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Kabul downplays call on US to leave Afghan villages
AFP via Yahoo! News
Kabul appeared to step back Saturday from a call on US troops to leave villages and withdraw to bases, saying the demand was "nothing new" and part of the Afghan leader's long-held position.
Presidency spokesman Aimal Faizi made the remarks to AFP after a telephone call between US President Barack Obama and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai in which they agreed to stick to a transfer to Afghan control by the end of 2014.
On Thursday, Kabul announced that Karzai had told US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that international forces should leave villages and that NATO should handover to Afghan forces in 2013.
US officials said Karzai's statement was "consistent" with an agreed timetable, but it had provoked widespread concern that NATO's combat operations would be in jeopardy, two years before the scheduled withdrawal of most troops.
Faizi said a foreign troop presence creates problems in Afghan villages, "proved" by the recent killings of 16 civilians -- most of them women and children -- in an attack blamed on a lone American soldier.
"This is not a new demand. We have been asking foreign troops not to enter Afghan homes and villages for years," Karzai's spokesman told AFP.
"This is the demand of Afghans as well, they have suffered a lot. It is now time for our security forces to step in and provide security for our villagers, our people," he added.
Afghan and US defence officials will hold meetings to discuss "the issues of withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghan villages and the completion of the transition process by 2013", Faizi said.
On Friday, the White House said Obama and Karzai reaffirmed their commitment to a timetabled process of transition in which Afghan forces would "have full responsibility for security across the country by the end of 2014".
The Afghan palace said they "also agreed to further discuss concerns voiced by President Karzai about the presence of foreign troops in Afghan villages".
Afghanistan Mission: Impossible?
By Mark Thompson time.com March 16, 2012
No, not the challenging military mission that 90,000 U.S. troops are now carrying out: hunting down and killing Taliban insurgents while training Afghan security forces to take over by 2015.
No, the more vital mission right now is the political one: next week, Marine General John Allen comes to Washington for the first time since he assumed command of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan last summer. He’s got a single goal: convincing the Congress – and the American people – that they shouldn’t accelerate the U.S. troop pullout.
The 91,000 troops now there are supposed to shrink to 68,000 by this fall. Nearly all are supposed to be out by the end of 2014. But the pace of that withdrawal — a gentle slope or precipitous cliff — hasn’t been decided.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ended a two-day visit to Afghanistan by declaring that there’s a “very good chance of succeeding” despite the recent massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an apparently rogue U.S. soldier and assorted other recent distractions.
His optimism came as the Taliban halted preliminary peace whispers with the Americans, and as Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he wanted U.S. troops to abandoned their small village outposts and move back to larger forward operating bases.
Allen shares Panetta’s view. “The campaign remains on track — nothing has changed with respect to the campaign,” Allen told CNN earlier this week. “I think that the operational environment today supports the campaign as we have outlined it.”
But there are growing doubts about the wisdom of the campaign from both sides of the aisle. Allen’s two appearances – before the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday morning, and then its Senate counterpart Thursday – could end up being high-wire political theater, just like General Dave Petraeus’ 2007 performances on Iraq that salvaged the “surge” of U.S. troops and kept that war more or less on track.
King David, alas, is a tough act to follow.
New Details Show Panetta Was at Risk in Attack
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER March 16, 2012
WASHINGTON - An Afghan interpreter in a speeding truck tried to run down a top American commander and his British deputy, forcing the two and others to scatter as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s plane taxied toward them at a military base in Afghanistan, defense officials said on Friday.
The latest account of what apparently was a suicide attack shows there was a greater security risk to Mr. Panetta than defense officials originally admitted. American military officials had at first played down the episode, which occurred on Wednesday at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, and they did not immediately disclose important details.
It was not until Friday that defense officials said that Mr. Panetta had already landed when the attack occurred, although they did not say how close his plane came to the speeding truck. But one of the officials acknowledged that if the attack had occurred five minutes later, it was “possible” that Mr. Panetta would have been on the tarmac and in the path of the speeding truck along with the commanders, who had been waiting for him as part of a welcoming party.
The officials, who spoke to reporters on Mr. Panetta’s plane en route from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to Washington, asked for anonymity to discuss security matters.
Defense officials said the Afghan interpreter, who apparently set himself on fire, had aimed his truck directly at a group that included Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus of the Marines, the top commander in Helmand, and his British deputy, Brig. Stuart Skeates. A day earlier, military officials described the welcoming party as “a group of Marines,” suggesting they were of lower rank — and omitting that the attacker was heading for one of the most senior American military commanders in Afghanistan.
The attack was the latest in a recent string by Afghans on their American or coalition partners in Afghanistan. Mr. Panetta’s trip occurred only three days after an American soldier was believed to have killed 16 civilians in a village in Kandahar Province in the south, enraging Afghans and driving relations with the American military to a low.
General Gurganus spoke to reporters a little more than an hour after the attack and made no mention of it.
A senior defense official told reporters on Friday that the American military still did not know if the attacker, who died of severe burns early Thursday, had been aware that he was heading toward General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates. The officials said the Afghan, a civilian, worked under contract as an interpreter at Camp Bastion, a British military airfield that adjoins Camp Leatherneck, a vast American Marine base.
The interpreter’s employment suggests that he could have known that the two high-ranking officers were present, or at the very least would have seen that the commotion on the tarmac, which included a sizable waiting motorcade, indicated that someone of importance was arriving.
Defense officials continued to say on Friday that they did not think that the interpreter had been targeting Mr. Panetta, who for security reasons arrived in an unmarked C-17 military transport plane, not his usual Boeing 747 with “United States of America” on the side.
The defense officials said that at least some of Mr. Panetta’s aides on the plane became aware of the episode shortly after landing. The C-17 was quickly diverted to another parking spot at the airport, where General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates then moved to greet Mr. Panetta. By that time, defense officials say, the interpreter had crashed the truck into a ditch and emerged from it in flames. Military personnel found a container of gasoline and a lighter in the truck.
Three other Afghan interpreters at Camp Bastion, including the driver’s brother and father, were detained for questioning. Defense officials could not say on Friday whether they were still being held.
Defense officials said the interpreter had stolen the truck from Camp Leatherneck about 30 minutes before the episode. A British soldier was wounded in the theft.
US backs Afghan peace effort, despite string of setbacks and Taliban snub of future talks
Associated Press Saturday, March 17, 2012
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is seeking to put the best face on an Afghanistan policy called into question by the apparent shelving of talks with insurgents and announcement from the U.S.-backed government in Kabul that it will not support the fielding of U.S. forces deep into rural villages, a key goal of the current military strategy.
The announcements from Afghanistan on Thursday struck at both elements of the twin-track U.S. exit strategy, which calls for a gradual transfer of security authority to Afghan forces and U.S. talks with Taliban insurgents as a seed for larger political reconciliation talks with the Afghan government.
U.S. spokesmen said the administration will press on with trying to reconcile Afghanistan’s government and Taliban forces willing to renounce terrorism, despite Thursday’s announcement by the militants that they were suspending contacts with the United States. The last substantive talks between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives was in January, and two initiatives to build trust and move toward real peace talks are in limbo.
The Taliban accused the U.S. of failing to deliver on promises and making new demands in the talks, a charge that White House press secretary Jay Carney denied.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded Thursday that U.S. troops leave rural Afghan areas and stay on bases until they finish the withdrawal of troops by the end of 2014. The war effort has been set back in recent days by the weekend slaughter of nine children among 16 people killed allegedly by an American soldier, and earlier by the inadvertent burning of Qurans by U.S. troops.
The Obama administration has endorsed negotiation with the insurgents as the best hope for reaching a political settlement in Afghanistan, and entered secret direct talks with Taliban representatives last year. The talks have foundered before, and several people familiar with the contacts characterized the latest news as a temporary but expected setback. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomacy.
“There is no likely resolution to the conflict in Afghanistan without a political resolution,” Carney said. “Our conditions for participation in that process by the Taliban have been clear in terms of the reconciliation. Those who would be reconciled need to lay down their arms, renounce al-Qaida (and) promise to abide by the Afghan constitution. And we continue to support that process.”
A senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions said U.S. officials expected some statement from the Taliban backing away from talks, and presume that the timing following Sunday’s killings is an attempt to gain greater leverage over the United States.
Even before the latest troubles, efforts to negotiate an Afghan settlement were stymied by the Taliban’s unwillingness to negotiate directly with Karzai’s government, which the militants see as illegitimate. Karzai has complained that he was cut out of the talks, complicating his sometimes rocky relationship with Washington.
The Taliban have maintained they want to negotiate only with the United States, the largest donor and largest military force in Afghanistan. The Associated Press previously reported that the U.S. side had agreed to greater Afghan government participation in future talks. That shift appears to underlie the Taliban claim of a change in terms, although their statement was not specific.
