The UN Security Council voted unanimously 8 October to extend for an extra year the legal mandate it gives to Nato to deploy troops that provide assistance to the civilian government in Afghanistan. Nato currently has about 35,000 troops in the country. The US has more than 65,000, and the top US general in Afghanistan, Stanley McCrystal, has asked for 40,000 more US troops “in order to prevail.” The Obama administration is deliberating whether to increase the US presence in Afghanistan or to cut back and try to bring “reconcileable” Taliban forces into the political process, and concentrate military force on Al Qaeda on the border with Pakistan. BBC, CNN, Reuters
Update 13:00 Police in Islamabad believe the suicide bomber who blew up the World Food Program (WFP) office in Islamabad, Pakistan Monday 5 October walked into the building weraing paramilitary clothing, after asking if he could use the toilets. The bomb, which went off in the reception area, killed five WFP staff and has left several others in critical condition in hospital. THE WFP provides food for more than 10 million people in Pakistan, including 2 million who are receiving emergency aid in the Swat Valley, according to a statement from the head of WFP, Josette Sheeran. Security had been tight at the building, with anyone entering screened for weapons and some media are speculating that security guards must have been involved.The WFP reportedly received no advance warning of the attack.
The Taliban Tuesday claimed they were behind the attack.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Associated Press, Pakistan Observer, Washington Post
A pre-dawn commando raid 8 September by British paratroopers to rescue two NY Times reporters from their Taliban kidnappers in Kunduz province of Afghanistan ended in the release of the British-Irish journalist, Stephen Farrell, and the death of his Afghan colleague and interpreter, Sultan Munadi. A British paratrooper, an Afghan soldier, the owner of the house the hostages were being held in, and an unidentified woman, reportedly the house owner’s sister-in-law, were also killed.
Farrell and Munadi were captured 5 September when they were in a Taliban-controlled area without a military escort investigating the airstrike on two hijacked fuel tankers ordered by Nato troops 4 September in which up to 90 people were killed, many of them civilians taking fuel from the trucks, which were stuck in the river.
The commando raid was praised by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, but some commentators say that negotiations were underway with the kidnappers, and their release was imminent. Farrell was briefly held by insurgents while working for the The Times in Iraq in 2004. The Guardian,Kansas City Star, NY Times
A senior Afghan intelligence official was killed in a suicide bomb blast along with at least 23 others and dozens more were wounded at a mosque in Mehtar Lam in eastern Afghanistan 2 September. Abdullah Laghmani, deputy director of the National Directorate of Security, was killed the same day that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC released a report showing that the opium trade was funding the Islamist militant Taliban, but also increasingly creating the establishment of “narco-terror” groups in Afganistan, who are less motivated by ideology. BBC, CNN
The supply of opium from Afghanistan, the world’s biggest producer, dropped sharply, according to a report from the Undoc, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 2 September, but there was still enough income to fund the Taliban insurgency. Opium poppy cultivation is down 22 percent, especially in the conflicted province of Helmand, while opium production is 10 percent lower and prices for the drug are at a ten year low.
The report said that proceeds from drugs were still funding the insurgency but that, increasingly, the drugs trade was becoming an end in itself. “A marriage of convenience between insurgents and criminal groups is spawning narco-cartels in Afghanistan linked to the Taliban”, warned Antonio Mario Costa, the agency’s executive director.Afghan Opium Survey
At least 22 people were killed when a suicide bomber walked into a police station at the border in the town of Torkham, at the Khyber pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The bomber, a boy carrying water, entered the check point as the border guards were sitting down to Iftar, the traditional evening breaking of the fast of Ramadan. The Khyber pass is a crucial supply route for the coalition forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan and has been the scene of many attacks on convoys. BBC, CNN
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was the first to claim victory in the Afghanistan presidential polls Thursday 20 August, though this was immediately disputed by his main opponent, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai’s election team based its claim on preliminary results from its poll workers in almost 29,000 polling stations around the country. The main opposition candidate said that based on its results, Abdullah had won 63 percent against 31 percent for Karzai.
Election officials asked candidates to refrain from making predictions until the final tally was in. Officials confirmed that counting for the presidential election was complete. The elections were also for provincial assemblies. Observers had expected a turbulent election, possibly disrupted by violence promised by the Taliban, but they turned out to be reasonably peaceful. Election officials said 26 people had died in violence around the country. BBC, CNN
A man working undercover for the BBC news service in Kabul, Afghanistan has found instances of voter fraud involving the sale of voter cards and offers to buy blocks of votes for cash, days ahead of the country’s presidential and provincial council elections 20 August. Some people reportedly have been issued multiple voter cards to enable them to vote several times. President Hamid Karzai is running against 30 other contenders in the election. Late Monday 17 August General Abdul Rashid Dostum arrived in Afghanistan from exile in Turkey to throw his weight behind Karzai, increasing concerns in the US and at the United Nations “that Dostum could return to government. Washington said he may have been responsible for human rights violations” according to Reuters. Western observers are currently saying that Karzai will not achieve the 50 percent vote needed to avoid a run-off.
