[Peace-discuss] Making his bones

[C. G. Estabrook]

	US-led forces kill 15 militants,
	Afghans say victims were civilians
	January 24, 2009

KABUL (AFP) — US-led coalition forces said Saturday they had killed 15 militants 
in an operation in eastern Afghanistan, as a NATO soldier and two civilians were 
killed in separate bomb blasts across the country.

The forces said they launched an operation in Mehtarlam, the capital of Laghman 
province, on Friday, targetting a Taliban commander believed to conduct 
"terrorist activities" in the capital Kabul, and Laghman and Kapisa provinces.
"Coalition forces killed 15 armed militants and detained one suspected militant 
during an operation to disrupt the Taliban's terrorist network in Laghman 
province," a coalition press statement said.

But local legislators put the number of dead at more than 20 and said they 
included women and children.

The head of the provincial council, Emadudin Abdulrahimzay, said 21 people were 
killed and their bodies found at different locations.

"They were all civilians, including two women and two children," he said.
Sayed Ahmad Safi, the spokesman for the provincial governor, confirmed the 
incident but gave another toll.

"Our initial findings show that more than ten people were killed including 
civilians. We don't know at this stage how many of them were civilians," he said.

The US forces said they targeted a Taliban commander known to traffic foreign 
fighters and weapons into the region to attack coalition forces, including a 
deadly assault on French troops in August 2008.

"As coalition forces approached the wanted militant's compound, several groups 
of armed militants exited their homes and began manoeuvring on the force," said 
the statement.

"Armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, the militants engaged 
coalition forces from multiple directions," it said, adding one of the killed 
militants was a woman.

"She was killed while manoeuvring on coalition forces and was carrying a 
rocket-propelled grenade," the statement said.

In a statement released Saturday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force 
(ISAF) said one of its troops died in a bomb attack in the south of the country, 
but gave no further details.

"An ISAF serviceman was killed today in an... IED (improvised explosive device) 
attack in southern Afghanistan," said the statement released Saturday.
In another deadly attack Saturday, two civilians were killed and eight wounded 
when a suicide bomb ripped through a busy market in eastern Afghanistan, local 
officials and police said.

"The attacker was on foot, walking in the local bazaar when he exploded in the 
middle of the crowd," Sam Kanai district Governor Sadat told AFP.
Paktia province police chief Ghulam Dastaijeer said that the case was under 
investigation.

"We don't know what the target was," he said, adding that the bombing took place 
at around 4:00 pm (1130 GMT) and that no group had come forward to claim 
responsibility for the attack.

In the south, Taliban militants attacked a police post Friday night in Kandahar 
province sparking a battle in which three policemen died, local officer Abdul 
Wali said.

A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said the group killed 15 policemen in the 
attack.

Elsewhere on Friday, a roadside bomb blast struck a joint Afghan army and NATO 
forces convoy in western Farah province, killing an Afghan soldier and wounding 
five NATO troops, Farah governor Rohul Amin said.

NATO confirmed the incident.

The Taliban, an extremist Islamic group, ran the government in Kabul from 1996 
to 2001 before being removed in a US-led invasion and are now waging a deadly 
insurgency that has picked up pace in the past three years.