As to whether the U.S. has delivered on promises in earlier negotiations, the Taliban were apparently referring to a plan the U.S. has backed publicly to open a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar, as the Taliban had requested. That plan, although reluctantly endorsed by Karzai, apparently has been delayed by an internal Taliban debate about a public renunciation of international terrorism. The U.S. has made that renunciation a condition for opening the office.
The Taliban also seek release of five prisoners held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The AP previously has reported that the U.S. agreed in principle to transfer the prisoners to custody in Qatar, and U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged the idea is in play.
Several Republicans in Congress have denounced the transfer plan, and there has been no apparent progress on it.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States has made no decisions to transfer Taliban detainees. She urged continued negotiations with the insurgents.
“We still feel that if there is a process that can be supported, that we ought to do that,” Nuland told reporters. “We remain prepared to continue these discussions,” with a goal of getting the Taliban and the Afghan government to negotiate directly.
In Afghanistan this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met with Karzai and sought to repair the strained U.S.-Afghan relationship. In the aftermath of the killing, Karzai wants NATO to curtail operations in the countryside and accelerate the planned transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan forces.
Although Karzai previously has said he wanted international troops to transition out of rural areas, the apparent call for an immediate exit is new. Karzai also said he wants Afghan forces to take the lead for countrywide security in 2013, which may or may not be in line with a statement Wednesday from President Barack Obama and British Prime Minster David Cameron. They reiterated that the aim of the U.S. and its allies was to get out by the end of 2014, but stated for the first time that international forces would hand over the lead combat role to Afghan forces next year.
A statement released by Karzai’s office said he told Panetta he wants to see “international forces come out of Afghan villages and stay in their bases.”
There was confusion among U.S. military officials and diplomats about just what Karzai was asking, and how far apart he is from current U.S. policy. U.S. officials tried to minimize the differences.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said the issue of leaving villages did come up, and that the U.S. viewed it as a reflection of Karzai’s “strong interest in moving toward a fully independent and sovereign Afghanistan as soon as possible.”
“We share President Karzai’s interest,” Little said. “We believe it needs to be done in a responsible manner.”
The soldier accused of the shootings was part of far-flung “village stability” operations favored by former war commander Gen. David Petraeus and seen as a central element of the counterinsurgency strategy to build trust and skills among local Afghan forces and neighborhood militias. Although the U.S. has walked away from basic pillars of the counterinsurgency strategy, the policy to keep soldiers working and living alongside rural populations has continued.
It was never popular with Karzai, who has said the insurgent problem in his country springs from support across the border in Pakistan, not from unrest in villages. Critics of the U.S. and NATO military plan long have said that a large military footprint, especially in conservative rural districts, encourages violence and bolsters the Taliban argument that they are fighting a foreign occupier.
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Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Donna Cassata and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.
Report Says Bin Laden Was Plotting Obama's Assassination
VOA News March 17, 2012
A major U.S. newspaper reports Osama bin Laden ordered al-Qaida to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama and General David Petraeus, who was then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported Friday documents taken from bin Laden's compound describe the scheme. Bin Laden wrote that killing Obama would ensure Vice President Joe Biden would come to power, someone bin Laden said was "totally unprepared" for the post.
Bin Laden suggested Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri carry out the attack against the U.S. president. Kashmiri was killed in a U.S. drone strike last June.
U.S. officials and analysts say there is no evidence al-Qaida was anywhere near ready to mount the proposed attacks.
U.S. special commandos killed bin Laden in a covert raid on his house in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad last May 2. The assault team also confiscated a wealth of material, including video clips and personal correspondence of the al-Qaida leader. One CIA official called it "the largest trove of information ever captured from a senior terrorist leader," and said the material offered "important insights" into al-Qaida’s operations.
Ignatius said the bin Laden documents will soon be available publicly.
The Washington Post writer says in the documents he reviewed, bin Laden called for his deputies to focus their energy on attacks within the U.S. instead of on U.S. targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. He says bin Laden also wrote about "mistakes" and "miscalculations" his terrorist organization had made, including being responsible for killing fellow Muslims, which he said had tarnished the organization's image in the Muslim world.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
Turkish PM Cancels Germany Trip after Soldiers' Deaths in Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 17 March 2012
The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tyyip Erdoğan has canceled his trip to Germany after a helicopter crash killed 12 Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan on Friday.
A Turkish military helicopter crashed into a house in Kabul on Friday, killing 12 Turkish soldiers on board and four Afghan civilians on the ground, a statement on the Prime Minister's website said late yesterday.
It was the deadliest incident involving Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan, where they have a noncombat role. Previously, only two Turkish soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan since it joined the Nato mission in 2003.
The helicopter was on a mission for US-led Nato forces when it went down at 10:45 am local time in Bagrami district of Kabul, the Turkish military said in a statement.
Nato said there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the crash, AP reported.
Mr Erdoğan was supposed to depart for Germany on Saturday to participate in a youth workshop in Cologne and to attend the Der Steiger award ceremony to accept an award for international leadership, which is granted annually to individuals who are noteworthy for their achievements in such areas as politics, media, sports and environment.
Turkey has around 1,845 troops in Afghanistan, most of them based in Jawizjan and Wardak provinces.
Insight: Few options for Afghan, U.S. leaders after Kandahar massacre
Reuters By Michael Georgy and Missy Ryan 16/03/2012
KABUL/WASHINGTON - President Hamid Karzai exploded in anger when he learned last week that an American soldier had massacred 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children.
When Karzai discovered that an aide had kept the news from him until after he had addressed the nation on television, the anger turned to rage.
"I would have condemned this openly to my people," Karzai shouted at the aide in the Kabul television studio, officials told Reuters.
Turning to another official, Karzai made himself even more clear: After a decade of war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, it was time for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan, he said.
Events may have got out of hand if the aide had indeed told Karzai before the live televised speech on women's rights.
By the time Karzai's office issued a statement about the killing near a U.S. base in the south, the reaction was muted and there was no call for an American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Karzai condemned the rampage as "intentional murders" and demanded an explanation from the United States, but nothing more.
He has slim room for maneuver in a war that has tested both his presidency and that of his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama. Installed by the United States as interim leader after U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, he has to walk a line between growing public anger over the presence of Western troops and Washington's support of his government.
Karzai was later elected president but his very survival hinges on the 90,000 American troops who hold his Taliban enemies at bay, along with the massive influx of Western aid that pays Afghan bureaucrats and which keeps the country's fragile economy afloat.
The Afghan leader is still haunted by the fate of former Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah when the Taliban took power in 1996. After being tortured and castrated, Najibullah, a protege of the former Soviet Union, was strung up on a street lamp close to his palace.
Any return of the Taliban to power would could bring a similar fate to Afghan leaders and anyone else seen as siding with the Americans.
"Tens of thousands of people will be killed here if the Americans pack and get out," said independent parliamentarian Mirwais Yasini, who predicted the Taliban would seize power again in just a matter of weeks if U.S.-led NATO forces headed home now.
HALF A WORLD AWAY
Obama would not face the same dangers that Karzai could if the Taliban emerge victorious, but failure after one of America's longest wars would still be devastating for him in a year in which he faces re-election.
Half a world away on Sunday afternoon, Obama sat in his limo outside his daughter's basketball game in suburban Maryland as he picked up the phone to call Karzai after he was informed of the shootings.
When he first spoke publicly about the killings the next day, Obama vowed the United States would not be chased out of Afghanistan. But he said the shooting had only strengthened his determination to bring U.S. troops home.
"It's time. It's been a decade," he said.
The recent incidents underscore the hazards facing Karzai, who heads a weak, unpopular government under threat by insurgents, and Obama, intensifying what's likely to be a difficult election campaign while he seeks to end a costly war.
But the risks of a precipitous withdrawal are even less palatable for both leaders, leaving them only room to tweak their positions on the margins.
Obama's strategy for exiting Afghanistan, the product of bitter debates among his political and military advisers, appears locked in stone, with only the precise pace of the troop drawdown at issue. For now, most foreign combat troops are to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
While Obama's Republican opponents, such as Mitt Romney, have criticized Obama's withdrawal, saying that a predetermined timeline will only embolden U.S. enemies, the views of some of his rivals may be changing in light of recent events.
"There's not much appetite left in the White House to continue the war," a former U.S. government official said on condition of anonymity.
"The emphasis now is how do we withdraw as quickly as possible, with as little damage to our interests as possible."
Karzai appears to be trying to shape the nature of the remaining NATO presence in a way that will minimize civilian losses.
On Thursday, the Afghan leader called for NATO troops to leave Afghan villages and confine themselves to major bases, issuing what appear to be a surprise challenge to his Western backers just after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ended a visit to Kabul.
