11 Afghan Police Killed in Taliban Attack

By TAIMOOR SHAH and CARLOTTA GALL

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents attacked a police checkpoint north of the city early Monday, killing 11 police officers and burning their vehicles before disappearing into the night.

The attack, on the main road between the southern provinces of Kandahar and Oruzgan, where the Taliban remains strong, was another illustration of how weak Afghanistan’s police force remains despite efforts to improve training and upgrade its equipment.

The policeman on watch on the roof was strangled, and was found in a room with two other policemen who had been bound and shot in the head at close range, said Nazar Jan, a policeman on guard at the scene Monday morning. Eight other policemen were found shot dead in the room where they slept, he said. Their bloodied blankets still lay in the room. One policeman escaped and was shot in the feet as he fled, Mr. Jan said.

Mr Jan said he had heard the shooting from his checkpoint, but since it did not last long, he and his colleagues did not think much of it. He did not appear surprised that the Taliban had attacked, saying there were insurgents present in the district, Argandab. The Taliban took the officers’ weapons, he added.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the attack by telephone. The Interior Ministry confirmed the details in a statement issued in the capital, Kabul.

After their attack the Taliban left for their sanctuaries, and auxiliary police retook the checkpoint, the ministry said, adding that the wounded policeman was out of danger.

The Afghan police continue to bear the brunt of the Taliban insurgency, since they are often posted in small stations and come under attack at night. Eight more police officers were killed in two separate attacks in other areas of southern Afghanistan on Saturday.

In a separate attack Sunday west of Kandahar, two British soldiers were killed in an explosion and two others were wounded, the British Defense Ministry announced in a statement issued in London. The deaths brought to 93 the number of British soldiers killed since 2001. Forty foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, said his organization had seen an increase in war wounded since 2006 and through 2007, in particular in a hospital it supports in Kandahar, where, he said, 27 percent of hospital patients are war wounded. During his weeklong visit to Afghanistan he called on all parties in the conflict, including NATO and American military representatives and members of the “armed opposition,” to protect civilians and medical facilities.

Because of the increase in fighting, the Red Cross was concerned that many civilians in remote areas were suffering unseen, and it and is expanding its first aid posts in the southern provinces.

“Our suspicion is that there are a lot of uncovered humanitarian needs related to the conflict in remote areas,” he said. “There must be made a distinction between civilians and those who are participating in the combat,” he said.

Mr. Kellengerger said he always emphasized that attacks should be proportional to the threat, a reference to some of the heavy bombardment NATO and United States forces have used against insurgents, which often results in heavy civilian casualties.

Afghan fighting poised to escalate

The arrival of a Marine unit raises hopes that NATO will finally tame the violent south. But many Taliban fighters are returning after a winter lull.
By Laura King
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 13, 2008

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — For weeks now, the men in black turbans have been coming. They travel in pairs or small groups, on battered motorbikes or in dusty pickups, materializing out of the desert with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers slung from their shoulders.

With the advent of warmer weather, villagers say, Taliban fighters are filtering back from their winter shelters in Pakistan, ensconcing themselves across Afghanistan's wind-swept south.

"Every day we see more and more of them," said Abdul Karim, a farmer who had sent his family away for safety.

The insurgents aren't the only ones girding for battle.

At the country's main NATO base outside Kandahar, nearly 2,300 U.S. Marines have arrived in the last two months, their presence heralded by the nonstop thunder of transport aircraft and the sprawling tent city springing up on a newly cleared minefield.

The Marine force's final elements arrived days ago and last week began deploying, aiming to bolster British, Canadian and Dutch troops who have been bearing the brunt of fighting in the country's south, considered the conflict's strategic center of gravity.

The conflict in Afghanistan recently has loomed increasingly large in policy debate.

It dominated discussions at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit last month, where President Bush pledged to send more troops and pointedly urged allies to do likewise. Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates heard urgent appeals for reinforcements from U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, who forecast a substantial upsurge in fighting.

In Afghanistan, where presidential elections are due next year, opinion surveys consistently suggest that a solid majority of the population supports the presence of foreign forces. But people don't want them to stay on indefinitely, and an inconclusive spring "fighting season" could try public patience.

The first-time arrival in the south of a large force of Marines, the 24th Expeditionary Unit based in Camp Lejeune, N.C., has provided what commanders say is a much-needed infusion of firepower. The Marines have doubled the coalition's air capacity; Harrier jump jets, lumbering cargo planes and combat helicopters line the freshly laid tarmac.

Just as crucially, commanders say, Marines' deployment may at last give NATO-led troops the muscle and reach to choke off the flow of Taliban fighters and weaponry into neighboring Helmand province, consistently the most violence-racked in Afghanistan. It is the country's epicenter of opium production and narco-trafficking, whose enormous profits help fuel the insurgency.

In this unforgiving environment, British troops, considered to be among the alliance's most effective fighters, have been forced to confine their efforts largely to the province's northern tier, making the south of Helmand, with its plethora of infiltration routes from Pakistan, a likely zone of deployment for the Marines.

Although allied commanders express satisfaction with the battlefield edge the Marines will bring, the Taliban professes unconcern.

"We have heard all about these Americans, and we are waiting -- let them come," said a Taliban field commander, reached by phone in the Panjwai district outside Kandahar. "They will learn what others before them have learned."

The insurgents boast that they will blend tried-and-true methods with deadly refinements. Beaten badly in previous large-scale frontal assaults on NATO-led troops, Taliban fighters vow to harry them with more powerful and sophisticated roadside bombs, unrelenting suicide attacks and methodical targeting of Afghans who are helping the coalition forces.

Coalition commanders are well aware that the Taliban will try to steer the conflict toward small-scale hit-and-run strikes, but say it is they, not the insurgents, who will seize the initiative.

"They definitely don't want to go toe-to-toe with us," said Col. Peter Petronzio, commander of the Marine expeditionary force now operating out of the Kandahar base.

NATO officials like to point out that even during a period of resurgence over the last two years, Taliban fighters have failed to seize substantial population centers or hold large swaths of territory for long.

But it's not clear whether the insurgents want to do so; instead, they rely on the classic guerrilla tactic of scattering when confronted, then reappearing when it suits them.

Many Taliban fighters are essentially part-timers; villagers say the ranks of locally recruited insurgents will swell in coming weeks after the opium poppy crop has been planted.

With fighting seemingly poised to escalate, one major worry for the coalition is civilian casualties, which spiked during combat last spring. At that time, human rights groups charged that Western troops sometimes too readily called in airstrikes when under attack, obliterating village compounds that might not have contained only insurgents, if any.

Coalition commanders, in turn, have expressed continued frustration with what they describe as insurgents' willful endangering of civilians by launching attacks from within their midst, combined with what they say is the common practice of reporting their own battle dead as civilians.

During the winter months, with harsh weather bringing a relative lull in fighting, the coalition has made a concerted effort to hunt down Taliban field commanders, either capturing them or killing them in pinpoint airstrikes. They describe the mid-level to upper leadership ranks as having been decimated by this campaign.

But senior Western military officials acknowledge that many of these leaders have been swiftly replaced, in some cases by younger and even more ruthless commanders.

"It's a new generation we are seeing, capable of the worst kind of atrocities," said Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco, spokesman of the NATO-led force.

Last week, insurgents slaughtered 17 Afghan road workers in neighboring Zabol province. In response, Afghan and coalition forces hunted down and killed two dozen Taliban blamed for the attack, military officials said Saturday.

Part of the Western alliance's overall strategy is to turn more of the fighting and policing over to the long-troubled Afghan security forces.

American trainers believe they are turning a corner. Recruitment, pay and morale are all up, they say. But although Afghan security forces have played a more prominent role in policing and battlefield engagements over the last year, serious problems remain.

For example, Afghan forces are assigned whenever possible for house searches, an intimate and culturally charged encounter that has inflamed resentment when carried out by foreign troops. However, commanders acknowledge that without careful monitoring, looting sometimes occurs during such Afghan-conducted searches.

Moreover, the Taliban find Afghan police a "softer" target than coalition troops and have killed scores in suicide strikes. Senior police officials matter-of-factly say they believe the insurgents have marked them for death.

"The Taliban have warned me so many times to leave this job," said Haji Saifullah, the district police commissioner in Maywand, a district of Kandahar province that borders Helmand and has become an insurgent stronghold. "They want to plant a roadside bomb, or send a suicide bomber, or shoot me," he said. "So far they haven't succeeded."

Longtime observers of the conflict say that even if the insurgents' strength is flagging, a protracted battle probably lies ahead.

"I think the Taliban are not as strong as in the past," said Haji Dad Mohammad, a Kandahar-based former militia leader who sometimes serves as an intermediary between the government and insurgents. "But still, the fighting will go ahead."

laura.king@latimes.com

Fuel Trucks for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Destroyed

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Twenty-five trucks carrying fuel to American-led forces in Afghanistan were destroyed Sunday in a possible bombing on the Pakistani border, local government officials said.

Dozens of people were injured, they said.

Muhammad Sadiq Khan, a local government official, said that the explosions occurred late Sunday on the Pakistani side of border near the customs checkpoint at Torkham. At least 50 people were injured, eight of them seriously, officials said.

Fida Muhammad, the commander of a paramilitary force that helps provide security at the border crossing, said authorities suspected that the blasts were caused by bombs, but he said that an investigation was under way.