C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> [Obama killed people this week, as he said he would.  With the acts 
> described below he begins to fulfill his campaign promise and make the 
> Bush administration's killings -- in countries with which we're not as 
> war -- look like "baby steps."  I don't know why people don't listen to 
> this guy and believe what he says.  (We got out of the habit with Bush, 
> perhaps.)  Obama seems to trust his rhetorical skills enough to tell the 
> truth -- e.g., he's going to widen the war -- in such a way that people 
> believe something else.  And he, like Clinton, can avoid giving any but 
> the most puerile explanation for the killings -- the "war on terror"! 
> --CGE]
> 
>     Two US Airstrikes Offer a Concrete Sign of Obama's Pakistan Policy
>     Saturday 24 January 2009
>     by: R. Jeffrey Smith, Candace Rondeaux and Joby Warrick,
>     Washington Post Staff Writers
> 
> Leaders from Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area along the border 
> with Afghanistan met with Pakistani Army officials last February. On 
> Friday, the US launched air attacks in Pakistan within the Waziristan 
> area in a concrete demonstration of the Obama administration's Pakistan 
> policy. (Photo: John Moore / Getty Images)
> 
>     Two remote U.S. missile strikes that killed at least 20 people at 
> suspected terrorist hideouts in northwestern Pakistan yesterday offered 
> the first tangible sign of President Obama's commitment to sustained 
> military pressure on the terrorist groups there, even though Pakistanis 
> broadly oppose such unilateral U.S. actions.
> 
>     The shaky Pakistani government of Asif Ali Zardari has expressed 
> hopes for warm relations with Obama, but members of Obama's new national 
> security team have already telegraphed their intention to make firmer 
> demands of Islamabad than the Bush administration, and to back up those 
> demands with a threatened curtailment of the plentiful military aid that 
> has been at the heart of U.S.-Pakistani ties for the past three decades.
> 
>     The separate strikes on two compounds, coming three hours apart and 
> involving five missiles fired from Afghanistan-based Predator drone 
> aircraft, were the first high-profile hostile military actions taken 
> under Obama's four-day-old presidency. A Pakistani security official 
> said in Islamabad that the strikes appeared to have killed at least 10 
> insurgents, including five foreign nationals and possibly even "a 
> high-value target" such as a senior al-Qaeda or Taliban official.
> 
>     It remained unclear yesterday whether Obama personally authorized 
> the strike or was involved in its final planning, but military officials 
> have previously said the White House is routinely briefed about such 
> attacks in advance.
> 
>     At his daily White House briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs 
> declined to answer questions about the strikes, saying, "I'm not going 
> to get into these matters." Obama convened his first National Security 
> Council meeting on Pakistan and Afghanistan yesterday afternoon, after 
> the strike.
> 
>     The Pakistani government, which has loudly protested some earlier 
> strikes, was quiet yesterday. In September, U.S. and Pakistani officials 
> reached a tacit agreement to allow such attacks to continue without 
> Pakistani involvement, according to senior officials in both countries.
> 
>     But some Pakistanis have said they expect a possibly bumpy 
> diplomatic stretch ahead.
> 
>     "Pakistan hopes that Obama will be more patient while dealing with 
> Pakistan," Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, said in 
> an interview Wednesday with Pakistan's Geo television network. "We will 
> review all options if Obama does not adopt a positive policy towards 
> us." He urged Obama to "hear us out."
> 
>     At least 132 people have been killed in 38 suspected U.S. missile 
> strikes inside Pakistan since August, all conducted by the CIA, in a 
> ramped-up effort by the outgoing Bush administration.
> 
>     Obama's August 2007 statement -- that he favored taking direct 
> action in Pakistan against potential threats to U.S. security if 
> Pakistani security forces do not act -- made him less popular in 
> Pakistan than in any other Muslim nation polled before the election.
> 
>     Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated during her 
> Senate confirmation hearing that the new administration will not relent 
> in holding Pakistan to account for any shortfalls in the continuing 
> battle against extremists.
> 
>     Linking Pakistan with neighboring Afghanistan "on the front line of 
> our global counterterrorism efforts," Clinton told the Senate Foreign 
> Relations Committee that "we will use all the elements of our powers -- 
> diplomacy, development and defense -- to work with those . . . who want 
> to root out al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other violent extremists." She 
> also said those in Pakistan who do not join the effort will pay a price, 
> adding a distinctly new element to the long-standing U.S. effort to lure 
> Pakistan closer to the West.
> 
>     In blunt terms in her written answers to the committee's questions, 
> Clinton pledged that Washington will "condition" future U.S. military 
> aid on Pakistan's efforts to close down terrorist training camps and 
> evict foreign fighters. She also demanded that Pakistan "prevent" the 
> continued use of its historically lawless northern territories as a 
> sanctuary by either the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And she promised that 
> Washington would provide all the support Pakistan needs if it 
> specifically goes after targets such as Osama bin Laden, who is believed 
> to be using Pakistani mountains as a hideout.
> 
>     At the same time, Clinton pledged to triple nonmilitary aid to 
> Pakistan, long dwarfed by the more than $6 billion funneled to Pakistani 
> military forces under President George W. Bush through the Pentagon's 
> counterterrorism office in Islamabad.
> 
>     "The conditioning of military aid is substantially different," as is 
> the planned boost of economic aid, said Daniel Markey, a Council on 
> Foreign Relations senior fellow who handled South Asian matters on the 
> State Department's policy planning staff from 2003 to 2007.
> 
>     Bush's focus on military aid to a Pakistani government that was led 
> by an army general until August eventually drew complaints in both 
> countries that much of the funding was spent without accountability or, 
> instead of being used to root out terrorists, was diverted to forces 
> intended for a potential conflict with India.
> 
>     A study in 2007 by the Center for Strategic and International 
> Studies reported that economic, humanitarian and development assistance 
> under Bush amounted to no more than a quarter of all aid, less than in 
> most countries.
> 
>     The criticism helped provoke a group of senators who now have 
> powerful new roles -- Joseph R. Biden Jr., Clinton and Obama -- to 
> co-sponsor legislation last July requiring that more aid be targeted at 
> political pluralism, the rule of law, human and civil rights, and 
> schools, public health and agriculture.
> 
>     It also would have allowed U.S. weapons sales and other military aid 
> only if the secretary of state certified that Pakistani military forces 
> were making "concerted efforts" to undermine al-Qaeda and the Taliban. 
> In her confirmation statement, Clinton reiterated her support for such a 
> legislative restructuring of the aid program, while reaffirming that she 
> opposed any "blank check."
> 
>     Some Pakistanis have been encouraged by indications that Obama 
> intends to increase aid to the impoverished country, said Shuja Nawaz, a 
> Pakistani who directs the South Asia Center of the Washington-based 
> Atlantic Council of the United States. Nawaz said Pakistanis may be 
> willing to overlook an occasional missile lobbed at foreign terrorists 
> if Obama makes a sincere attempt to improve conditions in Pakistan.
> 
>     "He can't just focus on military achievements; he has to win over 
> the people," Nawaz said. "Relying on military strikes will not do the 
> trick." Attaching conditions to the aid is wise, Nawaz said, because 
> "people are more cognizant of the need for accountability -- for 'tough 
> love.' "
> 
>     --------
> 
>     Rondeaux reported from Islamabad. Special correspondent Haq Nawaz 
> Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/23/AR2009012304189.html?tid=informbox 
> 
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