Pentagon officials however said they did not believe he was calling for an immediate withdrawal to bases. There was no change in U.S. plans for a gradual transition to Afghan security leadership, they said.
BLUNDERS
The massacre in Kandahar, Karzai's home province, is the latest of a series of Western blunders in Afghanistan that have infuriated ordinary Afghans. The others include a video that showed Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Afghans and the burning of copies of the Koran at a NATO military base.
The Koran burnings in particular struck a chord among Afghans and touched off a spate of bloody protests and attacks on U.S. soldiers that raised questions about the Western plan to put Afghan troops gradually in charge.
Recent events have only heightened the vulnerability of Karzai, who many Afghans see as a Western lackey who has been unable to provide effective governance, combat corruption or ease poverty despite billions of dollars in Western aid.
"This is a very dark moment for Karzai," said parliamentarian Habiba Danish. "People are extremely emotional and he has to find a way to calm emotions. We all do."
Outside Karzai's heavily fortified Kabul palace, Afghans complained Karzai was too weak to deal with what they called American atrocities.
"It's time for him to go. We need someone who can bring justice for Afghanistan," said Abdullah Yosuf, 20, a university student.
The initial response in Washington to the shooting, meanwhile, was one of shock, followed by dismay.
Obama was briefed on Sunday about the massacre by a small group of security officials including Tom Donilon, his national security adviser, and retired Lieutenant General Doug Lute, his "war czar".
His two top military advisers, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were on the West Coast when the news broke.
Both men reached out to Afghan leaders - Panetta calling Karzai and Dempsey calling Afghan army chief of staff General Sher Mohammad Karimi, seeking to personally reassure the officials that the soldier's actions were isolated.
Across Washington, the former official said, "all of us had this feeling like we'd been punched in the stomach".
Privately, many U.S. officials also expressed anger that one rogue soldier - who many people suspect may have been affected by multiple deployments in Iraq - could do so much to erode whatever goodwill they had been able to build with Afghans.
"It's disappointing; it's frustrating," one senior U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity. "This is one guy in a village in Afghanistan, making a decision on a tactical level that has strategic impact."
Obama has signaled loudly that he does not want to reopen the Afghan war strategy as he did when he took office in 2009.
"I don't anticipate ... that we're going to be making any sudden additional changes to the plan that we currently have," he said on Wednesday.
Concerned with his re-election prospects, the economy, and domestic concerns like high gasoline prices, the president in public discussions of Afghanistan has focused on the U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden last year.
It is a feat which the White House hopes will seal Obama's national security credentials no matter the situation in Afghanistan.
While Obama will withdraw all of the extra 33,000 troops he deployed in a "surge" of forces in 2009-10 by later this year, his advisers are in discussions about how quickly they can afford to remove the rest of the troops.
Pressure from Obama's fellow Democrats has intensified in recent weeks for a faster drawdown, while a recent poll showed that more than 60 percent of Americans favor an immediate withdrawal.
"Critics who say we should just leave don't have a real policy," said Bruce Riedel, a former White House and CIA official who chaired Obama's Afghan strategy review in 2009. "Building up the Afghan army and transitioning is still the only game in town."
THE TALIBAN QUESTION
The fixed military strategy only increased the importance of U.S. diplomacy in Afghanistan. After months of covert efforts, U.S. officials have hoped they were close to being able to broker unprecedented political negotiations between the Taliban and Karzai's government.
It's unclear whether that initiative will proceed; the Taliban said on Thursday they were suspending that process, blaming "shaky, erratic and vague" U.S. statements.
Karzai expressed concern to Afghan officials that the Taliban would try to capitalize on the Kandahar massacre to gain more recruits.
He was right.
Taliban fighters wasted no time in entering the village where the massacre took place and urging people to take up arms against the Americans and Karzai's government.
"They handed out weapons to people and told them to be brave and take on U.S. forces. Then they warned the cleric in a government mosque to tell people to rise up," an intelligence official told Reuters.
The message seemed to sink in.
"If the killer is not prosecuted in Kandahar we will go to the mountains and fight against the government," said Kandahar resident Khodai Nazar, 25.
Karzai, for his part, sent a delegation to the village, including two of his brothers, to investigate the shooting and try to retrieve some public support. Suspected Taliban insurgents opened fire on the officials.
One of the officials predicted people would rise up against the Americans and Karzai's government.
"The official told me if these people had a decent life, a decent clinic and schools, clean drinking water, some sign that life had improved in 10 years, they could calm down," an Afghan minister told Reuters.
"If there had been some change in their lives you could just tell them the American soldier was depressed and they could get over it. But where are the benefits for people?"
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Miriam Arghandiwal in KABUL; Matt Spetalnick, Caren Bohan and Steve Holland in WASHINGTON; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Birsel)
7 insurgents killed in operation in E. Afghanistan
ASADABAD, Afghanistan, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Seven insurgents were killed during a joint operation in eastern Afghan province of Kunar on Saturday, a source said.
"Based on intelligence, a unit of special operation forces of Afghan soldiers and NATO-led coalition troops raided a compound in Marawara district over night killing seven armed insurgents," Sabawoon Hotak, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in eastern region, told Xinhua.
He said two suspected militants including a Taliban local leader was also captured in the raid in the province bordering Pakistan.
Meantime, a Taliban purported spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told local media that eight Taliban fighters have been killed in Kunar but claimed some casualties on Afghan and foreign forces.
Afghan forces and ISAF troops have intensified cleanup operations throughout the post-Taliban country recently. Over 260 insurgents have been killed and more than 730 others detained in the country since the beginning of this year, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.
Kunar and neighboring Nuristan province have been regarded as Taliban hotbed in eastern part of militancy-hit country.
4 insurgents killed, woman injured in Afghan operation
KABUL, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Four armed insurgents were killed and a woman injured during a joint operation in northern Afghan province of Faryab on Saturday, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
"An Afghan and coalition security force conducted an operation in search of an insurgent leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Shirin Tagab district, Faryab province, today," the ISAF said in a press release.
Four armed insurgents were killed in shoot-out during the raid on a building, including one who fired on the joint forces from behind women and children leaving the building, said the release.
"One Afghan civilian female was wounded during the exchange. A coalition helicopter evacuated her, along with her husband, to a medical facility for treatment where she is listed in stable condition," it said.
"The leader plans and conducts attacks against coalition troops throughout northern Afghanistan and is also suspected in plotting an attack against a senior Afghan official,"the press release said without saying whether the targeted man was killed or captured.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is a Taliban-affiliated group of militants operating in relatively peaceful northern Afghan provinces.
Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Daoud Sultanzoy, Tolo Television
U.S Department of Defense
March 15, 2012
Tolo TV Interview with Secretary Panetta
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: Thank you very much.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: It's a difficult time for both countries, and you've come at a very important juncture of -- in this time. Afghanistan and the United States have come a long way, and yet some tragic incidents and situations can hamper a good opportunity that both nations have.
What is the latest finding that that you have about this brazen cruelty in Kandahar?
SEC. PANETTA: Look, my understanding is that the investigation is proceeding. It's going forward under our procedures of military justice, and I've urged them to do a thorough and expeditious investigation that will determine what charges are to be brought against this individual. And once those charges are brought, I can assure the Afghan people that he will brought to justice swiftly.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The American government's sentiment is always reflected in the media, but the U.S. public sentiment is very rarely reflected. You have been a very distinguished politician in the country, a representative. Can you tell us how the American people feel? And the Afghan people would like to know that.
SEC. PANETTA: You know, I think that in many ways there are -- there are similar feelings here. I think the Afghan people have been through many years of war and are tired of the conflict and the loss of life and, I know, want to have a peaceful, sovereign, independent Afghanistan in which they can raise their families in peace and hopefully give their children a better life.
And I think that's how the American people feel. This has been 10 years of war that the American people have been involved -- and a lot of our sons and daughters have gone to war, and many of them have been killed. And so there's -- you know, there's some exhaustion --
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Yes.
SEC. PANETTA: -- with these long periods of war.
But at the same time, the American people believe that when we engage in war and when our sons and daughters pay with their lives, that it is important for us to accomplish the mission -- that we are involved with, that that mission is to establish an Afghanistan that can govern and secure itself. That's our mission. That's our goal. And I think the American people want that to be accomplished.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The United States was attacked -- 2001, and you came here to make sure that your security is assured. And yet the war has to be fought outside our borders, and if the war was fought there, we won't be facing tragedies as such as we did.
How are you going to resolve that issue of outside our borders? The war emanates from those areas.