Fuel tankers headed for American and NATO bases in Afghanistan have been repeatedly singled out by militants close to the Pakistani border.

Meanwhile, Afghan and NATO forces killed more than 40 insurgents in an air and ground battle on Saturday in southern Afghanistan, a security official announced Sunday.

Troops seized dozens of weapons — including rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns — after Saturday’s battle in Dihrawud, a district in Oruzgan Province, the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement. It said many militants were killed, including a commander, but provided no figures.

An official at the ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details about the battle, put the number of dead at more than 40.

Also on Saturday, American-led coalition troops hit a roadside bomb in Kandahar Province as they were conducting a security patrol with Afghan soldiers, the coalition said in a statement released Sunday. Two soldiers died, it said, without releasing their nationalities.

Report: France to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan

Associated Press

March 22, 2008 at 9:20 AM EDT

LONDON — A British newspaper says French President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to announce next week that France will send 1,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

London's The Times newspaper cites unnamed senior ministers as saying Mr. Sarkozy wants to demonstrate his commitment to the NATO alliance's Afghan mission during his two-day visit to London, which begins Friday.

One minister is quoted as saying Britain's Defence Ministry has made a working assumption Mr. Sarkozy will announce that “slightly more than 1,000 troops” are to be deployed to eastern Afghanistan.

Canada recently pledged to extend its mission in the dangerous southern region of Kandahar to 2011, on the condition that its NATO allies provide an additional 1,000 troops in the region.

The refusal of key European allies such as Germany, Italy and Spain to send forces to join Canada, Britain, the U-S and the Netherlands who are leading the fight in the south has led to months of ugly infighting within NATO.

France is widely expected to boost its role in Afghanistan beyond the 1,900 soldiers current there at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, on April 2-4. However, it's not yet clear whether the French soldiers will be sent to the south.

British and French defence ministries and the presidential Elysee Palace declined to comment on the report when contacted Saturday.

Struggling for Solutions As Opium Trade Blossoms

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 21, 2008; A10

TARIN KOT, Afghanistan -- On a recent cold spring day, just as the first small sprouts of poppies began pushing out of the southern Afghanistan earth, the members of Uruzgan province's poppy eradication council gathered around a wood stove in the governor's compound here for their first meeting.

"We should encourage people to eliminate poppies voluntarily," offered one official. "Ministers will go to the radio stations and tell them to stop. Mullahs should go to the mosques and tell people it's forbidden by Islam."

Mohammad Mawlawi, a mullah with a curly black beard extending down the length of his chest, exploded in anger.

"The people won't listen to us if we go to the mosque and say it's against our culture," he insisted. "No one wants to stop because the government has done nothing for us. They say, 'We have no choice, we have to make a living to support our families.'

"The people won't stop!" he repeated, waving his lime-green prayer beads for emphasis.

In the last six years, the international community has set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for Afghan poppy eradication, built a state-of-the-art maximum-security facility for drug traffickers outside Kabul and dispatched hundreds of troops to try to persuade farmers to plant wheat, fruit trees and saffron instead of poppies.

The result of those efforts: Last year Afghanistan produced 90 percent of the world's opium and its derivative, heroin -- more than at any time in the country's history. The only major drug traffickers held in the new prison wing were allowed to escape. And a special international fund for motivating Afghan leaders to eradicate poppies has barely been touched, according to international officials involved in Afghan anti-drug efforts.

While 13 provinces in the north and central parts of Afghanistan were poppy-free last year, the number of acres under cultivation nationwide increased 17 percent, according to a U.N. survey. More than three-quarters of the poppy crop is cultivated in areas outside government control, primarily in five southern provinces.

The war against poppies has been undercut by disagreements among NATO allies and Afghan officials over how to stop cultivation, corrupt Afghan officials and inefficient reconstruction efforts, according to U.S., U.N., NATO and Afghan officials involved in the anti-drug effort.

Most militaries are loath to engage in eradication efforts because of the danger to soldiers and the risk of angering the very farmers whose support they are trying to win. Many poor farmers have managed to survive only by selling their crops to the Taliban, the extremist militia that has used profits from the drug trade to fund its resurgence.

"If you support eradication one day, you can't tell the people the next day we're here for you," said Lt. Col. Tjerk Hogeveen, commander of the Dutch combat troops in Uruzgan. "They won't believe you're here to help them if you're destroying their only source of income. If we want to win them over, supporting eradication without alternatives is the wrong symbol."

The United States has pushed aggressively for aerial spraying, similar to years-long programs in Colombia.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and officials from many European countries argued vigorously against spraying, saying it would kill other crops and poison the land. The United States recently backed down -- reluctantly -- under increasing pressure from Karzai, who in turn is facing an upcoming election and domestic criticism that he is subservient to Washington.

"We're not going to start spraying," said Tom Schweich, the U.S. State Department's coordinator for counternarcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan. "Karzai said he didn't want to, that it looked heavy-handed."

Schweich said U.S. officials continue to disagree with Karzai and many NATO allies.

"Spray by air, there are fewer people who die, but it appears more heavy-handed," Schweich said. "Go in manually" on the ground "and it appears less heavy-handed, but there are more deaths."

The sporadic attempts at forced eradication across Afghanistan have largely failed because of inadequate law enforcement efforts and the corruption that is rife among police and government agencies.

"Eradication is very costly," Antonio Maria Costa, director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said in a telephone interview from Vienna. "An enormous amount of money is spent with very little accomplished.

Afghan and NATO officials said that this year they are shifting tactics, focusing on eradicating the poppy fields of large farmers, rather than those of impoverished farmers with small plots who are often indebted to drug traffickers, the Taliban or larger landowners. But attempts to convict and imprison major drug traffickers have also largely failed, officials said.

A year and a half ago, Costa inaugurated a $4.4 million maximum-security wing at the Pul-i-Charki prison outside Kabul. Funded by Britain and other European countries, the wing was designed to hold major drug traffickers.

"I said then the weak link was the front door," Costa said. "No more than two or three months later, four drug traffickers ran away through the main door."

He said now "the vast majority of inmates are individuals who were foot soldiers, not anyone with senior responsibility."

Few provinces have a worse track record on poppies than impoverished Uruzgan in south-central Afghanistan, where the Helmand River valley provides one of the region's key drug-trafficking routes.

As the Uruzgan poppy eradication council met around the wood stove, one official passed around copies of notebooks that are being distributed to schoolchildren. The title read, "If we don't destroy the poppies, the poppies will destroy us." Evil-looking cartoon poppies are shown strangling a child, a young woman and a gaunt drug addict as an armed soldier, a woman wielding a Koran and a farmer with a sickle try to protect them.

Debate around the wood stove was not nearly as clear-cut.

"The law says no one should grow poppies," began Gov. Assadullah Hamdam, who has held his post since last fall. "If they do, they are criminals. They destroy our country."

He said he is concerned about the increasing number of addicts in his province, now estimated at 4,500, including significant numbers of women and children. An internal U.N. report found that Uruzgan has only 25 doctors serving a population of 320,000 and that no drug treatment service exists. Until this meeting, the province had no awareness campaign on the dangers of drug use.

One local official suggested that farmers wouldn't stop growing poppies without money or other compensation from the government.

But because Uruzgan did not meet the poppy eradication quota set by the government, the province will receive nothing this year from the Afghan Counter Narcotics Trust Fund. Donor nations have contributed tens of millions of dollars to provide provinces with incentives to eradicate poppies and provide alternate livelihoods for farmers.

The governor looked irritated.

"Our government doesn't have enough money to pay every farmer to stop poppy cultivation," he told the officials gathered around him. "If you pay, they'll constantly ask for more."

"It's against Afghanistan's rules -- if they grow poppies, they'll be punished," continued the governor. "We can't promise to help them. Even if we can't help them, they should stop."

Privately, in an interview, Hamdam said he believes it will take a decade more to end poppy production in his province.

"We don't know what to do," the governor said during the meeting with local officials. "There are places we can't even go. How will we get to those areas that are not even under the control of the government?"

No one offered an answer. As Hamdam glanced around the conference room, some ministers had closed their eyes and appeared to be dozing.

The governor was exasperated. "We will do what we can, we will do our best," he said.

He paused. And if that fails, he said, "we will pray to God to wash out the poppy fields, to bring cold weather and snow, or floods."

Dick Cheney Visits Afghanistan

By REUTERS

Filed at 6:37 a.m. ET

KABUL (Reuters) - Vice-President Dick Cheney visited Afghanistan on Thursday and met President Hamid Karzai ahead of a NATO summit where Washington will urge its allies to send more troops to the war-torn country.

NATO's Afghan mission is one of the toughest challenges faced by the 59-year-old alliance and has led to open differences among allies over strategy and troop levels.

Cheney said the mission of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan would be high on the agenda of the summit in Bucharest in early April.

"ISAF has made a tremendous difference in the country and America will ask our NATO allies for an even stronger commitment for the future," Cheney told a news conference in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he made an unannounced visit.

"All free nations have an interest in a secure, democratic Afghanistan," he said.

ISAF has some 43,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting Taliban militants, who have regrouped since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the hardline Islamist movement from power after the September 11, 2001 attacks and relaunched their insurgency two years ago.

U.S. British, Canadian and Dutch troops are engaged in the bulk of the fighting in southern and eastern Afghanistan, while other NATO allies, notably France and Germany, have so far resisted U.S. pressure to allow their soldiers to operate outside the relative safety of the north of the country.

