024, which will deal with issues of internal security and development in Afghanistan.
Six months prior to US Presidential elections, Obama committed in his speech to the withdrawal of 24,000 troops from the country by the end of the summer, and to adhere to its NATO agreement to turn security over to Afghan forces by 2014. Currently, 88,000 US troops are stationed in Afghanistan.
Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for two suicide attacks Wednesday morning on guesthouses in the capital Kabul, in which at least seven people where killed.
Links to other sources: CNN, Washington Post, BBC, Daily News
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Olivier O and Daniela W, the two Swiss hostages who were captured by a Taliban group in Pakistan while they were on an overland trip through Asia, arrived back home Saturday. They flew into Zurich airport where they were reunited with their families and they then met with the task force that worked to free them.
The Bern couple were captured 1 July 2011. They repeated in a public statement Saturday what they told Pakistan army officers, when they turned up at an army post Thursday 15 March that after a lengthy deliberation and despite the great risks, they decided to make their escape. “We went through some very difficult times, which have left permanent scars. During the entire time we lived in a state of insecurity and feared for our lives.”
The pair have asked for their privacy to be respected so they can try to get back to normal, saying they don’t know how long the recovery process will be, a request repeated by the federal government.
There have been reports that a ransom was paid for them and scores of Taliban prisoners released from prisons in Pakistan in exchange for their release, information diffused by Fata Research Center* (Fata report), which the Swiss Foreign Affairs Department has denied firmly.
RTS, Swiss public broadcasting, carries a short video of their arrival in Zurich.
*Fata Research Center describes itself as: “FRC is a non partisan and non-political research organization based in Islamabad. It’s the first ever think-tank of its kind that focuses on Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) in its entirety. The purpose of FRC is to help the concerned stake holders better understand this war-ravaged area of Pakistan with independent research and analysis.”
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Olivier and Daniela, whose last names are not given by Bern to protect their privacy, are indeed free and the Swiss ambassador has spoken with them: the travelers from Bern were reported by the Pakistan army earlier in the day to have been picked up at a checkpoint and taken to safety.
Video RTS, Swiss public broadcasting
The two were kidnapped in July 2011 by Taliban but escaped. The Taliban reported earlier Thursday that they had released the hostages for a ransom and several prisoners in exchange, but the Swiss Foreign Affairs Department confirmed late afternoon Thursday that they escaped by their own means and no ransom was paid by either Pakistan or Switzerland.
Both appear to be in good health, under the circumstances, and were unharmed, according to Bern. They were taken “by helicopter from the Miranshah region to Peshawar and later to Islamabad”, says Bern. “The FDFA had set up an interdepartmental task force which coordinated the activities of the various services responsible – the Federal Office of Police fedpol, the Federal Intelligence Service, and the cantonal police forces of Bern and Aargau. The Head of the Crisis Management Centre of the FDFA, Ambassador Christian Dussey, was in charge of this task force.”
Pakistan is on the list of countries that the Swiss government warns should be avoided by travelers except in case of emergency and it strongly urges other Swiss citizens to heed the advice offered on its travel advisory pages.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A Swiss couple captured by the Taliban 1 July 2011 as they were traveling in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region escaped and presented themselves to a Pakistan army post, a Pakistan general says. Olivier Och, 31, who is a police officer in canton Bern and Daniela Widmer, 28, a former police officer, have been taken to Peshawar the army announced Thursday. The couple were traveling privately through Pakistan as part of a long overland trip through Asia.
The Swiss government has discouraged travel for tourism in Pakistan since 2008.
Their captors said earlier they had released the couple, but that information now appears to be false. They were taken in by the army near Spilga village in North Waziristan. Their kidnapping took place in the Loralai area, east of Quetta.
The Swiss Foreign Affairs Department and the embassy are not commenting and details about the escape or the expected return of the couple are still sketchy, reports RTS.
Dawn.com in Pakistan quotes spokesman Major General Athar Abbas as saying to news agency AFP, “They are safe and sound. We shifted them to Peshawar,” adding that “they told us that they escaped and then they reported to our checkpost. That’s what they told intelligence agencies currently debriefing them in Peshawar.”
KABUL – Six Taliban insurgents were killed after a 20-hour standoff in the heart of Kabul’s diplomatic and military enclave.
“The operation just ended and 6 terrorists were killed by police,” spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter. The number was updated to seven later in the day. Fifteen others were wounded.