SEC. PANETTA: That -- it's one of the challenges that we obviously face; that, you know, we know that terrorism and the terrorists often find safe haven across those borders and then cross into Afghanistan to create havoc and take lives; and that we think it is important that that be addressed; that, you know, we can fight and we can achieve the goals that we want to achieve in Afghanistan, but to ultimately have a true peace for the future, it is extremely important that we deal with terrorism wherever it exists. And terrorists cannot be the friends of any country. Terrorists are terrorists.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: OK.
SEC. PANETTA: And they need to deal with that.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: I -- when I was growing up, I remember Kandahar being one of the most pro-American cities in this country, because America was engaged in nonmilitary development activities. And most Kandaharis knew English in those days.
And they were prospering. And I think America can do that again, you know, paying attention to development and to post-2014, the drawdown. I hope the drawdown is not embroiled in election fervor. Usually every two years in America this fervor goes up.
And the drawdown at one point was 23,000, now latest reports are saying that an additional 20,000 will be removed from -- in 2013, and then the British prime minister said that they will end everything in 2013 -- very conflicting messages. The people here in the region are confused.
SEC. PANETTA: No, I understand. The press often plays up these issues, and it can be confusing. But I want to assure the Afghan people that having participated in the ministerials with our NATO allies, that the United States and our NATO allies are committed to a very firm strategy here, a strategy that will mean that we will -- obviously, we will gradually transition areas to Afghan control, and we've already begun that process.
We have made good progress here in Afghanistan. I think 2011 was a real turning point. Levels of violence are down. We've weakened the Taliban. We've been able to develop an Afghan army and police that are assuming good operational competence, taking over in areas. And that's extremely important. It's a tribute to the Afghan leadership that that's happening. And in addition to that, we are successfully beginning these transitions.
We'll continue that process through 2012 and 2013. And our goal right now is to not in any way expedite that kind of drawdown until we reach the end of 2014. Our goal is to draw down by 2014. That's our path, that's our goal, and we're going to stick to that.
More importantly, we're going to maintain an enduring presence here. And I think the Afghan people need to know that, that the United States is not going anywhere. We're going to continue to be here to assist the Afghan people in development, in training, in assistance and ensuring that this country is strong and independent for the future.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Which is very important, you know, 2014 -- post - 2014, American footprint, U.S. footprint in Afghanistan -- can you tell us a little bit about that? Of course, military footprint is one thing, but the upkeep of the military and police and other security forces in Afghanistan is also a matter to address.
SEC. PANETTA: That's true. That's true.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: And both these issues are not that clear to us.
SEC. PANETTA: We've been -- we've been discussing these issues with our NATO allies. And obviously, in Chicago, the leadership of these countries will come together to following up on the Lisbon agreement, kind of lay out the strategy between now and 2014 and beyond.
I think they'll want to discuss how we continue these transitions. They'll want to discuss the level of the Afghan army and police that is sustainable for the future, one that all of us can, in working with the Afghans, be able to assure the Afghan people that they will have a strong and stable army and police that'll be able to maintain order in the future. That's being discussed as well.
And then lastly, the question of what missions are we going to perform beyond 2014: I think the key missions that we can see right now are we have to continue to counter terrorism and go -- continue to go after those that would try to disrupt this country and those terrorists who would continue to try to plan attacks on our own country. We have to continue to operate against them. We have to continue to advise, assist, train the Afghan army and be able to support them. And I think we have to continue the development side of this, to give the Afghan people the opportunity and development that will create a stable economy and future for this country.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The strategic partnership, what is that we don't know in this partnership? You mentioned the military side, the development side and also the American security -- as far as its concerned, your role in the region -- what is that? What else is there that we are still not -- unaware of -- from the American point of view?
SEC. PANETTA: I think the most important thing for the strategic partnership agreement is that it will be a decision between the Afghan people and the international forces that have been here -- the NATO forces, the ISAF forces and the United States -- to establish not just a relationship for now but a relationship into the future.
And it will provide the Afghan people with a clear indication that the mission that we are trying to accomplish here is not something that we're going to walk away from, but is a mission that we'll continue to work at into the future.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The ugly incidents from both sides sometimes puts both governments and both nations in a weaker situation when -- especially when it comes to talks with the Taliban. Are we in a weaker position now in the -- in the, supposedly, talks with the Taliban, peace talks, both the Afghan side and the U.S. side?
SEC. PANETTA: You know, the most important thing that we need to do to be in a strong position in those discussions is to continue to do what we're doing now, to continue to keep the levels of violence down, continue to confront and weaken the Taliban wherever they are, continue the process of transition, continue the process of developing a strong Afghan army, a strong Afghan police. If we do that, that puts us in a strong position. That's where we are now, and that's where we have to stay.
I think that these incidents -- you know, as I've said, war is hell. We'll see these kind of incidents take place. They are tragic. We need to learn from them. We need to make sure they don't happen again. But we cannot allow those incidents to undermine the strategy that the Afghan people and the United States and our NATO partners are engaged in.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: As strategic partners, if Israel attacks Iran, the United States -- if -- and if Iran retaliates against the United States in Afghanistan, what would be your position?
SEC. PANETTA: I think, as the -- as the president has made clear, we have -- we have common cause here and a concern that Iran should not develop a nuclear weapon. And this is not a policy of containment; this is a policy of prevention.
And that -- right now the international community is unified in putting pressure on Iran not to do this. We've applied strong diplomatic sanctions, strong economic sanctions. They are isolated. They are, I think, being severely penalized for their behavior. And I think the feeling of the president and the international community is -- now is the time to continue that pressure. And we would hope that Israel would work with us in continuing that kind of diplomatic pressure. This is not the time to take military action. This is the time to allow diplomacy and these sanctions to take effect and to hopefully change the behavior of Iran.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: As partners, we have always talked about community issues and development, but rarely have we been very straightforward about talking about civil society and developing a political process in this country beyond 2014. Very little attention is paid to development of political parties in this country that are -- that are pluralistic, that are nationwide. This is something that we would like our partners to talk about. What is your position?
SEC. PANETTA: Dauod -- Afghanistan has the opportunity to develop a strong democracy for the future. This is a tremendous opportunity for the noble people of this country to have the ability to be able to govern themselves. That's not easy. It's a challenge. You have to deal with the institutions of government. You have to -- you develop a strong parliament; you have to develop a strong judicial system. You have to develop the kind of rights and reforms that allow the people to express themselves in elections. And you have to develop the leadership both at the local level and at the national level that can provide the important guidance for this country as to the path that needs to be followed.
This is not going to be easy. I mean, we're seeing a lot of this in the Middle East with the turmoil that going on out there as these countries are striving to put the institutions of government together. But the Afghan people have that opportunity. What a rare and great opportunity it is to develop a country that can truly give their children a better life for the future. To do that demands sacrifice, it demands dedication, and it demands help from countries like the United States to be able to assist you to develop those strong institutions that can support a strong Afghanistan for the future.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: And it also demands a level playing field for those Afghans who have no arms and no guns and --
SEC. PANETTA: That's right.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: -- they are outside the mafia circles.
SEC. PANETTA: That's right.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The election of 2014 in Afghanistan, if the present leadership would want to extend its term, what would be the U.S. position on that?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, I have to take President Karzai at his word that he's not going to run again. And if that's the case, then obviously there will have to be new leadership that is willing to take on the burdens of governance in this country. That's one of those tests --
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Right.
SEC. PANETTA: -- for the future as to whether Afghanistan can become a strong democracy. To do that, you need to have people who are willing to step forward and provide that leadership and who are willing to bring the country together. I mean, this is a country that has a rich and diverse history and one that the Afghan people should be very proud of. But it does mean that people have to work together and to work in a unified way to walk in the right direction for the future. That's not always easy.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: As a very seasoned politician, you've been both elected and you've served in academia and also in the CIA and now the Defense Department. What is your prediction about the U.S. elections?
SEC. PANETTA: (Laughs.) You know, I've -- in 40 years of experience in politics, the one thing I've learned is never to predict anything. You know, democracy and elections are a dynamic process. And, you know, there will be, as we've always had, a very rich debate about the future, both parties competing to try to convince the American people about their platform. I believe, since I'm a Democrat, that the president has provided strong leadership and that we provide a strong platform for the future. But it's going to be up to the American people to make that decision. And you know? That's the way it should be.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Do you think the Republicans will have a -- better relations with Mr. Karzai?
SEC. PANETTA: I think that whatever party is ultimately empowered by the American people will have to maintain a strong relationship with President Karzai and whoever follows him, because the future of Afghanistan will determine whether or not the price that we pay -- not just the United States, but the Afghan people -- whether that price was worthwhile.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your time.
SEC. PANETTA: Thank you very much, Daoud.
TOLOnews 15 MARCH 2012 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PANETTA - YouTube#!