"The United States and the other members of the coalition need to have a sufficient force here to be able to ensure security to deal with the threat that's been represented by continuing activities by radicals and extremists, the likes of the Taliban and al Qaeda," Cheney said.

The U.S. vice president's last visit to Afghanistan was in February 2007, when a suicide bomber killed 14 people, including one U.S. and one South Korean soldier, in an attack on Bagram Air Base while Cheney was there.

The Taliban aims to wear down the will of NATO countries to carry on the fight in Afghanistan and force a withdrawal of foreign troops that would hand them a strategic victory.

U.S. SUPPORT "UNSHAKEABLE"

Already cracks are appearing in support for the war. Canada, with 2,500 troops in southern Afghanistan, wants NATO allies to provide another 1,000 soldiers to reinforce its combat forces as a condition for keeping its troops in the country.

Ordinary Afghans are also growing increasingly frustrated with the presence of foreign troops, the slow pace of development, official corruption and the lack of security.

Cheney said the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan was "firm and unshakeable," but the goal was for the Afghan army and police to take a greater role in providing security as time goes on.

The Afghan army currently has around 70,000 troops, but the Afghan Defence Ministry say a much larger force is needed.

The Afghan army is relatively well-trained and has taken a much greater role in fighting the Taliban over the last year, but the police lag far behind, are poorly trained, notoriously corrupt and often flee in the face of Taliban attacks.

"The continuation of NATO in Afghanistan is very, very important," Karzai told the news conference alongside Cheney at the heavily guarded presidential palace. "As the Afghan National Army gets stronger, there will be less pressure and responsibility on the foreign security forces."

Karzai and Cheney were also to discuss steps the Afghan government needs to take on fighting corruption and narcotics.

The country's raging illicit opium industry is the main factor driving corruption, with the illegal crop accounting for as much as a third of the entire economy. Afghanistan last year produced 93 percent of the world's opium, which is processed to make heroin, and efforts to curb the crop have largely failed.

Karzai and Cheney were also due to talk about Afghan parliamentary and presidential elections next year and discuss Pakistan in the wake of elections there and how the neighbors can work together to fight the common Taliban threat, a senior U.S. administration official said.

Cheney will also meet U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Alex Richardson)

NATO Expansion, and a Bush Legacy, Are in Doubt

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — President Bush’s efforts to cement a trans-Atlantic legacy by adding three nations to NATO appear in disarray as the alliance struggles with internal political divisions, new tensions with Russia and the combat mission in Afghanistan that have exposed disparities of might and will among current members, officials, diplomats and analysts said.

As Mr. Bush and other leaders of the alliance prepare to meet in Romania in three weeks, invitations to Albania, Croatia and Macedonia to join have become mired in a spat with Greece over Macedonia’s name and more fundamental concerns that none of the three prospects have met all of the domestic political qualifications for membership.

And the administration’s hope of extending “road maps” to membership to two former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Georgia, has run into strong opposition from some of the United States’ closest allies, including Germany, which fear provoking Russia, according to two NATO-nation diplomats and a Bush administration official.

The potential for confrontation with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, who will attend part of the summit meeting in Bucharest, has caused such anxiety that Mr. Bush has dispatched his secretaries of state and defense to Moscow for meetings on Monday and Tuesday to soothe some of Russia’s anger. Their agenda includes American plans to install missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Russia strongly opposes, although NATO expansion is likely to be discussed, officials said.

Overshadowing the debate over possible new members has been an increasingly polarized dispute over NATO’s operations in Afghanistan. Bush administration officials and lawmakers now openly accuse strong American allies of shirking their duty to fight a resurgent Taliban, reluctant to bolster the NATO force of about 40,000 troops.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned last month that NATO could become a two-tiered alliance with “some allies willing to fight and die to protect people’s security, and others who are not.”

With violence rising in Afghanistan to the highest levels since the American-led invasion in 2001, the administration has been pressing NATO members to contribute more troops. The United States is adding 3,200 marines; of its current force of about 28,000, about 15,500 Americans serve in the NATO mission and 12,500 are involved in separate counterterrorism operations solely under American command. So far, however, few allies have stepped forward, and those that have continue to impose restrictions on where and how their troops will operate.

Canada, which has sent 2,500 troops, has threatened to withdraw unless another ally sends at least 1,000 troops to help secure Afghanistan’s restive southern area.

“We face a crisis in Afghanistan that is extraordinarily difficult for our country and for the NATO alliance,” the under secretary of state for political affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, said just before stepping down at the end of last month. “For NATO, it may be an existential crisis.”

For Mr. Bush, the expansion of NATO to include new members is part of what he hopes will be a legacy of promoting democracy and liberty, in this case in the formerly Communist Balkans, which were ravaged by war in the 1990s and are still haunted by ethnic divisions.

During Mr. Bush’s presidency, NATO has added seven new members — Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — bringing the number of allies to 26.

According to officials and diplomats, the administration has pressed for membership for Albania, Croatia and Macedonia to such an extent that they were given an unusual six-month extension to prove that they had made sufficient progress on a series of political and legal reforms.

Even now, just three weeks before the summit meeting where any official invitations to join the alliance would be issued, the administration has not submitted to Congress required reports measuring the worthiness of Albania, Europe’s poorest country, and Croatia and Macedonia, states that emerged from the violent breakup of Yugoslavia.

Administration officials said they remained hopeful that the summit meeting in Bucharest would be a success, producing a compromise allowing invitations to all three aspirants and an agreement that allies redouble their efforts in Afghanistan.

Expanding NATO remains politically popular in the United States. At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, no lawmaker or official spoke against inviting the three countries, but even supporters raised concerns, especially given the debate over NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the Democratic chairman of the committee, said many were concerned “that we may build this so big that it can’t function.” One reason the alliance can be cumbersome is that its members operate on consensus, meaning that one country can essentially block action. That is the case with Greece, a NATO member since 1952, and Macedonia.

Since Macedonia declared independence in 1991, Greece has vehemently objected to its use of the name Republic of Macedonia, saying it implies territorial claims to the Greek province of the same name — an assertion Macedonia has publicly disavowed.

The alliance’s protocols have become even more complicated and politically delicate in Afghanistan because each ally has been able to put conditions — diplomatically called “caveats” — on where and how they will conduct military operations.

Some officials quietly concede a point made by a number of academic analysts: that disagreements over how to carry out the security mission in Afghanistan reflect the uncertain evolution of the alliance.

“Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan,” said a report by the Atlantic Council of the United States, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to fostering ties between North America and Europe. More surprising was that the report’s chairman was Gen. James L. Jones, who served as NATO’s supreme military commander until 2006.

Mr. Bush argues that the alliance has evolved from a purely military force to defend against the old Soviet superpower to an organization that fosters political stability and democratic reform in Europe and extends its influence outside its members’ borders, first in the war over Kosovo and then in Afghanistan.

The projection of NATO’s power has led many inside and outside to argue that the alliance has become a weaker military force, as European countries lowered their defense spending, while the United States increased its own.

Stanley Kober, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington who has written extensively about NATO, said the alliance continued to expand without giving sufficient thought to its immediate troubles, especially in Afghanistan.

“We’re now talking about NATO being in an existential crisis because of Afghanistan,” Mr. Kober said. “It seems to me that before you make promises to other countries, we should be able to resolve the existential crisis first.”

He also cited tensions created by Kosovo’s declaration of independence and Russia’s fierce opposition to missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, the issues at the heart of the visit to Moscow by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the defense secretary, Mr. Gates.

Mr. Kober called NATO’s expansion “a train that’s going forward on its own momentum.”

“In the meantime,” he added, “the wheels are falling off.”

Administration officials dispute that. They argue that expanding the alliance and shoring up operations in Afghanistan will stabilize NATO and enhance global security. One senior official noted that the willingness of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia to contribute troops to Afghanistan and Iraq had weighed heavily on President Bush’s willingness to support their membership bids.

The administration officials say that Croatia, Albania and Macedonia have made significant strides to address at least some, if not all of the internal shortcomings identified in their membership applications.

Albania, which was ranked 105th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index, agreed under pressure to appoint a special prosecutor, an administration official noted. (Croatia and Macedonia fared better on the index, at 65th and 84th.)

Jeffrey D. McCausland, a retired Army colonel and now visiting professor of international law and diplomacy at the Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania State University, said that using NATO to advance political objectives, even noble ones like stability, risked losing sight of the alliance’s fundamental obligation to defend itself against external threats.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “one has to balance any membership question for NATO: Are these countries security providers or security customers?”

Judge sides with Khadr defence team

OMAR EL AKKAD

Globe and Mail Update

March 14, 2008 at 3:49 PM EDT

A U.S. military judge has sided with Omar Khadr's defence team and ordered that a senior U.S. officer be deposed before Mr. Khadr's trial begins.

In a ruling issued Friday, Army Colonel Peter Brownback sided with the defence on five motions, granting Mr. Khadr's lawyers more access to a variety of information the prosecution had until now refused to hand over.

One of the most important rulings regarded a U.S. officer named "Lieutenant Colonel W.," who wrote a report about the 2001 Afghanistan firefight where Mr. Khadr is alleged to have killed a U.S. soldier. In a copy of the report dated the day after the firefight, the Lt.-Col. wrote that the U.S. soldier's attacker was subsequently killed by other soldiers.