The Taliban-led gunmen shot rockets towards the US and other embassies and the headquarters of NATO-led foreign forces.
The ability of the Taliban to penetrate Kabul’s vaunted was a clear show of strength ahead of a handover of security to Afghan forces slated for 2014.
Links to: Khaleej Times,
THE HAGUE – The International Criminal Court in The Hague has asked Interpol to issue Red Notices for three Libyan leaders for whom arrest warrants were issued in June: Muammar Qaddafi, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah Al-Senussi. The three are wanted on charges of suspected crimes against humanity, murder and torture.
The ICC’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced the measure 8 September, saying that arresting Qaddafi “is a matter of time”.
An Interpol Red Notice seeks the provisional arrest of a wanted person with a view to extradition or surrender to an international court based on an arrest warrant or court decision, the ICC notes in a statement. Interpol, which has in the past year taken a number of steps to increase the effectiveness of the Red Notice system, says “Red Notices, issued at the request of any of the organization’s 188 member countries or an international tribunal for wanted international fugitives, are the most famous of Interpol’s series of colour-coded notices since their creation by Interpol in 1946. Red Notices are not international arrest warrants; they are aimed at circulating internationally a national arrest warrant or judicial decision concerning a wanted fugitive.”
Some 5,000 Red Notices are issued annually.
They have been used to help track down terrorists since 2005 when the Interpol-United Nations Security Council Special Notice was created following the passage of a UN Security Council resolution, to help the UN Security Council’s 1267 Committee carry out its mandate covering the freezing of assets, travel bans and arms embargos aimed at individuals and entities associated or belonging to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
120 reported injured
(GenevaLunch) – The Pakistan government said late Friday 13 May that two bombs which killed 80 people and injured another 120 were the work of suicide bombers. Early reports suggested the bombs may have been planted. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Frontier Constabulary centre in Shabqadar, Charsadda district in the northwest of the country. The attacks are said to have been done to avenge the death of Osama bin-Laden.
The bombs went off shortly before 06:00, hitting groups of recruits who had just completed a course and who were getting onto buses for their leave. The attackers were on motorcycles, and the two bombs were about eight minutes apart.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, BBC, Pakistan Today
An opponent of Pakistan’s harsh anti-blasphemy laws, which include the death penalty as punishment, has died at the hands of a gunman. The minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot in his car and died soon afterwards. He was the only Christian in the cabinet and he was the second senior official in Pakistan who opposed the laws against insulting Islam to be killed recently: in January, Salman Taseer, the Punjabi provincial governor, was killed by a bodyguard.
Reaction from the US was strong, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing concern that it is part of a trend of religious intolerance in Asia and parts of the Middle East, noting that the minister, whom she recently met, was well aware of death threats against him.
The Times of India reports the minister received 20 bullets in his body after a blast of indiscriminate firing from his assailants, who left behind brochures warning others not to meddle with strict Islamic laws.
Links to other sites: The Globe and Mail, Canada, Times of India, Voice of America
Reuters video
A joint Afghan and coalition strike force has killed the Taliban’s “shadow governor” for Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, in an operation late 30December, reports AFP. Mawlawi Bahadur had been named leader of the Taliban in Kunduz two months ago. He was reportedly killed along with a bodyguard in Chara Dara district.
Kunduz has been widely infiltrated by Taliban insurgents and Nato and Afghan forces launched an offensive earlier in the week to dislodge them.
Two Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up killing at least 50 people gathered in a jirga, or peace council, in Pakistan’s tribal agency of Mohmand 6 December. Hundreds of people were gathered to collect stipends and to discuss anti-Taliban strategy in a meeting with the area’s top civilian representative, Amjad Ali Khan, who was not hurt.
A Taliban spokesman in the area, Abdul Wali, said, “We have clearly conveyed to the lashkar people to stop their activities, but they did not listen.” Villagers in the tribal agencies have organized themselves into “lashkar”, tribal militias, to defend themselves against the Taliban.
Links to other sites: New York Times, Washington Post
Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s chief of staff, said 25 November that foreigners should stay out of the delicate negotiations going on between Afghan authorities and the Taliban. “The last lesson we draw from this: International partners should not get excited so quickly with those kind of things. . . . Afghans know this business, how to handle it”, Daudzai said.
A man purporting to be Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, a senior Taliban leader, is actually a shop-keeper from Quetta, Pakistan, according to Afghan intelligence reports. Mansour was helped by Nato forces to meet top Afghan officials, including Karzai. British intelligence officials reportedly arranged the meetings, according to a New York Times article earlier this week, while US officials kept their distance. One Western diplomat is quoted as saying that “we gave him a lot of money”.