Insurgent Taliban militants have vowed to disrupt the electoral process, and many parts of the country are inaccessible to government officals. The US military forces in Afghanistan have vowed to ensure security for the elections, but attacks in Kabul and elsewhere on coalition forces have increased over the past few days. Two rockets hit the presidential palace early 18 August, slightly injuring one person. CNN, Reuters, The Times, UK
Updated [TSR (Fre) camera crew report and background report/briefing 12 August by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Center for American Progress, plus a blog reaction to Holbrooke's talk from the editors at Foreign Policy magazine ] Taliban-prompted violent incidents have been increasing, with promises from the former ruling group to disrupt Afghanistan’s presidential and provincial counselor elections 18 August, international media report. Incumbent Hamid Karzai, with support mainly in the south of the country, shows a 45 percent lead in polls, but does not have enough support for a clear majority, with his former foreign minister and rival Abdullah Abdullah running hard against him in the final hours. Al-Jazeera, Reuters
An unmanned US drone in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan dropped two missiles on the house of a relative of Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud 5 August, killing several people, including the Taliban chief’s second wife. Unconfirmed reports from Pakistan say that an unidentified person killed may have been Mehsud himself.
Mehsud is widely suspected of being behind the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was shot and killed at a political rally in December 2007.
Pakistani armed forces have been gearing up for battle with Baitullah Mehsud’s insurgent forces in South Waziristan in the Federally Adminsitered Tribal Areas (FATA), after having cleared neighbouring Swat and Duner districts, in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), of Mehsud’s forces. BBC, CNN
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited Mingora in Pakistan’s Swat valley again today 3 June to evaluate the needs of the civilian population remaining in the area.
Simon Schorno, an ICRC delegate now at its Geneva headquarters, who recently returned from the area told GenevaLunch that ICRC is seeking agreement from the parties to the conflict to set up a a sub-delegation in Mingora, scene of much fighting in the last two weeks. It hopes to reach agreement shortly.
Fears are growing in Pakistan, reports AFP, that a series of bomb attacks around the country indicate that militants are seeking revenge this way for the government’s offensive against the Taliban. The number of deaths from several bomb attacks in Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan 28 May has risen to 15. The new attacks follow a deadly one in Lahore earlier in the week.
Updated 15:45 Ed. note: the number of deaths is rising and is now reported to be 23. A “powerful bomb” exploded in the centre of Lahore, Pakistan’s business centre Wednesday 27 May, killing 15 people and shearing the fronts off of several buildings in the area. The blast appears to have been set off by a suicide bomber but CNN reports that it was a well-coordinated attack with gunmen involved as well. The target was a police station with some 200 people inside and the building was demolished. Lahore was the target of bombs in March 2009, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility. BBC, CNN
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Pakistan now surpasses two million people since August 2008, according to Geneva-based UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees). The figures correspond to those being issued by Pakistan’s government.
The total number of IDPs fleeing the conflict in in northwest Pakistan in the Swat, Buner and Lower Dir districts, and registered by UNHCR since the beginning of the month is close to 1.5 million.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres 14 May visited camps for Pakistanis displaced by the fighting in the northwest of the country and called for massive aid from the international community. UNHCR says the number of people affected by the conflict in recent days has risen sharply to 800,000, and they are living in harsh conditions in camps. The BBC reports that Pakistan’s army has announced a temporary curfew lifting in the northwestern Swat valley to allow civilians to leave the conflict zone.
Fifty-five Taliban rebels are said to have been killed Saturday when Pakistan’s military took the offensive against the militants in the Swat region of the North West Frontier Province. The government sent helicopter gunships and airplanes against stiff resistance. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are still trapped in the area and unable to leave, according to the government. Reuters
In Pakistan, up to 50,000 people are expected to flee the Swat valley from an expected government offensive against Taliban militants.
Earlier this year, the government had agreed to relinquish some control to the Taliban by permitting the establishment of sharia courts in the area. This agreement is now close to collapse.
Residents of the valley fear they will be caught in the crossfire between government forces and militants.
Up to a hundred civilians died in Afghanistan following US air strikes against Taliban militants active in the region.
The civilians, including women and children, had been caught up in fighting between Afghan government forces and the Taliban in the western district of Farah.
The Taliban reportedly attacked a police checkpoint, then took refuge in a nearby village targeted by US forces.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, currently in Washington to meet with President Barack Obama, has ordered an investigation.
US military commanders plan to cut off the Taliban’s economic source, their multi-million dollar opium business in Afghanistan, by sending 20,000 Marines to the southern part of the country where the Taliban have poppy fields. The new effort to end the seven-year war in Afghanistan will double the number of troops already deployed. International Herald Tribune
Pakistan’s military launched a major assault on Taliban fighters in the lower Dir region, causing civilians to flee the area. Military officials say that they have killed at least 46 suspected Taliban fighters through a combination of air and ground attacks. The attack is in retaliation for Taliban violations of the recent agreement concerning the Swat Valley, according to Al Jazeera.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, addressing the US Foreign Affairs Committee, had harsh words for Pakistan Wednesday 22 April, accusing the country of allowing terrorists to manage parts of the country, a reference to the recent agreement to allow Sharia law in the Swat Valley, a popular resort area, a demand made by Taliban groups. She called on expatriates and Pakistan’s population to stand up to the “exitential threat” posed by “a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state, a nuclear-armed state.” BBC, CNN
Pakistan’s government is coming under criticism at home and abroad for signing a truce with Taliban forces in the Swat Valley, 100 miles from Islamabad, that will give the area sharia, or Islamic law. Al Jazeera, International Herald Tribune,
The BBC reports that the Taliban have called a 10-day ceasefire in northern Pakistan’s Swat Valley after talks with the government. The area is mostly under Taliban control, but it was once a popular Pakistan vacation destination.
A glut in production of opium is forcing the Taliban, who market it to fund their activities, to cut back on poppy gorwing in Afghanistan, reports the International Herald Tribune.