In an almost identical copy of the report written several months later, that reference is altered to say that the U.S. soldier's attacker was only "engaged" by other soldiers, implying the attacker — alleged to be a then-15-year-old Mr. Khadr — lived.

Because of the discrepancy in the two reports, Mr. Khadr's defence team asked for access to the Lt.-Col. so he could be questioned before the trial begins. Over the objections of the prosecution, Judge Brownback agreed with the defence, saying the taking of testimony "is in the interests of justice."

The judge also ruled that the prosecution must provide to the defence a list of all personnel who interrogated Mr. Khadr. If the defence wishes to interview any of those personnel, the judge ruled, the prosecution must provide a phone number and time for such an interview.

The prosecution was also ordered to make available to the defence any notes taken by interrogators and other government agents during all interrogations of Mr. Khadr dating back to 27 July, 2002 — the day of the Afghanistan firefight during which Mr. Khadr was captured.

Despite the string of victories, Mr. Khadr's defence team is complaining that the prosecution is stalling the release of certain documents to the public. Friday's judge's decisions came as a result of several motions filed by the defence. However, those motions, which contain more details about certain allegations and evidence, have not yet been made public. Mr. Khadr's lawyers argue that's because the prosecution is hoping to release the documents after the current bout of media attention to the case dies down.

Lawyers were set to leave Guantanamo Bay on Friday afternoon, and are not officially due back until May. However it is expected that the two sides will be back in court at Guantanamo Bay arguing over more discovery motions next month.

Mr. Khadr faces several charges before a U.S. military commission here. The most serious of the charges is murder. If convicted, the 21-year-old could face life in prison.

Following the revelation that a U.S. military report on the firefight was altered, Mr. Khadr's case was raised in Question Period in Ottawa Friday morning. In response, the Conservative government repeated the same position they have previously stated on the case: the charged against Mr. Khadr are very serious and the government has received assurances he is being treated humanely.

Afghanistan: Al-Qaeda Bloggers' Sparring With Taliban Could Signal Key Differences

By Ron Synovitz

An Internet-fueled squabble between Taliban leaders and influential Al-Qaeda sympathizers over nonviolent tactics and foreign influence in Afghanistan hints at deep disagreements that could alter counterinsurgency efforts in that country.

Islamic extremists who regularly post messages to a pro-Al-Qaeda website in Egypt are accusing Afghanistan's Taliban of straying from the path of global jihad. Prominent Taliban have responded by lashing back with criticism of their own.

The development suggests a rift is emerging between the Taliban leadership and religious extremists in the Arab world -- including the Al-Qaeda network that the Taliban had hosted in Afghanistan while it planned the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

Such a break could affect Afghan government efforts to convince Taliban fighters to lay down their weapons and peacefully resolve their differences with officials, which could in turn influence whether non-Afghan Al-Qaeda fighters continue to be welcomed among the Taliban.

Internet criticisms of the Taliban follow a February statement from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar announcing that his movement wants to maintain positive and "legitimate" relations with countries neighboring Afghanistan.

Mullah Omar, who heads a Taliban leadership council that was purportedly formed in 2003, also has said that the Taliban is exploring the possibility of holding peace negotiations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government.

"We want to have legitimate relations with all countries of the world," Mullah Omar's statement said. "We are not a threat to anyone. America believes that the Taliban is a threat to the whole world. And with this propaganda, America wants to use all other countries to advance their own interests."

Pro-Al-Qaeda bloggers who were angered by Mullah Omar's statement were further outraged in early March when the Taliban expressed solidarity with Iran by condemning the latest round of sanctions imposed on Tehran by the UN Security Council over its nuclear activities.

'Nationalist Trend'

Anyone with a password can post messages to the Al-Qaeda linked website. But some of the harshest remarks about the Taliban leadership have come from writers who are labeled as among the most influential on the website.

One of those bloggers -- who calls himself "Miskeen" or "The Wretched" -- responded to the Taliban declaration on Iran by writing: "This is the worst statement I have ever read.... [T]he disaster of defending the [Iranian] regime is on par with the Crusaders in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Mullah Salam Zaief has been a prominent spokesman for the Taliban since the 2001 ouster"Miskeen" also wrote that a "nationalist trend" appears to be penetrating the Taliban. Other pro Al-Qaeda bloggers have called for Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri to censure the Taliban over their recent statements.

But the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan -- Mullah Salam Zaief -- tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that the bloggers have no understanding of the topic.

"Somebody who is speaking from Egypt really doesn't have knowledge of the exact situation on the ground in Afghanistan," Zaief says. "He doesn't even convey the policies of the whole organization [of Al-Qaeda]."

"The conflict in Afghanistan doesn't mean [the Taliban] has to confront the world," Zaief continues. "Afghans are very tired of war. They want their homeland. They want peace in their country. They want independence. Whether they are Taliban or other Afghans, I don't think either wants to confront the entire international community. The Taliban doesn't want to rule the world."

A Path To Talks?

Independent analysts link the Taliban's quest for international legitimacy to the possibility of future negotiations with Karzai's government.

Karzai said in September that he was ready to negotiate with the Taliban, including Mullah Omar himself, in order to put an end to the Afghan insurgency. In December, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood said he would support reconciliation talks -- with some conditions.

One of the main sticking points for negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban appears to be the fate of Al-Qaeda. Formal negotiations could lead to the expulsion of Al-Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan if they did not commit themselves to supporting Karzai's government.

When asked what the Taliban thinks about Al-Qaeda extremists trying to dictate Taliban policies in Afghanistan, Zaief said foreign extremists are more interested in their own benefit than what is good for Afghans.

"I think every Afghan now has the experience that with intolerance toward each other -- if people do not live in peace and harmony with each other -- the bloodshed and devastation will continue for a long time," Zaief said. "Nobody has the right to ignore the importance of stability in Afghanistan. They should at least not be making such irresponsible comments. [The Al-Qaeda bloggers] were raising the question of the foreign-troop presence in Afghanistan. But now, I think Afghans have to tolerate the presence of foreign troops in the country because they have no other option."

Although Zaief lives in Kabul and his location is known by Karzai's government, he is still considered a prominent member of the Taliban whose views reflect those of the Taliban leadership. But his remarks about the need for Afghans to tolerate the presence of foreign troops were not supported by a Taliban statement on the issue released on March 11.

That statement says the Taliban's fight is aimed only at driving U.S.-led coalition forces from Afghanistan. It calls on U.S. allies to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan. It also calls on Afghanistan's former mujahedin factions to help the Taliban drive U.S. troops from the country.

Leaders of some of those mujahedin factions helped U.S. forces drive the Taliban regime from Kabul in late 2001 and now hold positions within Karzai's cabinet or are prominent members of the Afghan parliament.

RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report from Kabul and Prague

U.N. Says Taliban Are Impeding Aid

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A tenth of Afghanistan is off limits to aid workers because of attacks by Taliban insurgents, hindering the delivery of assistance to vulnerable Afghans, a United Nations report says.

The assessment echoes a finding by the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, who told a Senate committee last month that Taliban insurgents controlled about 10 percent of the country.

Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, said in response this month that only 8 of Afghanistan’s 364 districts were not under government control.

But the United Nations report, released in New York on Monday, said 36 districts — including most of those in the east, southeast and south — are largely inaccessible to Afghan officials and aid workers.

“Despite tactical successes by national and international military forces, the antigovernment elements are far from defeated,” the report said.

It said violence last year was at the highest level since an offensive led by the United States toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

There were 160 suicide attacks and 68 thwarted attempts in 2007, compared with 123 suicide attacks and 17 failed attempts in 2006, it said.

Afghanistan had more than 8,000 conflict-related deaths last year, including 1,500 civilian deaths, the United Nations said.

Expansion Issues Divide NATO; Rice Urges More Troops

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 7, 2008; A12

BRUSSELS, March 6 -- Foreign ministers of the NATO alliance failed Thursday to narrow differences over whether to make interim membership overtures to Georgia and Ukraine, with some ministers pressing for the step and others arguing that it would antagonize Russia.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also urged allies to make firm commitments to add troops in Afghanistan, saying that alliance members cannot focus just on development work in the fragile country.

There was also no apparent movement in a dispute that has lasted more than 15 years between Greece and Macedonia over Macedonia's name. The issue threatens to block plans to bring the tiny Balkan republic into the alliance at a summit next month in Bucharest, Romania.

The 26-nation alliance, which has expanded rapidly in the past decade into Eastern Europe, faces two critical decisions on further enlargement.

One concerns Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics seeking membership, in part to escape Russian influence. In the meetings here, the diplomats were split over whether to grant the two countries an interim step, known as the "Membership Action Plan," with France and Germany among the leading skeptics.

Russia has warned that pursuit of membership by the two would antagonize their pro-Russia populations and possibly lead to civil war.

"In Russia we have a new president and I think the European Union wants to put its ties with Russia on another footing," said Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn. "We have to take the interests of others, not only the members of NATO, into account."

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested that Russia's place in the world system was not given enough consideration. "France is not the only nation wanting to maintain a relationship with Russia as a great nation," he said.

U.S. officials have expressed cautious support for granting Ukraine and Georgia the interim status, but have made no official statement.

The second decision concerns full membership for three Balkan countries -- Macedonia, Albania and Croatia -- a step that alliance members hope will help bring stability to the volatile region. But Greece on Thursday once again threatened to veto a seat for Macedonia.

Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis reiterated Thursday that Athens believes the name "Republic of Macedonia" is a backdoor attempt to claim sovereignty over a Greek province named Macedonia.

Greece stands alone in NATO in its campaign against Macedonia. One U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was describing diplomatic conversations, said there was "considerable pressure in the room that this now be settled."

The ministers spent considerable time discussing a mission statement about Afghanistan that would help explain to their publics why NATO is fighting there.

There are 43,000 NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, but some operate only in relatively peaceful parts of the country. U.S. officials argue that NATO countries must contribute more troops, saying the alliance cannot be divided between those who fight and those who focus on development.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Emphasizes U.S. Role in Pakistan

By THOM SHANKER

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, arrived here Monday to emphasize America’s eagerness to help Pakistan in its fight against foreign terrorists and home-grown militants operating in the northwestern tribal areas.

Admiral Mullen said the United States was willing to offer assistance for such things as training, transport helicopters and night-combat operations, but stressed that he was carrying no specific proposals on this visit and would await formal requests from Pakistan’s military.

The trip here by Admiral Mullen, America’s highest-ranking military officer — his second here in less than a month — underscored Washington’s view of the vital role Pakistan plays in the global counter-terrorism effort.

But it also highlighted the delicate nature of the relationship between the two countries in which the United States cannot be seen as dictating combat missions on Pakistan’s sovereign territory. This is especially true as the nation struggles to form a new government after a humiliating election loss for the ruling party of President Pervez Musharraf, a close Bush administration anti-terror ally.

“This military-to-military relationship is really critical,” Admiral Mullen said. He summarized his message to Pakistan’s military leadership as: “We are anxious to assist. Tell us where you need assistance.”

During his visit here, Admiral Mullen will meet with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who last year became Pakistan’s new army chief, a pillar of national power, when Mr. Musharraf gave up that post to serve solely as a civilian president. The admiral will also meet with Gen. Tariq Majid, chairman of the Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Speaking to reporters aboard his airplane as he flew into Pakistan after a two-day inspection tour of Iraq, Admiral Mullen was asked whether General Kayani was at risk of being seen as too close to the United States.

“One of the messages that I want to make sure that I am very consistent with is: We are there to assist where he wants us to assist,” Admiral Mullen said.

Admiral Mullen did not discuss any of the various proposals now being drawn up by the American military to assist Pakistan.

But one American plan described by senior officials and now under review by the United States military’s Central Command would send about 100 troops to help train the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani paramilitary force that both nations describe as the vanguard in the fight against Al Qaeda and Taliban groups in the restive tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

During his visit last month, Admiral Mullen met with the head of the Frontier Corps.

As he arrived in Pakistan on Monday, the admiral said the United States had developed “a fairly comprehensive plan” of assistance to the Frontier Corps, a force of about 85,000 that is recruited from ethnic groups on the border and thus know the region’s dialects and culture.

“There are needs in helicopters,” Admiral Mullen said. “There are needs to operate at night.”

He emphasized that those needs are in training and maintenance skills, and made no mention of American troops entering Pakistan to conduct combat missions, nor even to join Pakistan forces on such operations.

The Pentagon already has spent about $25 million to equip the Frontier Corps with equipment, including vehicles, radios and surveillance devices, and plans to spend another $75 million over the next year. Administration officials say the United States will spend more than $400 million over the next several years to help the Frontier Corps enhance its combat capabilities.

Afghanistan: Mobile-Phone Towers Are Taliban's New Target

Local officials in Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province said gunmen destroyed a mobile-phone tower in the Sangin district on March 2.



It follows two attacks on telecommunication towers in neighboring Kandahar Province on February 29 and March 1 after a Taliban demand that all telephone signals be turned off during the evening and overnight.

Taliban militants ordered mobile-phone operators last week to switch off their networks from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. each day. The insurgents say U.S. and NATO forces track the Taliban through their phone signals and then launch attacks on their hiding places.

Many military operations against Taliban leaders have been conducted by the U.S.-led forces at night.

But many Afghans, including politicians, dismiss the Taliban's justification for attacking the mobile phone sector as "meaningless."

Legislator Shurkiya Barekzai says that by attacking the towers the Taliban wants to damage Afghanistan's economy. She says the Taliban claims that coalition and Afghan forces tracking their forces via mobile signals "does not make any sense."

"I don't think [tracking the militants via signals] is the main reason, because if Afghan and international forces want to attack they could attack during the day, too," Barekzai says. "But we should remember that these mobile networks are crucially important for ordinary Afghans. People need and use them."

The mobile towers that came under attack belonged to the Roshan and Areeba companies.

The People Need Them

As almost the only means of communications in Afghanistan, cell phones have become increasingly popular all over the country. They were widely introduced in Afghanistan after the Western-backed government took power following the defeating of the Taliban in 2001.

The telecommunications industry is considered one of the fastest-growing and most profitable sectors of the Afghan economy. Four main telecom operators provide coverage to even the most remote corners of Afghanistan.

Destruction of the telecommunication towers will affect thousands of phone users in southern Afghanistan, including the Taliban fighters themselves, who rely on mobile phones for communications.

But communications experts say the demolition of the towers will not have a significant impact on the U.S.-led military forces, since they can use satellites and other means to pick up phone signals without depending on the phone companies.

Mobile users in Kandahar's many districts have complained that they did not have phone signals over the past two days.

Barekzai tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that depriving people of their principal means of communication would only further alienate the militants from the general Afghan population.

Many regions in Afghanistan do not even have access to regular mail service, landline phones, or the Internet, and therefore almost entirely depend on cell phones to communicate.

Police sources in Kandahar Province said security was tightened near the mobile towers after the Taliban attacks.

Some influential local tribal leaders have also offered to help protect such areas.

Abdul Ahad-Khan Masum, a tribal leader in Kandahar's Kajaki district, where a mobile tower was torched by militants, says that his people can protect the towers "if we are given the authority.

But he adds that "during the past 30 years, different powers have only been playing with the tribal leaders -- instead of benefiting from our influence. If the government and relevant authorities give us a chance, I think this issue [of protecting the mobile towers] would be solved, too."

It is not the first time the Taliban has challenged cell-phone companies in Afghanistan. In the past, the militants have accused mobile-phone operators of closely cooperating with U.S. and NATO troops. However, they did not carry out any of their threats until now.

RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Norias Nori contributed to this report

US: Afghan Opium Crop Hurts Democracy

By ANNE GEARAN
The Associated Press
Friday, February 29, 2008; 11:25 AM

WASHINGTON -- Record illegal drug production in Afghanistan supplies the Taliban insurgency with money and arms and the U.S.-backed government must take direct, prompt action against poppy growers, a State Department report said Friday.

Afghan farmers grew more poppies for opium in 2007 than ever before, the second year in a row of record production in the nation the United States invaded after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The drug trade deters progress toward a stable, economically independent democracy, the report said.

"The counterinsurgency nexus is both real and growing," said Assistant Secretary David Johnson, the State Department's top drug enforcement officer.

The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report says the largest and best-known insurgent group _ the hard-line Taliban _ benefits with money and weapons while offering protection to growers and traffickers.

"Eliminating narcotics cultivation and trafficking in Afghanistan will require a long-term national and international commitment," the State Department said in the report, which added: "The Afghan government must take decisive action against poppy cultivation soon to turn back the drug threat before its further growth and consolidation make it even more difficult to defeat."

The report noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai considered limited aerial spraying to eradicate opium poppies last year, but opted not to do it. Such action would have been extremely dangerous and highly unpopular.

Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world's opium poppy last year, according to United Nations figures cited in Friday's report. The haul, worth an estimated $4 billion on the illegal world market, represented more than a third of Afghanistan's combined total gross domestic product, or GDP, of $11.5 billion.

Production was up 34 percent above 2006 levels and was nearly double the total for 2005.

Land under cultivation for poppies increased 17 percent in 2007 and good weather helped increase production on land already under cultivation, the report said.

Johnson welcomed some projections that say Afghan drug production will fall in 2008.

The report measures foreign drug production and efforts to fight it. The report does not examine drug production, interdiction or eradication in the United States.

Missile Strike in Pakistan Kills 10 At Suspected Taliban Safe House

By Imtiaz Ali and Candace Rondeaux
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 29, 2008; A14

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb. 28 -- A missile strike on a suspected Taliban safe house in a remote tribal area of northwest Pakistan killed at least 10 people early Thursday, according to residents and local officials.

The attack targeted a home in the village of Kaloosha in volatile South Waziristan, near the Afghan border. There were conflicting reports on the number of casualties and the identities of those killed, but local residents and officials said the home belonged to a farm owner who had recently offered it as a guesthouse to several foreign fighters.

Accounts of how the attack unfolded were also mixed. Several residents said they heard three explosions at about 2 a.m. One of the missiles apparently missed its target, while two others destroyed the house. A tribal leader in South Waziristan, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that women and children were among the dead, and that at least six others were injured.

The attack, less than 20 miles from the Afghan border, marked the second targeted missile strike in a month in the rugged mountainous region, a key battleground in Pakistan's fight with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Thirteen people, including top al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Laith al-Libi, were killed Jan. 29 in an airstrike in the village of Khushali Torikhel in North Waziristan.

The United States is officially barred from conducting operations in Pakistan, but it has launched several aerial attacks in the country's tribal areas, including the one that killed Libi, according to U.S. intelligence sources.