Mansour held a post in the Taliban government before it was toppled by the US invasion in 2001. The British embassy in Kabul has refused to comment on the reports.
Links to other sites: BBC, Washington Post
A Dutch aid worker and his Afghan driver have been captured by about five armed men in Takhar province and taken in the direction of Kunduz, in Afghanistan’s northeast. The two men, who work for an organization that helps people with disabilities, were captured 26 October.
The Taliban is increasingly targeting aid workers in Afghanistan, 22 of whom have been kidnapped in 2010, of whom 11 have been killed. But common criminals are often also involved.
Links to other sites: AFP, Daily Telegraph, New York Times
The high-level peace talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior Taliban leaders are little more than “exchanges of cash and prisoners”, according to the Guardian. It is not unusual, experts say, that fighting and talking go on simultaneously, and war has traditionally been conducted this way. Also, the US military needs to show that it is making progress in the war ahead of a strategic review in December, according to Alex Strick van Linschoten, a Taliban expert. He suggested that the extensive media play was in part to confuse the Taliban leadership.
Richard Holbrooke, the Obama Administration’s senior diplomat to the region, has stated that he has no information regarding the Pakistan army or intelligence services opposing peace talks, according to India Express. He warned in a CNN interview 24 October not to put too much store by the so-called peace talks. The leading US general in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, told the media that Nato and US forces were guaranteeing safe passage of Taliban officials to peace talks.
Pakistani security officials have stressed that there can be no lasting peace in Afghanistan without their input, and have complained that US and Afghan officials have been sidelining them in the peace process. An unnamed high-ranking official told the Washington Post, “We cannot be insignificant in this war. If somebody is trying to keep us out and is striving for sustainable peace, good luck to them.”
Links to other sites: CNN, Guardian, Indian Express, Washington Post
Osama bin Laden is living in relative comfort in a house not far from his deputy in northwest Pakistan, says a senior Nato official familiar with sensitive intelligence in the war in Afghanistan, as reported by CNN 18 October. Interceptions of Taliban and al Qaeda communications indicate that the US cross-border drone attacks on militants have pushed their leaders from vulnerable border areas into more populated towns and even cities, where the risk of collateral damage limits potential attacks.
The Pakistani ambassador to the USA says that the accusation is ludicrous. “Anybody who thinks that … is smoking something they shouldn’t be”, Husain Haqqani was quoted as saying.
Some elements of the Pakistani government and intelligence services are suspected of being sympathetic to the Taliban and al Qaeda, which they see as useful allies against India.
US TV talk show host Larry King was told by Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai in an exclusive interview that his government is holding “unofficial” talks with the Taliban in order to advance peace talks. He cited a new High Peace Council, led by former President Buhanuddin Rabbani, with the goal of bringing the Taliban into the family fold of Afghans.
A report by a US Senate committee reveals that US Defense Department funds are going to private Afghan security contractors who often are criminals or have connections to the Taliban.
The report, published 7 October, says that much money is wasted for lack of appropriate oversight and in some cases goes to fund Taliban activities. “There is significant evidence that some security contractors even worked against our coalition forces, creating the very threat they are hired to combat,” said Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
There are 25,000 private security contractors in Afghanistan. Their numbers and their pay is also seen to be undermining the government’s efforts to build a viable Afghan army, whose recruits are paid much less.
Links to other sites: BBC, Reuters, Wall Street Journal,
Related cartoon: GenevaLunch’s Chappatte cartoon
A man died after gunmen, allegedly Taliban, torched several tankers carrying fuel to Nato troops in Afghanistan. Earlier, armed men had opened fire on a Nato convoy also going through Pakistan.
On Monday, at least six people were killed and nine others wounded on yet another attack on Nato tankers.
Disputes over how the US is fighting the war on terror in Pakistan is also increasing and have put the two nations at odds once again.
On Monday 4 October, a Nato strike killed eight anti-government fighters, five of those killed were Germans; last week a Nato-led raid killed three Pakistani soldiers.
Additional details: Al Jazeera English, Pakistan Observer
A British aid worker kidnapped alongside three Afghan co-workers in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan 26 September is being held by the Taliban. A Taliban commander, Mohammed Osman, speaking to the Afghan Islamic Press 27 September, said he would release the aid worker in exchange for Aafia Siddiqui, a neuroscientist sentenced to 86 years in prison in the USA for attacking US soldiers and agents.