TOLOnews 15 MARCH 2012 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PANETTA - YouTube
AFP via Yahoo! News
Kabul appeared to step back Saturday from a call on US troops to leave villages and withdraw to bases, saying the demand was "nothing new" and part of the Afghan leader's long-held position.
Presidency spokesman Aimal Faizi made the remarks to AFP after a telephone call between US President Barack Obama and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai in which they agreed to stick to a transfer to Afghan control by the end of 2014.
On Thursday, Kabul announced that Karzai had told US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that international forces should leave villages and that NATO should handover to Afghan forces in 2013.
US officials said Karzai's statement was "consistent" with an agreed timetable, but it had provoked widespread concern that NATO's combat operations would be in jeopardy, two years before the scheduled withdrawal of most troops.
Faizi said a foreign troop presence creates problems in Afghan villages, "proved" by the recent killings of 16 civilians -- most of them women and children -- in an attack blamed on a lone American soldier.
"This is not a new demand. We have been asking foreign troops not to enter Afghan homes and villages for years," Karzai's spokesman told AFP.
"This is the demand of Afghans as well, they have suffered a lot. It is now time for our security forces to step in and provide security for our villagers, our people," he added.
Afghan and US defence officials will hold meetings to discuss "the issues of withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghan villages and the completion of the transition process by 2013", Faizi said.
On Friday, the White House said Obama and Karzai reaffirmed their commitment to a timetabled process of transition in which Afghan forces would "have full responsibility for security across the country by the end of 2014".
The Afghan palace said they "also agreed to further discuss concerns voiced by President Karzai about the presence of foreign troops in Afghan villages".
Afghanistan Mission: Impossible?
By Mark Thompson time.com March 16, 2012
No, not the challenging military mission that 90,000 U.S. troops are now carrying out: hunting down and killing Taliban insurgents while training Afghan security forces to take over by 2015.
No, the more vital mission right now is the political one: next week, Marine General John Allen comes to Washington for the first time since he assumed command of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan last summer. He’s got a single goal: convincing the Congress – and the American people – that they shouldn’t accelerate the U.S. troop pullout.
The 91,000 troops now there are supposed to shrink to 68,000 by this fall. Nearly all are supposed to be out by the end of 2014. But the pace of that withdrawal — a gentle slope or precipitous cliff — hasn’t been decided.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ended a two-day visit to Afghanistan by declaring that there’s a “very good chance of succeeding” despite the recent massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an apparently rogue U.S. soldier and assorted other recent distractions.
His optimism came as the Taliban halted preliminary peace whispers with the Americans, and as Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he wanted U.S. troops to abandoned their small village outposts and move back to larger forward operating bases.
Allen shares Panetta’s view. “The campaign remains on track — nothing has changed with respect to the campaign,” Allen told CNN earlier this week. “I think that the operational environment today supports the campaign as we have outlined it.”
But there are growing doubts about the wisdom of the campaign from both sides of the aisle. Allen’s two appearances – before the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday morning, and then its Senate counterpart Thursday – could end up being high-wire political theater, just like General Dave Petraeus’ 2007 performances on Iraq that salvaged the “surge” of U.S. troops and kept that war more or less on track.
King David, alas, is a tough act to follow.
New Details Show Panetta Was at Risk in Attack
New York Times By ELISABETH BUMILLER March 16, 2012
WASHINGTON - An Afghan interpreter in a speeding truck tried to run down a top American commander and his British deputy, forcing the two and others to scatter as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s plane taxied toward them at a military base in Afghanistan, defense officials said on Friday.
The latest account of what apparently was a suicide attack shows there was a greater security risk to Mr. Panetta than defense officials originally admitted. American military officials had at first played down the episode, which occurred on Wednesday at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, and they did not immediately disclose important details.
It was not until Friday that defense officials said that Mr. Panetta had already landed when the attack occurred, although they did not say how close his plane came to the speeding truck. But one of the officials acknowledged that if the attack had occurred five minutes later, it was “possible” that Mr. Panetta would have been on the tarmac and in the path of the speeding truck along with the commanders, who had been waiting for him as part of a welcoming party.
The officials, who spoke to reporters on Mr. Panetta’s plane en route from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to Washington, asked for anonymity to discuss security matters.
Defense officials said the Afghan interpreter, who apparently set himself on fire, had aimed his truck directly at a group that included Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus of the Marines, the top commander in Helmand, and his British deputy, Brig. Stuart Skeates. A day earlier, military officials described the welcoming party as “a group of Marines,” suggesting they were of lower rank — and omitting that the attacker was heading for one of the most senior American military commanders in Afghanistan.
The attack was the latest in a recent string by Afghans on their American or coalition partners in Afghanistan. Mr. Panetta’s trip occurred only three days after an American soldier was believed to have killed 16 civilians in a village in Kandahar Province in the south, enraging Afghans and driving relations with the American military to a low.
General Gurganus spoke to reporters a little more than an hour after the attack and made no mention of it.
A senior defense official told reporters on Friday that the American military still did not know if the attacker, who died of severe burns early Thursday, had been aware that he was heading toward General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates. The officials said the Afghan, a civilian, worked under contract as an interpreter at Camp Bastion, a British military airfield that adjoins Camp Leatherneck, a vast American Marine base.
The interpreter’s employment suggests that he could have known that the two high-ranking officers were present, or at the very least would have seen that the commotion on the tarmac, which included a sizable waiting motorcade, indicated that someone of importance was arriving.
Defense officials continued to say on Friday that they did not think that the interpreter had been targeting Mr. Panetta, who for security reasons arrived in an unmarked C-17 military transport plane, not his usual Boeing 747 with “United States of America” on the side.
The defense officials said that at least some of Mr. Panetta’s aides on the plane became aware of the episode shortly after landing. The C-17 was quickly diverted to another parking spot at the airport, where General Gurganus and Brigadier Skeates then moved to greet Mr. Panetta. By that time, defense officials say, the interpreter had crashed the truck into a ditch and emerged from it in flames. Military personnel found a container of gasoline and a lighter in the truck.
Three other Afghan interpreters at Camp Bastion, including the driver’s brother and father, were detained for questioning. Defense officials could not say on Friday whether they were still being held.
Defense officials said the interpreter had stolen the truck from Camp Leatherneck about 30 minutes before the episode. A British soldier was wounded in the theft.
US backs Afghan peace effort, despite string of setbacks and Taliban snub of future talks
Associated Press Saturday, March 17, 2012
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is seeking to put the best face on an Afghanistan policy called into question by the apparent shelving of talks with insurgents and announcement from the U.S.-backed government in Kabul that it will not support the fielding of U.S. forces deep into rural villages, a key goal of the current military strategy.
The announcements from Afghanistan on Thursday struck at both elements of the twin-track U.S. exit strategy, which calls for a gradual transfer of security authority to Afghan forces and U.S. talks with Taliban insurgents as a seed for larger political reconciliation talks with the Afghan government.
U.S. spokesmen said the administration will press on with trying to reconcile Afghanistan’s government and Taliban forces willing to renounce terrorism, despite Thursday’s announcement by the militants that they were suspending contacts with the United States. The last substantive talks between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives was in January, and two initiatives to build trust and move toward real peace talks are in limbo.
The Taliban accused the U.S. of failing to deliver on promises and making new demands in the talks, a charge that White House press secretary Jay Carney denied.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded Thursday that U.S. troops leave rural Afghan areas and stay on bases until they finish the withdrawal of troops by the end of 2014. The war effort has been set back in recent days by the weekend slaughter of nine children among 16 people killed allegedly by an American soldier, and earlier by the inadvertent burning of Qurans by U.S. troops.
The Obama administration has endorsed negotiation with the insurgents as the best hope for reaching a political settlement in Afghanistan, and entered secret direct talks with Taliban representatives last year. The talks have foundered before, and several people familiar with the contacts characterized the latest news as a temporary but expected setback. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomacy.
“There is no likely resolution to the conflict in Afghanistan without a political resolution,” Carney said. “Our conditions for participation in that process by the Taliban have been clear in terms of the reconciliation. Those who would be reconciled need to lay down their arms, renounce al-Qaida (and) promise to abide by the Afghan constitution. And we continue to support that process.”
A senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions said U.S. officials expected some statement from the Taliban backing away from talks, and presume that the timing following Sunday’s killings is an attempt to gain greater leverage over the United States.
Even before the latest troubles, efforts to negotiate an Afghan settlement were stymied by the Taliban’s unwillingness to negotiate directly with Karzai’s government, which the militants see as illegitimate. Karzai has complained that he was cut out of the talks, complicating his sometimes rocky relationship with Washington.
The Taliban have maintained they want to negotiate only with the United States, the largest donor and largest military force in Afghanistan. The Associated Press previously reported that the U.S. side had agreed to greater Afghan government participation in future talks. That shift appears to underlie the Taliban claim of a change in terms, although their statement was not specific.