In Washington, U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment on Thursday's attack.

A Pakistani army spokesman said he had no information about the incident, and officials with the Interior Ministry could not be reached for comment.

A local official in the Pakistani town of Wana, near the site of the strike, said 10 people were killed, but he could not confirm their identities or the number of injured. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said Pakistani security forces began monitoring the area recently after receiving reports that several foreign fighters had been sighted.

According to local residents, Sher Mohammed Malikkheil, the owner of the home, is a member of the Yargulkhel, a sub-tribe of the Wazir, the predominant tribe in South Waziristan. A farmer by profession, Malikkheil, also known as Sheroo, has been suspected of links to local and foreign fighters.

"Sheroo's house has been home to some outsiders and strange people for the last few months and he himself was living in another home," said Shah Nazar, a shop owner in the neighboring village of Azam Warsak.

Kaloosha has long been considered a stronghold of foreign and local fighters with ties to al-Qaeda. The village was home to Nek Mohammed, a commander who was killed in an apparent missile strike in June 2004 after sheltering hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The Taliban, an extremist Islamic militia, ruled most of Afghanistan before the invasion and provided a haven to al-Qaeda.

Mufti Jan Amir, a Taliban commander with close ties to top Pakistani militants in Wana, said all those killed in Thursday's attack were Afghans who had lived in the area for years.

Rondeaux reported from Islamabad. Staff writer Joby Warrick in Washington contributed to this report.

Missile Attack, Possibly by NATO, Kills 8 in Pakistan

By ISMAIL KHAN

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Eight suspected Islamic militants, including four men of Middle Eastern origin and two from Central Asia, were killed early Thursday in a triple missile attack on a house used as a training facility in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a security official and residents said.

The missiles appeared to have been launched from territory controlled by NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan, the second deadly aerial strike in a month. Residents said three other occupants of the house were wounded in the strike, in the village of Kalosha in South Waziristan, one of the most restive tribal regions.

The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his job, said the dead had belonged to a little-known group affiliated with Al Qaeda, working under the name Abu Hamza.

Local residents said they had heard three loud explosions about 2 a.m. that destroyed the house. They said the three wounded occupants were from Turkmenistan.

They also said the house had belonged to Shero Wazir, an Ahmadzai Wazir tribesman who had rented it to an unidentified man of Arab nationality. They said they thought the launching site might have been an American NATO base in Machi Dat, just across the border in Afghanistan.

NATO officials in Afghanistan said they had no information about the attack. But this would not be the first time American-led NATO forces had launched missiles aimed at Qaeda and Taliban targets on the Pakistan side.

A senior Qaeda commander, Abu Laith al-Libi, was reportedly killed by a Predator missile in Mirali, North Waziristan, on Jan. 29. The Pakistan government has yet to officially confirm his death.

An official of the political administration of the tribal areas confirmed eight deaths in the Thursday attack, but did not identify any victims by name. He said four Arabs, two Turkmens and two Pakistani militants from Punjab Province had been killed, but others said it was difficult to know precisely who died.

The security official said the bodies were charred beyond recognition. They were buried at a graveyard in Kalosha. He said the destroyed house had been used as a training facility.

A spokesman for Maulvi Nazir, a local militant commander, denied that Arabs or Turkmens were killed in the attack, asserting instead that Afghans had died.

“They were common Afghans and have been living in the area for the last few years,” the spokesman said.

U.S. Struggles to Find Envoy, Hindering Effort to Stabilize Afghanistan

By Michael Abramowitz and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A13

The White House has been pushing since early fall to install a powerful new foreign envoy to oversee international reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Last month it looked as though it had finally found its man: After a meeting in Kuwait, Hamid Karzai indicated he was ready to accept prominent British politician Paddy Ashdown for the assignment.

Less than two weeks later, the appointment collapsed after Karzai changed his mind -- the latest sign of tensions between the courtly Afghan president and the Western powers that have been seeking for nearly seven years to stabilize a country that was the breeding ground for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

U.S. officials have done little to disguise their displeasure with the recent turn of events, which has not only left them without a candidate but also imperiled their strategy of giving a single international envoy a robust mandate for Afghanistan. Over weeks of negotiations, the job has been whittled down from a statesman of stature who would influence decisions by NATO, the European Union and the United Nations to a more traditional role as envoy of the U.N. secretary general, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

"There's no ready, obvious replacement," said one senior U.S. official who is not authorized to speak publicly. "We thought [Ashdown] was best qualified, given his credentials and his experience and his ability to command attention, especially in European capitals."

Talking with reporters last week, Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South Asia, disputed the suggestion that the rejection of Ashdown meant that Karzai was obstructing progress.

"That is our partner and that's who we will work with, because that's who the people of Afghanistan chose," he said. "I think it's very clear that from our discussions with the Afghan government, even since Paddy Ashdown felt he had to withdraw his candidacy, that they, too, want to see better coordination, want to see strong international coordination."

U.S. and U.N. officials said they are still looking for an envoy. Among those said to be under consideration are Kai Eide, a senior Norwegian official with experience in the U.N. bureaucracy; Jan Kubis, the Slovak foreign minister; Hikmat Chetin, a senior Turkish diplomat with experience in Afghanistan; and Joschka Fischer, a former German foreign minister. President Bush discussed the search recently with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who will make the final appointment.

Still, Bush administration officials acknowledge that the episode has highlighted the inability of the United States and its allies to organize civilian reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, the focus of recent criticism by diplomats and a flurry of new reports.

Since the Taliban fell in 2001, the international community has provided about $15 billion to rebuild Afghanistan. But U.S. officials and outside experts say that there has been little coordination among the dozens of countries and international organizations helping to build roads and bridges, create a new police and justice system, and deal with narcotics production.

"There is a very clear need for a joining of the international military strategy with the international civilian strategy," said Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, who helped recruit Ashdown. "Countries that are extending assistance to Afghanistan are not extending assistance in a central, organized way right now."

The troubles with reconstruction are a companion to the more publicized military difficulties NATO is having in Afghanistan, where U.S. officials -- most prominently Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates -- have complained that some allies are unwilling to participate in the most violent fight against the Taliban. But many officials regard the civilian effort as perhaps even more critical to controlling Afghanistan's insurgency.

Asked recently to assess U.S. progress, a top U.S. official handling Afghanistan said: "Tactically on the security front, I would say we are winning."

"The challenge with Afghanistan is that's not good enough," added the official, who insisted on anonymity to speak more freely. "And it is on some of the other dimensions of the mission where we are not doing as well as we need to be. And mostly those have to do with the non-military . . . having to do with governance, economic development, reconstruction."

Norway first suggested a super-envoy in the fall of 2006, but it was not until last summer, as reports mounted of problems in Afghanistan, that U.S. officials began warming to the idea.

U.S. officials focused on Ashdown, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats in Britain who impressed them with his service as the U.N. high representative in Bosnia from 2002 to 2006. The British quickly agreed.

But early on, U.N., U.S. and Afghan officials argued about how powerful the job should be. Sources said Zalmay Khalilzad, who is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and is close to Karzai, detected reservations among Afghan senior officials -- but those reservations appeared to dissipate after the Afghan president met with Ashdown in Kuwait in January.

Ban then met with Ashdown in Madrid to seal the deal. But when Karzai returned to Kabul, he received criticism from members of his cabinet, while the media portrayed Ashdown as a potential pro-consul, akin to past British colonial rulers. Karzai, meanwhile, believed that Ashdown had planted newspaper stories in Britain suggesting that Karzai was a weak Pashtun leader atop a Tajik government, a remark Karzai viewed as "fanning ethnic tensions," said a senior U.S. official.

Said T. Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, suggested that there were worries about the powerful role Ashdown had played in the Balkans. "Based on his past experience in the Balkans, the Afghan cabinet and other officials raised some concerns," Jawad said. "President Karzai decided his role wouldn't be constructive."

By the time Karzai met with Ban and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, the Afghan leader had soured on the choice. Ban had gone into the meeting expecting to announce Ashdown's appointment; instead, Ashdown soon issued a statement withdrawing from consideration.

It was not the first time in recent months that Karzai has clashed with his Western patrons. He has battled the United States over opium-reduction strategies, and in December he expelled two senior European officials for holding unauthorized talks with the Taliban.

Some analysts saw the Bush administration's inability to secure Ashdown's appointment as a serious setback. "The rejection of Ashdown by Karzai undermines the ability of the Afghan government to be moving more forcefully in the right direction," said Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group, which has been critical of the reconstruction efforts. "When Karzai said he didn't want it, the U.S. didn't stick to its guns."

Senior administration officials say that there is no major rift and that Karzai, who has a monthly videoconference with Bush, is entitled to veto power over a position that could vastly influence his country.

Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert with the Rand Corp., said Karzai, who is up for reelection next year, is reluctant to be identified too closely with the United States. "I don't think over the long term it's a significant blow," he said. But the failure to install Ashdown, he added, shows Karzai's sensitivity "to not be seen as being pushed around by the international community."

NATO Confronts Surprisingly Fierce Taliban

Militia Undermines Rebuilding Efforts in Southern Province of Uruzgan

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A01

TARIN KOT, Afghanistan -- Lt. Col. Wilfred Rietdijk, a 6-foot-7 blond Dutchman, took command of his military's reconstruction team in the southern Afghan district of Deh Rawood in September. Tranquil and welcoming, it seemed like the perfect place for the Netherlands' mission to help rebuild this country.