The British woman was working for a US-based development group, Development Alternatives, when the convoy she was travelling in was ambushed. Afghan national police gave chase, but the kidnappers escaped into nearby mountains. British officials have confirmed the kidnapping but have not commented on the Taliban demands.
Links to other sites: AP, Daily Telegraph
Afghan authorities say 17 people died early Friday 26 February in a spate of attacks in Kabul that were aimed at foreigners. Suicide bombers struck in several areas, starting with one at 06:30 next to the city’s largest shopping centre. Indian and Pakistan nationals were among those who died. Other bombs went off in areas near United Nations and humanitarian groups’ offices. The blasts come just a day after the Afghan flag was raised at Marja, a longtime insurgent stronghold. Responsibility for the blasts was taken by the Taliban, according to Reuters.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Telegraph, UK
The Taliban in Afghanistan are denying it, but a senior US official says that American military forces captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, considered the number two man in the Taliban. US and Pakistani military personnel are reportedly taking turns interrogating him. His arrest, if confirmed, comes at a time when 15,000 Afghan and Nato troops are in heavy battles with the Taliban in an offensive in the country’s south.
Suicide bombers and commando-style Taliban militants have attacked several targets in the centre of Kabul, Afghanistan, leaving at least five dead and dozens wounded. The militants targeted government buildings and banks in the centre of the city 18 January, and Afghan security forces initially struggled to respond and restore order. Two central shopping centres are reported to be on fire, and Taliban militants have sought refuge in a cinema complex from which gunfire can still be heard.
A Taliban spokesman said that a suicide bomber had detonated a bomb near the entrance to the presidential palace, as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in new members of his government.
The US administration condemned the attacks as “desperate and ruthless”. Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region spoke to reporters in New Dehli, India, hours after leaving Kabul earlier, saying “the people doing this certainly will not survive the attack, nor will they succeed. But we can expect this sort of thing on a regular basis,” reports Reuters.
Karzai was expected to announce a plan to integrate Taliban fighters into normal life at an aid conference in London, UK later this month.
Japan has pledged $5 billion in additional assistance to Afghanistan’s government just days before US President Obama arrives in Tokyo for an official visit on Friday, 13 November. The increase in aid will go towards building schools, demining, training policement, and rehabilitating Taliban fighters. Obama is to announce a new strategy for the US presence in Afghanistan after he has finished with consultations, perhaps before the end of the week.
The US has said it will expect Afghan President Hamid Karzai to meet clear measures to reduce the corruption that is seen to plague his administration. Western countries have increasingly seen corruption and a lack of transparency as undermining the the government’s legitimacy, putting a brake on development and giving the Taliban a political opening among the population. AFP, Bloomberg, New York Times
The UN has announced it will redeploy 600 “non-front-line” workers in Afghanistan, pulling workers from the provinces to the capital, Kabul. Some will temporarily leave the country, said Kai Ende, the UN’s chief in Afghanistan. “We are not talking about pulling out. We are not talking about evacuation,” Ende said. Five UN employees and their three Afghans assailants were killed a week ago in an attack on a residence housing UN workers.
But, he said, “there is a belief among some, that the international community (presence) will continue whatever happens because of the strategic importance of Afghanistan,” he told a press conference this morning. “I would like to emphasise that that’s not true”. He urged the Afghan government to combat the corruption that many say is playing into the hands of the Taliban insurgency.
The UN has 1,300 international workers in Afghanistan.
Update 17:05 Afghan election officials have announced that Hamid Karzai is the elected president of Afghanistan and cancelled the second round of the election, scheduled for 7 November. They expressed fears for security and the cost of going ahead with an election without a challenger, who withdrew.
Afghan election officials were to announce this week whether to hold the second round of presidential elections due Saturday 7 November, after challenger Abdullah Abdullah announced his decision to withdraw from the race Sunday, 1 Novmber. Abdullah had asked for the head of the election commission to resign as a condition for his participation. The first round of the election was widely seen to be compromised by massive fraud in favour of President Hamid Karzai.
Western countries had insisted on the run-off, in order to provide Karzai with a semblance of legitimacy, ahead of important decisions by the USA, Afghanistan’s main backer in the war against the Taliban militants and the remnants of al-Qaeda in the country. US President Barack Obama is to announce a major new US strategy in coming days, and the US administration has said it needed a “credible partner” in Kabul. BBC, CNN, New York Times
A day after a bomb ripped through a crowded popular market in the old town of Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, and killed over a hundred people, mainly women and children, rescuers were still pulling bodies from the rubble. Over 200 people were wounded in the attack. It was the worst such attack since 2007, and no one has claimed responsibility for it yet, although the Taliban denies responsibility.