As to whether the U.S. has delivered on promises in earlier negotiations, the Taliban were apparently referring to a plan the U.S. has backed publicly to open a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar, as the Taliban had requested. That plan, although reluctantly endorsed by Karzai, apparently has been delayed by an internal Taliban debate about a public renunciation of international terrorism. The U.S. has made that renunciation a condition for opening the office.
The Taliban also seek release of five prisoners held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The AP previously has reported that the U.S. agreed in principle to transfer the prisoners to custody in Qatar, and U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged the idea is in play.
Several Republicans in Congress have denounced the transfer plan, and there has been no apparent progress on it.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States has made no decisions to transfer Taliban detainees. She urged continued negotiations with the insurgents.
“We still feel that if there is a process that can be supported, that we ought to do that,” Nuland told reporters. “We remain prepared to continue these discussions,” with a goal of getting the Taliban and the Afghan government to negotiate directly.
In Afghanistan this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met with Karzai and sought to repair the strained U.S.-Afghan relationship. In the aftermath of the killing, Karzai wants NATO to curtail operations in the countryside and accelerate the planned transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan forces.
Although Karzai previously has said he wanted international troops to transition out of rural areas, the apparent call for an immediate exit is new. Karzai also said he wants Afghan forces to take the lead for countrywide security in 2013, which may or may not be in line with a statement Wednesday from President Barack Obama and British Prime Minster David Cameron. They reiterated that the aim of the U.S. and its allies was to get out by the end of 2014, but stated for the first time that international forces would hand over the lead combat role to Afghan forces next year.
A statement released by Karzai’s office said he told Panetta he wants to see “international forces come out of Afghan villages and stay in their bases.”
There was confusion among U.S. military officials and diplomats about just what Karzai was asking, and how far apart he is from current U.S. policy. U.S. officials tried to minimize the differences.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said the issue of leaving villages did come up, and that the U.S. viewed it as a reflection of Karzai’s “strong interest in moving toward a fully independent and sovereign Afghanistan as soon as possible.”
“We share President Karzai’s interest,” Little said. “We believe it needs to be done in a responsible manner.”
The soldier accused of the shootings was part of far-flung “village stability” operations favored by former war commander Gen. David Petraeus and seen as a central element of the counterinsurgency strategy to build trust and skills among local Afghan forces and neighborhood militias. Although the U.S. has walked away from basic pillars of the counterinsurgency strategy, the policy to keep soldiers working and living alongside rural populations has continued.
It was never popular with Karzai, who has said the insurgent problem in his country springs from support across the border in Pakistan, not from unrest in villages. Critics of the U.S. and NATO military plan long have said that a large military footprint, especially in conservative rural districts, encourages violence and bolsters the Taliban argument that they are fighting a foreign occupier.
___
Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Donna Cassata and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.
Report Says Bin Laden Was Plotting Obama's Assassination
VOA News March 17, 2012
A major U.S. newspaper reports Osama bin Laden ordered al-Qaida to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama and General David Petraeus, who was then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported Friday documents taken from bin Laden's compound describe the scheme. Bin Laden wrote that killing Obama would ensure Vice President Joe Biden would come to power, someone bin Laden said was "totally unprepared" for the post.
Bin Laden suggested Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri carry out the attack against the U.S. president. Kashmiri was killed in a U.S. drone strike last June.
U.S. officials and analysts say there is no evidence al-Qaida was anywhere near ready to mount the proposed attacks.
U.S. special commandos killed bin Laden in a covert raid on his house in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad last May 2. The assault team also confiscated a wealth of material, including video clips and personal correspondence of the al-Qaida leader. One CIA official called it "the largest trove of information ever captured from a senior terrorist leader," and said the material offered "important insights" into al-Qaida’s operations.
Ignatius said the bin Laden documents will soon be available publicly.
The Washington Post writer says in the documents he reviewed, bin Laden called for his deputies to focus their energy on attacks within the U.S. instead of on U.S. targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. He says bin Laden also wrote about "mistakes" and "miscalculations" his terrorist organization had made, including being responsible for killing fellow Muslims, which he said had tarnished the organization's image in the Muslim world.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
Turkish PM Cancels Germany Trip after Soldiers' Deaths in Afghanistan
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 17 March 2012
The Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tyyip Erdoğan has canceled his trip to Germany after a helicopter crash killed 12 Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan on Friday.
A Turkish military helicopter crashed into a house in Kabul on Friday, killing 12 Turkish soldiers on board and four Afghan civilians on the ground, a statement on the Prime Minister's website said late yesterday.
It was the deadliest incident involving Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan, where they have a noncombat role. Previously, only two Turkish soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan since it joined the Nato mission in 2003.
The helicopter was on a mission for US-led Nato forces when it went down at 10:45 am local time in Bagrami district of Kabul, the Turkish military said in a statement.
Nato said there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the crash, AP reported.
Mr Erdoğan was supposed to depart for Germany on Saturday to participate in a youth workshop in Cologne and to attend the Der Steiger award ceremony to accept an award for international leadership, which is granted annually to individuals who are noteworthy for their achievements in such areas as politics, media, sports and environment.
Turkey has around 1,845 troops in Afghanistan, most of them based in Jawizjan and Wardak provinces.
Insight: Few options for Afghan, U.S. leaders after Kandahar massacre
Reuters By Michael Georgy and Missy Ryan 16/03/2012
KABUL/WASHINGTON - President Hamid Karzai exploded in anger when he learned last week that an American soldier had massacred 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children.
When Karzai discovered that an aide had kept the news from him until after he had addressed the nation on television, the anger turned to rage.
"I would have condemned this openly to my people," Karzai shouted at the aide in the Kabul television studio, officials told Reuters.
Turning to another official, Karzai made himself even more clear: After a decade of war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, it was time for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan, he said.
Events may have got out of hand if the aide had indeed told Karzai before the live televised speech on women's rights.
By the time Karzai's office issued a statement about the killing near a U.S. base in the south, the reaction was muted and there was no call for an American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Karzai condemned the rampage as "intentional murders" and demanded an explanation from the United States, but nothing more.
He has slim room for maneuver in a war that has tested both his presidency and that of his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama. Installed by the United States as interim leader after U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, he has to walk a line between growing public anger over the presence of Western troops and Washington's support of his government.
Karzai was later elected president but his very survival hinges on the 90,000 American troops who hold his Taliban enemies at bay, along with the massive influx of Western aid that pays Afghan bureaucrats and which keeps the country's fragile economy afloat.
The Afghan leader is still haunted by the fate of former Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah when the Taliban took power in 1996. After being tortured and castrated, Najibullah, a protege of the former Soviet Union, was strung up on a street lamp close to his palace.
Any return of the Taliban to power would could bring a similar fate to Afghan leaders and anyone else seen as siding with the Americans.
"Tens of thousands of people will be killed here if the Americans pack and get out," said independent parliamentarian Mirwais Yasini, who predicted the Taliban would seize power again in just a matter of weeks if U.S.-led NATO forces headed home now.
HALF A WORLD AWAY
Obama would not face the same dangers that Karzai could if the Taliban emerge victorious, but failure after one of America's longest wars would still be devastating for him in a year in which he faces re-election.
Half a world away on Sunday afternoon, Obama sat in his limo outside his daughter's basketball game in suburban Maryland as he picked up the phone to call Karzai after he was informed of the shootings.
When he first spoke publicly about the killings the next day, Obama vowed the United States would not be chased out of Afghanistan. But he said the shooting had only strengthened his determination to bring U.S. troops home.
"It's time. It's been a decade," he said.
The recent incidents underscore the hazards facing Karzai, who heads a weak, unpopular government under threat by insurgents, and Obama, intensifying what's likely to be a difficult election campaign while he seeks to end a costly war.
But the risks of a precipitous withdrawal are even less palatable for both leaders, leaving them only room to tweak their positions on the margins.
Obama's strategy for exiting Afghanistan, the product of bitter debates among his political and military advisers, appears locked in stone, with only the precise pace of the troop drawdown at issue. For now, most foreign combat troops are to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
While Obama's Republican opponents, such as Mitt Romney, have criticized Obama's withdrawal, saying that a predetermined timeline will only embolden U.S. enemies, the views of some of his rivals may be changing in light of recent events.
"There's not much appetite left in the White House to continue the war," a former U.S. government official said on condition of anonymity.
"The emphasis now is how do we withdraw as quickly as possible, with as little damage to our interests as possible."
Karzai appears to be trying to shape the nature of the remaining NATO presence in a way that will minimize civilian losses.
On Thursday, the Afghan leader called for NATO troops to leave Afghan villages and confine themselves to major bases, issuing what appear to be a surprise challenge to his Western backers just after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ended a visit to Kabul.
Pentagon officials however said they did not believe he was calling for an immediate withdrawal to bases. There was no change in U.S. plans for a gradual transition to Afghan security leadership, they said.
BLUNDERS
The massacre in Kandahar, Karzai's home province, is the latest of a series of Western blunders in Afghanistan that have infuriated ordinary Afghans. The others include a video that showed Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Afghans and the burning of copies of the Koran at a NATO military base.
The Koran burnings in particular struck a chord among Afghans and touched off a spate of bloody protests and attacks on U.S. soldiers that raised questions about the Western plan to put Afghan troops gradually in charge.
Recent events have only heightened the vulnerability of Karzai, who many Afghans see as a Western lackey who has been unable to provide effective governance, combat corruption or ease poverty despite billions of dollars in Western aid.
"This is a very dark moment for Karzai," said parliamentarian Habiba Danish. "People are extremely emotional and he has to find a way to calm emotions. We all do."
Outside Karzai's heavily fortified Kabul palace, Afghans complained Karzai was too weak to deal with what they called American atrocities.
"It's time for him to go. We need someone who can bring justice for Afghanistan," said Abdullah Yosuf, 20, a university student.
The initial response in Washington to the shooting, meanwhile, was one of shock, followed by dismay.
Obama was briefed on Sunday about the massacre by a small group of security officials including Tom Donilon, his national security adviser, and retired Lieutenant General Doug Lute, his "war czar".
His two top military advisers, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were on the West Coast when the news broke.
Both men reached out to Afghan leaders - Panetta calling Karzai and Dempsey calling Afghan army chief of staff General Sher Mohammad Karimi, seeking to personally reassure the officials that the soldier's actions were isolated.
Across Washington, the former official said, "all of us had this feeling like we'd been punched in the stomach".
Privately, many U.S. officials also expressed anger that one rogue soldier - who many people suspect may have been affected by multiple deployments in Iraq - could do so much to erode whatever goodwill they had been able to build with Afghans.
"It's disappointing; it's frustrating," one senior U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity. "This is one guy in a village in Afghanistan, making a decision on a tactical level that has strategic impact."
Obama has signaled loudly that he does not want to reopen the Afghan war strategy as he did when he took office in 2009.
"I don't anticipate ... that we're going to be making any sudden additional changes to the plan that we currently have," he said on Wednesday.
Concerned with his re-election prospects, the economy, and domestic concerns like high gasoline prices, the president in public discussions of Afghanistan has focused on the U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden last year.
It is a feat which the White House hopes will seal Obama's national security credentials no matter the situation in Afghanistan.
While Obama will withdraw all of the extra 33,000 troops he deployed in a "surge" of forces in 2009-10 by later this year, his advisers are in discussions about how quickly they can afford to remove the rest of the troops.
Pressure from Obama's fellow Democrats has intensified in recent weeks for a faster drawdown, while a recent poll showed that more than 60 percent of Americans favor an immediate withdrawal.
"Critics who say we should just leave don't have a real policy," said Bruce Riedel, a former White House and CIA official who chaired Obama's Afghan strategy review in 2009. "Building up the Afghan army and transitioning is still the only game in town."
THE TALIBAN QUESTION
The fixed military strategy only increased the importance of U.S. diplomacy in Afghanistan. After months of covert efforts, U.S. officials have hoped they were close to being able to broker unprecedented political negotiations between the Taliban and Karzai's government.
It's unclear whether that initiative will proceed; the Taliban said on Thursday they were suspending that process, blaming "shaky, erratic and vague" U.S. statements.
Karzai expressed concern to Afghan officials that the Taliban would try to capitalize on the Kandahar massacre to gain more recruits.
He was right.
Taliban fighters wasted no time in entering the village where the massacre took place and urging people to take up arms against the Americans and Karzai's government.
"They handed out weapons to people and told them to be brave and take on U.S. forces. Then they warned the cleric in a government mosque to tell people to rise up," an intelligence official told Reuters.
The message seemed to sink in.
"If the killer is not prosecuted in Kandahar we will go to the mountains and fight against the government," said Kandahar resident Khodai Nazar, 25.
Karzai, for his part, sent a delegation to the village, including two of his brothers, to investigate the shooting and try to retrieve some public support. Suspected Taliban insurgents opened fire on the officials.
One of the officials predicted people would rise up against the Americans and Karzai's government.
"The official told me if these people had a decent life, a decent clinic and schools, clean drinking water, some sign that life had improved in 10 years, they could calm down," an Afghan minister told Reuters.
"If there had been some change in their lives you could just tell them the American soldier was depressed and they could get over it. But where are the benefits for people?"
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Miriam Arghandiwal in KABUL; Matt Spetalnick, Caren Bohan and Steve Holland in WASHINGTON; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Birsel)
7 insurgents killed in operation in E. Afghanistan
ASADABAD, Afghanistan, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Seven insurgents were killed during a joint operation in eastern Afghan province of Kunar on Saturday, a source said.
"Based on intelligence, a unit of special operation forces of Afghan soldiers and NATO-led coalition troops raided a compound in Marawara district over night killing seven armed insurgents," Sabawoon Hotak, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in eastern region, told Xinhua.
He said two suspected militants including a Taliban local leader was also captured in the raid in the province bordering Pakistan.
Meantime, a Taliban purported spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told local media that eight Taliban fighters have been killed in Kunar but claimed some casualties on Afghan and foreign forces.
Afghan forces and ISAF troops have intensified cleanup operations throughout the post-Taliban country recently. Over 260 insurgents have been killed and more than 730 others detained in the country since the beginning of this year, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.
Kunar and neighboring Nuristan province have been regarded as Taliban hotbed in eastern part of militancy-hit country.
4 insurgents killed, woman injured in Afghan operation
KABUL, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Four armed insurgents were killed and a woman injured during a joint operation in northern Afghan province of Faryab on Saturday, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
"An Afghan and coalition security force conducted an operation in search of an insurgent leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Shirin Tagab district, Faryab province, today," the ISAF said in a press release.
Four armed insurgents were killed in shoot-out during the raid on a building, including one who fired on the joint forces from behind women and children leaving the building, said the release.
"One Afghan civilian female was wounded during the exchange. A coalition helicopter evacuated her, along with her husband, to a medical facility for treatment where she is listed in stable condition," it said.
"The leader plans and conducts attacks against coalition troops throughout northern Afghanistan and is also suspected in plotting an attack against a senior Afghan official,"the press release said without saying whether the targeted man was killed or captured.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is a Taliban-affiliated group of militants operating in relatively peaceful northern Afghan provinces.
Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Daoud Sultanzoy, Tolo Television
U.S Department of Defense
March 15, 2012
Tolo TV Interview with Secretary Panetta
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: Thank you very much.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: It's a difficult time for both countries, and you've come at a very important juncture of -- in this time. Afghanistan and the United States have come a long way, and yet some tragic incidents and situations can hamper a good opportunity that both nations have.
What is the latest finding that that you have about this brazen cruelty in Kandahar?
SEC. PANETTA: Look, my understanding is that the investigation is proceeding. It's going forward under our procedures of military justice, and I've urged them to do a thorough and expeditious investigation that will determine what charges are to be brought against this individual. And once those charges are brought, I can assure the Afghan people that he will brought to justice swiftly.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The American government's sentiment is always reflected in the media, but the U.S. public sentiment is very rarely reflected. You have been a very distinguished politician in the country, a representative. Can you tell us how the American people feel? And the Afghan people would like to know that.
SEC. PANETTA: You know, I think that in many ways there are -- there are similar feelings here. I think the Afghan people have been through many years of war and are tired of the conflict and the loss of life and, I know, want to have a peaceful, sovereign, independent Afghanistan in which they can raise their families in peace and hopefully give their children a better life.
And I think that's how the American people feel. This has been 10 years of war that the American people have been involved -- and a lot of our sons and daughters have gone to war, and many of them have been killed. And so there's -- you know, there's some exhaustion --
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Yes.
SEC. PANETTA: -- with these long periods of war.
But at the same time, the American people believe that when we engage in war and when our sons and daughters pay with their lives, that it is important for us to accomplish the mission -- that we are involved with, that that mission is to establish an Afghanistan that can govern and secure itself. That's our mission. That's our goal. And I think the American people want that to be accomplished.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The United States was attacked -- 2001, and you came here to make sure that your security is assured. And yet the war has to be fought outside our borders, and if the war was fought there, we won't be facing tragedies as such as we did.
How are you going to resolve that issue of outside our borders? The war emanates from those areas.
SEC. PANETTA: That -- it's one of the challenges that we obviously face; that, you know, we know that terrorism and the terrorists often find safe haven across those borders and then cross into Afghanistan to create havoc and take lives; and that we think it is important that that be addressed; that, you know, we can fight and we can achieve the goals that we want to achieve in Afghanistan, but to ultimately have a true peace for the future, it is extremely important that we deal with terrorism wherever it exists. And terrorists cannot be the friends of any country. Terrorists are terrorists.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: OK.
SEC. PANETTA: And they need to deal with that.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: I -- when I was growing up, I remember Kandahar being one of the most pro-American cities in this country, because America was engaged in nonmilitary development activities. And most Kandaharis knew English in those days.
And they were prospering. And I think America can do that again, you know, paying attention to development and to post-2014, the drawdown. I hope the drawdown is not embroiled in election fervor. Usually every two years in America this fervor goes up.
And the drawdown at one point was 23,000, now latest reports are saying that an additional 20,000 will be removed from -- in 2013, and then the British prime minister said that they will end everything in 2013 -- very conflicting messages. The people here in the region are confused.
SEC. PANETTA: No, I understand. The press often plays up these issues, and it can be confusing. But I want to assure the Afghan people that having participated in the ministerials with our NATO allies, that the United States and our NATO allies are committed to a very firm strategy here, a strategy that will mean that we will -- obviously, we will gradually transition areas to Afghan control, and we've already begun that process.
We have made good progress here in Afghanistan. I think 2011 was a real turning point. Levels of violence are down. We've weakened the Taliban. We've been able to develop an Afghan army and police that are assuming good operational competence, taking over in areas. And that's extremely important. It's a tribute to the Afghan leadership that that's happening. And in addition to that, we are successfully beginning these transitions.
We'll continue that process through 2012 and 2013. And our goal right now is to not in any way expedite that kind of drawdown until we reach the end of 2014. Our goal is to draw down by 2014. That's our path, that's our goal, and we're going to stick to that.
More importantly, we're going to maintain an enduring presence here. And I think the Afghan people need to know that, that the United States is not going anywhere. We're going to continue to be here to assist the Afghan people in development, in training, in assistance and ensuring that this country is strong and independent for the future.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Which is very important, you know, 2014 -- post - 2014, American footprint, U.S. footprint in Afghanistan -- can you tell us a little bit about that? Of course, military footprint is one thing, but the upkeep of the military and police and other security forces in Afghanistan is also a matter to address.
SEC. PANETTA: That's true. That's true.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: And both these issues are not that clear to us.
SEC. PANETTA: We've been -- we've been discussing these issues with our NATO allies. And obviously, in Chicago, the leadership of these countries will come together to following up on the Lisbon agreement, kind of lay out the strategy between now and 2014 and beyond.
I think they'll want to discuss how we continue these transitions. They'll want to discuss the level of the Afghan army and police that is sustainable for the future, one that all of us can, in working with the Afghans, be able to assure the Afghan people that they will have a strong and stable army and police that'll be able to maintain order in the future. That's being discussed as well.
And then lastly, the question of what missions are we going to perform beyond 2014: I think the key missions that we can see right now are we have to continue to counter terrorism and go -- continue to go after those that would try to disrupt this country and those terrorists who would continue to try to plan attacks on our own country. We have to continue to operate against them. We have to continue to advise, assist, train the Afghan army and be able to support them. And I think we have to continue the development side of this, to give the Afghan people the opportunity and development that will create a stable economy and future for this country.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The strategic partnership, what is that we don't know in this partnership? You mentioned the military side, the development side and also the American security -- as far as its concerned, your role in the region -- what is that? What else is there that we are still not -- unaware of -- from the American point of view?
SEC. PANETTA: I think the most important thing for the strategic partnership agreement is that it will be a decision between the Afghan people and the international forces that have been here -- the NATO forces, the ISAF forces and the United States -- to establish not just a relationship for now but a relationship into the future.
And it will provide the Afghan people with a clear indication that the mission that we are trying to accomplish here is not something that we're going to walk away from, but is a mission that we'll continue to work at into the future.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The ugly incidents from both sides sometimes puts both governments and both nations in a weaker situation when -- especially when it comes to talks with the Taliban. Are we in a weaker position now in the -- in the, supposedly, talks with the Taliban, peace talks, both the Afghan side and the U.S. side?
SEC. PANETTA: You know, the most important thing that we need to do to be in a strong position in those discussions is to continue to do what we're doing now, to continue to keep the levels of violence down, continue to confront and weaken the Taliban wherever they are, continue the process of transition, continue the process of developing a strong Afghan army, a strong Afghan police. If we do that, that puts us in a strong position. That's where we are now, and that's where we have to stay.
I think that these incidents -- you know, as I've said, war is hell. We'll see these kind of incidents take place. They are tragic. We need to learn from them. We need to make sure they don't happen again. But we cannot allow those incidents to undermine the strategy that the Afghan people and the United States and our NATO partners are engaged in.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: As strategic partners, if Israel attacks Iran, the United States -- if -- and if Iran retaliates against the United States in Afghanistan, what would be your position?
SEC. PANETTA: I think, as the -- as the president has made clear, we have -- we have common cause here and a concern that Iran should not develop a nuclear weapon. And this is not a policy of containment; this is a policy of prevention.
And that -- right now the international community is unified in putting pressure on Iran not to do this. We've applied strong diplomatic sanctions, strong economic sanctions. They are isolated. They are, I think, being severely penalized for their behavior. And I think the feeling of the president and the international community is -- now is the time to continue that pressure. And we would hope that Israel would work with us in continuing that kind of diplomatic pressure. This is not the time to take military action. This is the time to allow diplomacy and these sanctions to take effect and to hopefully change the behavior of Iran.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: As partners, we have always talked about community issues and development, but rarely have we been very straightforward about talking about civil society and developing a political process in this country beyond 2014. Very little attention is paid to development of political parties in this country that are -- that are pluralistic, that are nationwide. This is something that we would like our partners to talk about. What is your position?
SEC. PANETTA: Dauod -- Afghanistan has the opportunity to develop a strong democracy for the future. This is a tremendous opportunity for the noble people of this country to have the ability to be able to govern themselves. That's not easy. It's a challenge. You have to deal with the institutions of government. You have to -- you develop a strong parliament; you have to develop a strong judicial system. You have to develop the kind of rights and reforms that allow the people to express themselves in elections. And you have to develop the leadership both at the local level and at the national level that can provide the important guidance for this country as to the path that needs to be followed.
This is not going to be easy. I mean, we're seeing a lot of this in the Middle East with the turmoil that going on out there as these countries are striving to put the institutions of government together. But the Afghan people have that opportunity. What a rare and great opportunity it is to develop a country that can truly give their children a better life for the future. To do that demands sacrifice, it demands dedication, and it demands help from countries like the United States to be able to assist you to develop those strong institutions that can support a strong Afghanistan for the future.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: And it also demands a level playing field for those Afghans who have no arms and no guns and --
SEC. PANETTA: That's right.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: -- they are outside the mafia circles.
SEC. PANETTA: That's right.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: The election of 2014 in Afghanistan, if the present leadership would want to extend its term, what would be the U.S. position on that?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, I have to take President Karzai at his word that he's not going to run again. And if that's the case, then obviously there will have to be new leadership that is willing to take on the burdens of governance in this country. That's one of those tests --
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Right.
SEC. PANETTA: -- for the future as to whether Afghanistan can become a strong democracy. To do that, you need to have people who are willing to step forward and provide that leadership and who are willing to bring the country together. I mean, this is a country that has a rich and diverse history and one that the Afghan people should be very proud of. But it does mean that people have to work together and to work in a unified way to walk in the right direction for the future. That's not always easy.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: As a very seasoned politician, you've been both elected and you've served in academia and also in the CIA and now the Defense Department. What is your prediction about the U.S. elections?
SEC. PANETTA: (Laughs.) You know, I've -- in 40 years of experience in politics, the one thing I've learned is never to predict anything. You know, democracy and elections are a dynamic process. And, you know, there will be, as we've always had, a very rich debate about the future, both parties competing to try to convince the American people about their platform. I believe, since I'm a Democrat, that the president has provided strong leadership and that we provide a strong platform for the future. But it's going to be up to the American people to make that decision. And you know? That's the way it should be.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Do you think the Republicans will have a -- better relations with Mr. Karzai?
SEC. PANETTA: I think that whatever party is ultimately empowered by the American people will have to maintain a strong relationship with President Karzai and whoever follows him, because the future of Afghanistan will determine whether or not the price that we pay -- not just the United States, but the Afghan people -- whether that price was worthwhile.
DAOUD SULTANZOY: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your time.
SEC. PANETTA: Thank you very much, Daoud.
TOLOnews 15 MARCH 2012 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PANETTA - YouTube#!
TOLOnews 15 MARCH 2012 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH PANETTA - YouTube