Intelligence reports indicated that the district was free of the Taliban, allowing the soldiers greater freedom of movement than elsewhere in Uruzgan province.

"We could go out on foot," Rietdijk said.

Reconstruction teams, escorted by a platoon of soldiers, fanned across the fertile countryside, building bridges over streams and canals, repairing irrigation systems, and distributing books and pens to local schools.

But the day after Rietdijk arrived in Afghanistan, his field officers reported hundreds of villagers suddenly fleeing parts of Deh Rawood. "Within a few weeks, everybody was gone," Rietdijk said. "We didn't understand why."

Now the Dutch say they realize what happened. Even as the soldiers believed they had won the support of the local population, the Taliban had secretly returned to reclaim Deh Rawood, home district of the group's revered leader, Mohammad Omar. It took only a few months for the Taliban to undermine nearly six years of intelligence work by U.S. forces and almost two years of goodwill efforts by Dutch soldiers.

In the year and a half since NATO took over southern Afghanistan from U.S. forces, its mission has changed dramatically. Dispatched to the region to maintain newly restored order and help local Afghans reconstruct their shattered communities, Dutch and other troops from the alliance now find themselves on the front lines of a renewed fight with a more cunning and aggressive Taliban.

More foreign soldiers and Afghan civilians died in Taliban-related fighting last year than in any year since U.S. and coalition forces ousted the extremist Islamic militia, which ruled most of the country, in 2001. Military officials here expect the coming year to be just as deadly, if not more so, as the Taliban becomes more adept militarily and more formidable in its deployment of suicide bombers and roadside explosives.

The Taliban's growing strength, which surprised Dutch forces here, helps explain why NATO members are reluctant to send more troops to an increasingly dangerous battlefield and have instead adopted a strategy based less on military force.

In his recent criticism of NATO's refusal to deploy more forces, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates accused the alliance of being ill-prepared for counterinsurgency operations. NATO countries, however, while not opposed to the war effort in Afghanistan, have always viewed the key to success as one that relied on giving Afghans new schools, health clinics and other elements of a sturdy civil society.

Taliban fighters began arriving in the heart of Deh Rawood -- a triangle-shaped district about seven miles long and seven miles wide -- late last summer. They came one by one, or in groups of twos and threes. They rented mud houses, befriended neighbors with gifts of cellphones and motorcycles and appealed to villagers on the grounds that the Taliban was fighting for the cause of Islam.

By autumn, for reasons even some villagers didn't understand, the Taliban turned on them, driving them out of their houses and ripping up the new NATO-built bridges. The Dutch have since pushed Taliban fighters out of the district, but have decided not to push them beyond the surrounding territory.

They have learned difficult lessons already.

"Nobody saw it coming," Rietdijk said, referring to the Taliban offensive. "They were there before anybody knew it. I keep asking myself: 'Did we miss something? Was there someone to blame it on?' "

'Intelligence Was Wrong'

In late November, a new commander arrived in Uruzgan to take charge of Dutch combat forces in the region. Lt. Col. Tjerk Hogeveen had a grip of steel and a passion for paragliding off mountaintops.

Just as his reconstruction counterpart, Rietdijk, had been briefed on his arrival, Hogeveen had been told to expect little or no trouble from the Taliban in his sector of Deh Rawood.

Although Taliban fighters had routed villagers from their homes, they had made no major effort to attack coalition forces. Rietdijk's troops halted most of their reconstruction work and concentrated on providing food, blankets and other humanitarian aid to the hundreds of refugees who had descended on impoverished friends and relatives south of the Tarin River.

"The Americans told us there were no Taliban on the east bank," Hogeveen said. "Everyone told us it was safe -- no Taliban."

But the Taliban had good reason to want to reclaim Deh Rawood. As the district surrounding Omar's home town of the same name, it held symbolic importance to the Islamic militia. It held strategic importance, too: The district sits at the confluence of the Helmand and Tarin rivers on the most important drug- and arms-trafficking route in rugged Uruzgan province, connecting it to Iran to the west and Pakistan to the south.

As Hogeveen was settling into his armor-plated metal bunker at the main Dutch base, Camp Holland, near the provincial capital of Tarin Kot, Taliban fighters were evicting local police from three of Deh Rawood's most strategic checkpoints. They bribed officers to abandon one post, kidnapped the son of a policeman at a second checkpoint and attacked the third, sending officers fleeing. They turned a local school into their headquarters and stocked it with weapons and ammunition, Hogeveen said he learned later.

Then they lay in wait and ambushed the first unsuspecting Dutch convoy they spotted.

"They were better prepared than anyone led us to believe," Hogeveen said.

Hogeveen's troops and the Taliban skirmished almost daily.

In mid-December, fighters yanked a 60-year-old woman and her 7-year-old grandson off a bus in Deh Rawood. They interrogated the pair and, after finding a U.S. dollar bill in the boy's pocket, accused the two of spying and executed them in front of the other passengers and bystanders, according to accounts by Afghan human rights groups, news services and Dutch officers.

Meanwhile, on the advice of U.S. and Dutch intelligence officers, Hogeveen prepared a battle plan for routing the Taliban: "The intelligence guys said, 'If you go in with large forces, they will leave,' " Hogeveen recalled in an interview.

He sent larger contingents of heavily armored troops into the heart of the Taliban stronghold in northern Deh Rawood, a jumble of mud houses connected by mazes of narrow lanes.

"Everyone thought the Taliban would not fight," Hogeveen said. "The intelligence was wrong."

Taking up defensive positions in the warrens of mud compounds, the Taliban fighters didn't need large numbers to put up a strong fight against Hogeveen's men. In the darkness and chaos of the unexpectedly strong Taliban defenses, Hogeveen lost two soldiers. Two Afghan army troops also died in the fighting. The Dutch military is now investigating whether all four may have been killed by "friendly fire."

Today, after 2 1/2 months of often intense combat, Dutch troops have reclaimed some of the villages of Deh Rawood and are helping villagers repair the damage caused by weeks of fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban. They have also started many new projects and are working more closely with tribal leaders, the Afghan army and local police to provide better security for the residents.

Even so, the Dutch say, the Taliban forces have merely relocated to the fringes of the district, and thousands of villagers remain too frightened to return to their homes.

The resilience of the Taliban, a shortage of NATO forces and the Dutch philosophy that the Afghan people need to take charge of their own lives have prompted the Dutch to adopt a precarious strategy for Uruzgan: evict the Taliban from small enclaves while ceding the surrounding territory to them in hopes that neighboring communities will oust them on their own.

"We still don't have the full view of what happened below the radar in Deh Rawood," said Col. Richard van Harskamp, commander of all Dutch forces in Uruzgan.

"There are no quick wins in Afghanistan," he added. "People who want to have quick wins better know how to deal with disappointments."

'He Is Afraid'

The Dutch have confronted obstacles off the battlefield as well.

On one of the coldest days yet in an usually brutal winter, Rietdijk, the Dutch reconstruction chief, met with Uruzgan Gov. Assadullah Hamdam in his ramshackle compound in Tarin Kot. The men responsible for the security of Uruzgan sat around a wood stove: the police chief, the general of the local contingent of the Afghan army, the chief of the highway patrol.

Rietdijk asked the governor to help him find an influential tribal leader to help coordinate new construction projects in his district.

"I have met with him twice," Hamdam said quietly. "He will not help you. He is afraid."

Rietdijk persisted, taking a sip of steaming green tea the governor had poured into a glass mug.

"He is not the man," Hamdam said more firmly. "He is afraid."

The subject turned to the three new police substations and four new police checkpoints planned for Deh Rawood. The police chief urged the Dutch to provide supplies and better accommodations while the new facilities are being built.

"We don't have tents, we don't have food, we don't have transportation," complained the chief, Juma Gul, a hefty man with the jowls of a bulldog.

"We need to get out there with police and make sure the region is safe," Rietdijk said. "We can't wait for a checkpoint. We have to go out. I don't think we can wait."

"A checkpoint is important," pressed the police chief.

"I can't give birth to a checkpoint tomorrow," Rietdijk said, a bit testily.

Gul later turned to another problem with his officers. "Some of my men don't want to go back to Deh Rawood," the chief warned. "They're possibly going to leave without permission."

Half a dozen times during the meeting, Gul pleaded with Dutch representatives for more money to run his department.

"I need money for food for my men, this is not for my own pocket," the police chief said. "Do you know the price of bread in Tarin Kot these days?"

"I know all the problems," an exasperated Rietdijk said. "I've heard them 30 times."

Rietdijk said that despite the constant nagging, he respects Gul.

But after about five months on the job, Gul is ready to quit, according to Uruzgan's governor.

"He wanted to quit. The job is too much," said Hamdam, whose wife and children live in London. "I told him, 'It's going to take patience.' "

Gul complained that he was sending recruits with only two weeks' training to the front lines to fight the Taliban. Their salaries were weeks late because the money had to be hand-carried from Kabul to Tarin Kot and winter snows had canceled many flights. There is no functioning bank in all of Uruzgan. The Interior Ministry in Kabul will not even tell the governor or the police chief how much money they have to run their department, Hamdam said.

Hamdam paused, then sighed. On this day, the heater was not working in his ice-cold office. He has heard the Dutch say dozens of times that it is up to him and his security team to provide security for his people.