October has been the bloodiest month in Pakistan, with casualties from bombings around the country reaching 300 dead and many more wounded. Most believe the bomb attacks are in retaliation for the Pakistani army’s ongoing incursion into South Waziristan, a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. Some commentators believe this latest attack could turn the people against the Taliban. Al-Jazeera, AP, BBC
At least three men armed with weapons, rockets and wearing suicide vests have attacked a guest-house compound used by the UN in central Kabul, Afghanistan. Reports say seven people, including three UN employees and the gunmen, were killed, and one seriously wounded in the attack early Wednesday 28 October. The death toll could go higher because of the serious nature of the injuries sustained by the wounded.
There were reports of explosions in other parts of the heavily guarded city, including a mortar attack on the Serena hotel, not far from the presidential palace, and used by visiting diplomats and journalists. No injuries were reported.
A Taliban spokesman confirmed that the group had carried out the attacks, and said it was because the UN was involved in organizing the Afghan presidential elections. The second round of the election must be held 7 November. Al-Jazeera, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal
A Pakistani Army brigadier and his driver have been shot dead in their car in the capital Islamabad Thursday morning, 22 October. A guard was wounded. The attackers were two young men on a motorcycle, who escaped. The attack comes just three days after a twin suicide attack at the International Islamist University killed at least four people. Over 180 people have died in attacks around Pakistan since the beginning of October.
The attacks come as the Pakistani army launched a major ground offensive into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas’ South Waziristan district to rid it of Pakistan Taliban militants. Al-Jazeera, BBC, Reuters
Update 17:00 Reports from Kabul say that the Electoral Complaints Commission has finalized its tally and, discarding fraudulent ballots, the new total vote for Afghan President Hamid Karzai gives him 48 percent, less than the 50 percent necessary to avoid a run-off. The new results have been communicated to the Independent Election Commission, which has not yet decided whether to accept them. Nor is it clear what the reaction will be in the president’s office. AP, New York Times
Pressure is mounting on Karzai to accept a run-off election between him and the runner-up in last August’s elections, or to agree to some sort of power-sharing deal. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has been holding talks with both sides, and John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was also in Kabul this past weekend, 17 and 18 October. The UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has been witholding the results of its investigation into massive electoral fraud, which may rob Karzai of his first-round victory. Karzai won with 54 percent of the vote.
A run-off election must be held within two weeks by law, but winter is closing in quickly in Afghanistan and would greatly hamper the logistics of a new election. The US administration is debating whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan to fight an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency. On Sunday, 18 October, a top aide to US President Obama said that the Afghan government needed to be “a credible partner” for the US to be able to deal with it. CBS News, Christian Science Monitor, Reuters
Pakistani army troops are slowly advancing deeper into South Waziristan, in northwest Pakistan from three directions to fight an estimated 10,000 battle-hardened Pakistani Taliban fighters on their own ground, close to the border with Afghanistan. Official reports say over 60 militants and six soldiers have died since the operation began Saturday 17 October but claims by either side cannot be verified. The Pakistan Taliban militants are backed by up to 1,000 Uzbek fighters loyal to al-Qaeda.
The hostilities have caused almost 24,000 civilians from the area to flee in the past few days, and almost 100,000 since May according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In anticipation, the UNHCR has set up four reception camps for displaced people. By Sunday, over 21,000 people had been registered, according to a UN official. The government has sent almost 29,000 troops supported by helicopter gunships and jet fighters into an area of 6,600 km2, about the combined size of the cantons of Bern and Solothurn.
Pakistan has suffered several bomb attacks around the country in the past week that have left over 170 dead. General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, which covers Afghanistan, Paksistan and Iraq, is meeting Pakistani generals in Islamabad, Pakistan on Monday 19 October. BBC, Christian Science Monitor, Reuters
An attack described by officers at “extraordinary”, on Pakistan’s military hedquarters in Rawalpindi, has killed six soldiers and four of the gunmen who attacked, but another four attackers are holding 15 hostages, Reuters reports late Saturday. The gunmen appear to be Taliban, and the attack occured just as a major offensive against the Taliban is scheduled to start.