He shook his head. He knows the Dutch are committed to remain in Afghanistan only another 2 1/2 years. He now has just over 1,300 police officers; his police chief says they need 3,000.

"There's not enough force," Hamdam said. "The police are not strong enough, and we can't depend on the Afghan army. The police can't go alone without the coalition forces.

"If they were not here," he said, "who knows what would happen."

Canada urged to double troop strength

In absence of NATO reinforcements, Canadian commander seeks brigade of 5,000 to keep Taliban at bay in Kandahar province

GRAEME SMITH

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

KHAKREZ, Afghanistan — Canada needs as many as 5,000 professional NATO soldiers — double its current force — to hold Kandahar's key districts, a senior commander says, suggesting that previous demands for extra troops are not enough for basic security in the province.

"If countries like Germany and France were not so afraid of committing forces, this problem would be solved readily," Major Richard Moffet, deputy commander of Canada's battle group, said in an interview.

He listed five Kandahar districts and suggested Canada needs to double its current troop strength of 2,500 to keep the Taliban away from those important areas.

"Easily you could have a brigade of 5,000 Canadians here just for Zhari, Panjwai, Arghandab, Shah Wali Kot and Khakrez, because to be honest, we haven't been to a few places in Panjwai yet," he said.

Military officials have spoken more bluntly about their lack of numbers recently, in private conversations and even publicly at meetings with Afghans.

Tribal elders from the mountainous district of Khakrez complained last week that NATO has failed to prevent the Taliban from running amok in the northern part of the province.

Nodding his head gravely, a Canadian officer told the elders they're right.

"We don't have enough troops," Colonel Christian Juneau said.

The frustration among elders in Khakrez district is only the latest symptom of what appears to be a sharp deterioration in security in the outlying parts of the province in the past year, as the overstretched Canadian forces have drawn back into core districts.

The military says Taliban ambushes have decreased in four of 17 districts in Kandahar city, the key zone where the Canadians focused their operations during the latest rotation of troops. But the military has so far refused to give statistics for all types of insurgent activity, including ambushes, and has kept the numbers for the entire province a secret.

A hint of the military's view of the province came during an interview this week with Lieutenant-Colonel Gilles Linteau, commander of the Joint Provincial Co-ordination Centre, a liaison hub between security forces.

"The number of incidents has doubled, if not more, in Kandahar," he told The Globe and Mail, suggesting that this estimate applies to the period since September of 2006.

Asked for clarification of the figures, however, Lt.-Col. Linteau later sent an e-mail saying the military cannot give details.

An average increase in attacks across the province would suggest a markedly worse situation in the villages and suburbs, because most analysts agree that downtown Kandahar enjoyed some relief in 2007 from the onslaught of insurgent strikes that terrorized urban areas in the previous year.

Anecdotes from beyond the city limits seem to confirm the trend; soon after Canadian and Afghan officials climbed out of their helicopters and crunched across the snow to the chilly cement building that serves as the Khakrez administrative centre, they heard a litany of bad news.

"As soon as the snow leaves the ground, the Taliban will come and force people to join them," said Shah Wali, a member of the Achakzai tribe, which usually supports the government. "What should we do?"

The 45-year-old with deep creases in his face said he took a risk by travelling from his village to meet the Canadian delegation, and he will be forced to invent a story to conceal the reason for his visit to the district centre. The Taliban might kill him for merely speaking with representatives of the Kabul government, he said.

The district has also grown dangerous for Malim Akbar Khan Khakrezwal, a former intelligence chief for Kandahar and now a leading tribal elder. His connections with the government have marked him, he said, and it's been impossible to visit the district for the past eight months.

"Six years ago we had only a few Taliban supporters in Khakrez," the retired major-general said. "Now we have a great number of them."

Pointing to white-capped mountains northeast of the town, he declared that the Taliban have camps in that direction where they're preparing insurgents for the next fighting season.

In the same direction, amid the same mountains about 70 kilometres north of Kandahar city, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry established an outpost known as the Gumbad Platoon House in the spring of 2006. They spent several months patrolling the craggy northern reaches of the province, but Canada's regular forces abandoned the place later that summer as all available troops returned to the heart of the province for a battle with Taliban on the outskirts of Kandahar city.

No regular troops have returned to set up outposts in the area. In the meantime, the Taliban are believed to have gained stronger influence in the district, and the local inhabitants seem to have grown deeply skeptical about the government. When the provincial police chief stood in front of the assembled elders and declared they should support the "free and independent Muslim government," there was an uneasy rustling in the crowd, as people coughed and spit, and several men sitting near the front murmured, "No, no, no."

After the police chief's speech, Col. Juneau took the microphone and tried to explain why the district hasn't seen many troops for the past two years.

"The province of Kandahar is very big," the deputy commander of all Canadian forces in Afghanistan said. "We cannot provide security over the whole province at once."

But expanding the NATO presence into districts such as Khakrez will require a dramatic increase in the number of troops, military officials say.

Even more than 5,000 NATO troops may be required for the province, Major Moffet said, because beyond the troops needed for the core districts, NATO would also require forces to intercept the Taliban's supply routes in outlying areas.

Emphasizing that the assessment was only his personal opinion, Major Moffet said he would prefer to see the extra soldiers come from a single major country, rather than piecemeal from several contributors.

Continued increases in Afghan troops levels are also important, he added.

The problem with contributions from smaller NATO countries is that each group of soldiers would come with its own logistics personnel, the deputy commander said.

"If any country says, 'Okay we're going to provide 300 soldiers,' well, okay, how many fighters? A hundred and fifty? No, no, no. Send a battle group."

Germany has thousands of troops in northern Afghanistan but so far refuses to send them into the southern war. France is reportedly considering a major contribution of troops to Kandahar, however, and in recent weeks French soldiers have been increasingly conspicuous at Kandahar Air Field.

Canada has demanded an extra 1,000 NATO soldiers in Kandahar as the price for the extension of the Canadian operation, but the need for additional forces described by Major Moffet and other military officials goes far beyond that request.

More soldiers would mean fewer NATO casualties and less reliance on air strikes, Major Moffet said; air power can help the foreign troops when they're outnumbered by insurgents, but aerial bombings are frequently blamed for civilian casualties.

Having led some of Canada's biggest operations against the Taliban over the past six months, Major Moffet said he's convinced that his call for more troops does not resemble the ill-fated demands for troop increases of the Vietnam War.

"Honestly, I don't have the feeling that we're losing," he said. "All we need is a bit more cohesion at the NATO level and this problem would be solved."

The Department of National Defence was unavailable for comment.

Two Winnable Wars

By Anthony H. Cordesman
Sunday, February 24, 2008; B07

No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that can still be won. They are also clearly wars that can still be lost, but visits to the battlefield show that these conflicts are very different from the wars being described in American political campaigns and most of the debates outside the United States.

These conflicts involve far more than combat between the United States and its allies against insurgent movements such as al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban. Meaningful victory can come only if tactical military victories end in ideological and political victories and in successful governance and development. Dollars are as important as bullets, and so are political accommodation, effective government services and clear demonstrations that there is a future that does not need to be built on Islamist extremism.

The military situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are very different. The United States and its allies are winning virtually every tactical clash in both countries. In Iraq, however, al-Qaeda is clearly losing in every province. It is being reduced to a losing struggle for control of Nineveh and Mosul. There is a very real prospect of coalition forces bringing a reasonable degree of security if decisions such as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's announcement Friday to extend his militia's cease-fire six months continue over a period of years.

Military victory is far more marginal in Afghanistan. NATO and international troops can still win tactically, but the Taliban is sharply expanding its support areas as well as its political and economic influence and control in Afghanistan. It has scored major gains in Pakistan, which is clearly the more important prize for al-Qaeda and has more Pashtuns than Afghanistan. U.S. commanders privately warn that victory cannot be attained without more troops, without all members of NATO and the International Security Assistance Force fully committing their troops to combat, and without a much stronger and consistent effort by the Pakistani army in both the federally administered tribal areas in western Pakistan and the Baluchi area in the south.

What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war. Any American political debate that ignores or denies the fact that these are long wars is dishonest and will ensure defeat. There are good reasons that the briefing slides in U.S. military and aid presentations for both battlefields don't end in 2008 or with some aid compact that expires in 2009. They go well beyond 2012 and often to 2020.

If the next president, Congress and the American people cannot face this reality, we will lose. Years of false promises about the speed with which we can create effective army, police and criminal justice capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot disguise the fact that mature, effective local forces and structures will not be available until 2012 and probably well beyond. This does not mean that U.S. and allied force levels cannot be cut over time, but a serious military and advisory presence will probably be needed for at least that long, and rushed reductions in forces or providing inadequate forces will lead to a collapse at the military level.

The most serious problems, however, are governance and development. Both countries face critical internal divisions and levels of poverty and unemployment that will require patience. These troubles can be worked out, but only over a period of years. Both central governments are corrupt and ineffective, and they cannot bring development and services without years of additional aid at far higher levels than the Bush administration now budgets. Blaming weak governments or trying to rush them into effective action by threatening to leave will undercut them long before they are strong enough to act.

Any American political leader who cannot face these realities, now or in the future, will ensure defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Any Congress that insists on instant victory or success will do the same. We either need long-term commitments, effective long-term resources and strategic patience -- or we do not need enemies. We will defeat ourselves.

The writer holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He recently returned from the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq.