Tweet
Attack on U.S. outpost in Afghanistan worse than originally reported
By Joshua Partlow and Craig Whitlock The Washington Post Sunday, June 17, 2012
KABUL - A June 1 attack on a U.S. outpost near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was much worse than originally disclosed by the military as insurgents pounded the base with a truck bomb, killing two Americans and seriously wounding about three dozen troops, officials acknowledged Saturday.
The blast flattened the dining hall and post exchange at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province, a frequent target of insurgents in the past. Five Afghan civilians were killed and more than 100 other U.S. troops were treated for minor injuries. U.S. officials estimated that the truck was carrying 1,500 pounds of explosives.
U.S. and Afghan military officials said they killed 14 insurgents, many of whom were wearing suicide vests.
The scale of the attack and the extent of the U.S. casualties contrast with the official description presented by coalition forces on the day of the assault. In a clipped, one-paragraph news release on June 1, the military said U.S. and Afghan forces “successfully repelled the attack and secured the base.”
The statement did not report any casualties, nor that there was a truck bomb.
“It was a very huge explosion,” said Daoud Khan Makeen, head of the provincial council in Khost. He said that houses as far as two miles away were damaged in the blast and that 20 Afghans were wounded, many of them by collapsed buildings.
Although the public was kept in the dark about the details, Obama administration officials seized on the incident afterward as the latest example of how Pakistan is allowing insurgents to use its territory to plan attacks, causing another international row between Washington and Islamabad.
U.S. officials also blamed Pakistan for not taking stronger action against the Haqqani network, which they said was responsible for organizing and carrying out the attack. The Haqqani group is a major faction in the Taliban-led insurgency and takes refuge in camps on the Pakistani side of the border.
Citing the attack on Salerno and pent-up frustration over years of similar assaults, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta harshly criticized Pakistan for failing to crack down on the Haqqanis. “We are reaching the limits of our patience,” he said June 7 while in Kabul, a day after he slammed Pakistan as an untrustworthy partner during a visit to its archenemy, India.
“Secretary Panetta — along with other senior U.S. officials — has had serious long-standing concerns about the Haqqanis,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said. “Of course he was disturbed by this recent attack, which reinforced the fact that even more intense pressure needs to be applied against the network.”
U.S. military officials said they did not try to play down the severity of the attack on the Salerno base. They said it is their long-standing policy to withhold information about wounded or injured troops. At Salerno, many of the service members listed as casualties went to the base clinic as a precaution to be tested for traumatic brain injury, the officials said.
“When you do look at the number of wounded . . . it looks like ‘oh my goodness,’ ” said a senior NATO official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the policy against discussing non-lethal casualties. “It’s not a coverup. It is what it is.”
The official said most of the 100 service members who suffered minor injuries returned to duty that same day.
The Defense Department did later identify a soldier who died three days after the attack as Pfc. Vincent J. Ellis, 22, a member of the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
U.S. officials said Saturday that an American contractor also later died of wounds suffered in the attack, but they declined to provide an identification.
U.S. officials said they were assessing security at Salerno in the aftermath of the truck bombing.
Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, said that at all coalition bases, from the headquarters in Kabul to the smallest combat outpost, “protection is taken very seriously.”
“When you do have an incident like this, you do after-action reviews, you assess the incident to see . . . what can you do better to improve,” he said. “We’re always doing that.”
Salerno is a relatively large base in the mountains near the Pakistani border, named after the town where Allied troops made amphibious landings during their 1943 invasion of the Italian mainland during World War II.
The Haqqanis have repeatedly tried to overrun the Salerno base in recent years, and it is a frequent target of rocket attacks. In August 2008, insurgents were beaten back during an assault on the camp’s perimeter that lasted two days. Two years later, about three dozen Haqqani fighters were killed during a similar attack on Salerno and a nearby installation, Forward Operating Base Chapman.
Chapman is a military base also used by the CIA. It was the target of a December 2009 suicide bombing by an al-Qaeda triple agent who killed seven CIA operatives, the deadliest attack against the agency in 26 years.
Whitlock reported from Washington. Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
Taliban praises India for resisting Afghan entanglement
By Sanjeev Miglani
KABUL (Reuters) - - India has done well to resist U.S. calls for greater involvement in Afghanistan, the Taliban said in a rare direct comment about one of the strongest opponents of the hardline Islamist group that was ousted from power in 2001.
The Taliban also said they won't let Afghanistan be used as a base against another country, addressing fears in New Delhi that Pakistan-based anti-India militants may become more emboldened if the Taliban return to power.
The Afghan Taliban have longstanding ties to Pakistan and striking a softer tone towards its arch rival India could be a sign of a more independent course.
Direct talks with the United States - which have since been suspended - and an agreement to open a Taliban office in Qatar to conduct formal peace talks have been seen as signs of a more assertive stance.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta this month encouraged India to take a more active role in Afghanistan as most foreign combat troops leave in 2014. The Taliban said Panetta had failed.
"He spent three days in India to transfer the heavy burden to their shoulders, to find an exit, and to flee from Afghanistan," the group said on its English website.
"Some reliable media sources said that the Indian authorities did not pay heed to (U.S.) demands and showed their reservations, because the Indians know or they should know that the Americans are grinding their own axe."
There had been no assurance for the Americans, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters on Sunday.
"It shows that India understands the facts," he said.
India is one of the biggest donors in Afghanistan, spending about $2 billion on projects ranging from the construction of highways to the building of the Afghan parliament. It has also won an iron ore concession in a $11 billion investment.
But New Delhi has avoided involvement in bolstering Afghan security, except for running courses for small groups of Afghan army officers at military institutions in India.
"No doubt that India is a significant country in the region, but is also worth mentioning that they have full information about Afghanistan because they know each other very well in the long history," the Taliban said.
"They are aware of the Afghan aspirations, creeds and love for freedom. It is totally illogical they should plunge their nation into a calamity just for the American pleasure."
India backed the Northern Alliance during the civil war and was frozen out of Afghanistan once the Taliban took over in 1996 until their ouster by U.S. forces. It has since developed close ties with Kabul, prompting Pakistani fears of encirclement.
Pakistan has strong traditional links with the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups. Islamabad denies that it uses them as proxies to gain leverage in Afghanistan ahead of any settlement to the war, or in case civil war breaks out after foreign troops leave.
Vikram Sood, a former chief of India's intelligence agency, said the Taliban statement held an implicit warning for India.
"It's more a gentle reminder asking India not to mess around in Afghanistan after the Americans leave," he told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Afghan local police force reaches 15,000: official
KABUL, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The strength of Afghan Local Police (ALP) has surpassed 15,000, the Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
"The strength of the Afghan Local Police at the moment is more than 15,000 and the ALP has been playing a leading role in providing security in 65 far-flanged districts and areas where the ALP has been deployed," spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi told reporters in a press briefing.
The NATO and U.S.-funded ALP or community police was established in August 2010 to protect villages and districts around the insurgency-hit country where Afghan army and police have limited presence.
The number of the ALP is expected to reach 30,000 in the future, he said.
Asked about the recent reports that some members of the ALP were involved in committing human rights abuses, he said "The Ministry of Interior has registered 20 cases and already suspended several members of ALP, who may have been involved in abuse and mistreatment of locals in parts of the country, and put them in custody over the past two years."
"Afghan Local Police represents the only legitimate security force programs authorized by presidential decree and administered by Ministry of Interior. Let me emphasize that Afghan Local Police activities will also help the security transition plan to be a successful process," he said.
The ANP (Afghan National Police), including civil order police and border police totals more than 140,000, according to officials.
Transition of security responsibilities from NATO-led forces to Afghan army and police began last July.
The Afghan forces and NATO troops have completed transition in the first two of five tranches of provinces and districts across the country where about half of the Afghan population now lives. Around 130,000-strong NATO and U.S.troops currently station in Afghanistan.
Under U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10,000 U.S. troops already pulled out from Afghanistan last year and another 23,000 will return home by September this year.
Feature: Jobless young Afghans find escape in Bollywood movies
By Abdul Haleem, Chen Xin
KABUL, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Attired in western dress and keenly looking at a billboard to choose his favorite film, Fazal Rahman said he is a fan to Indian movies.
"Indian movie is a movie of love, passion and joy. We have the right to enjoy life," Rahman, 17, said behind a cinema wall in the Afghan capital Kabul.
"I love Shah Rukh Khan's life style, hair style and dressing style. I love his role as hero in any film," the Afghan teen said, adding he has already changed his own hair and dressing style to imitate Shah Rukh Khan, a popular Bollywood star.
Dressed in jeans and T-shirt, the stylish Afghan teenage boy said the continuing war and instability have eroded the life of the nation and deprived everyone of the right to live in peace.
"We have grown in war and could not go to school, we hate the war. We are fed up with conflicts, bombings, suicide attacks and destruction, it is the time to give up war and enjoy the rest of our life," the boy said, looking exhausted yet ambitious.
He also was able to understand and even speak the Indian language, saying the love stories, beautiful scenes and melodies displayed on the silver-screen enables anyone to learn.
Unlike in other countries, people in Afghanistan have few entertainment places to go. Bars, discos, karaokes, and casinos are nowhere to find, to list just a few.
The few pastimes available to Afghans in the post-Taliban era are TV serials, movies offered in a handful of cinemas, listening to music, going to net caf and visiting coffee shops. All these were banned during Taliban regime that was toppled by the U.S.-led military campaign in late 2001.
"I like Indian dance and song very much and I come to cinema at least once a week to watch Indian movie," another youth Abdul Wahid said.
Wahid, a 20 something and a 11th grader in school, said he is already the bread earner of his family.
"Hard study at school in the morning and boring work in the afternoon to support my family have sandwiched me. To forget the pain, a rational way is to watch Indian movies in cinema," Wahid said in a low voice.
Indian movies are popular in Afghanistan as the cable TVs and local television channels usually air Indian films and serials.
The pictures of Hollywood stars were also pasted on the billboard but few have shown interest, saying it is difficult to know English language.
Not far from the cinema Pamir, hundreds of jobless people have been waiting from dawn to dusk for jobs.
"Whenever I am tired, I visit cinema to forget my pains," said Abdul Manan, a 38-year-old a daily wager while sitting by the road leading to cinema Pamir.
Drones, computers new weapons of US shadow wars
Associated Press June 16, 2012
After a decade of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American way of war is evolving toward less brawn, more guile.
Drone aircraft spy on and attack terrorists with no pilot in harm's way. Small teams of special operations troops quietly train and advise foreign forces. Viruses sent from computers to foreign networks strike silently, with no American fingerprint.
It's war in the shadows, with the U.S. public largely in the dark.
In Pakistan, armed drones, not U.S. ground troops or B-52 bombers, are hunting down al-Qaida terrorists, and a CIA-run raid of Osama bin Laden's hide-out was executed by a stealthy team of Navy SEALs.
In Yemen, drones and several dozen U.S. military advisers are trying to help the government tip the balance against an al-Qaida offshoot that harbors hopes of one day attacking the U.S. homeland.
In Somalia, the Horn of Africa country that has not had a fully functioning government since 1991, President Barack Obama secretly has authorized two drone strikes and two commando raids against terrorists.
In Iran, surveillance drones have kept an eye on nuclear activities while a computer attack reportedly has infected its nuclear enrichment facilities with a virus, possibly delaying the day when the U.S. or Israel might feel compelled to drop real bombs on Iran and risk a wider war in the Middle East.
The high-tech warfare allows Obama to target what the administration sees as the greatest threats to U.S. security, without the cost and liabilities of sending a swarm of ground troops to capture territory; some of them almost certainly would come home maimed or dead.
But it also raises questions about accountability and the implications for international norms regarding the use of force outside of traditional armed conflict. The White House took an incremental step Friday toward greater openness about the basic dimensions of its shadowy wars by telling Congress for the first time that the U.S. military has been launching lethal attacks on terrorist targets in Somalia and Yemen. It did not mention drones, and its admission did not apply to CIA operations.
"Congressional oversight of these operations appears to be cursory and insufficient," said Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy issues for the Federation of American Scientists, a private group.
"It is Congress' responsibility to declare war under the Constitution, but instead it appears to have adopted a largely passive role while the executive takes the initiative in war fighting," Aftergood said in an interview.
That's partly because lawmakers relinquished their authority by passing a law just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that essentially granted the White House open-ended authority for armed action against al-Qaida.
Secret wars are not new.
For decades, the CIA has carried out covert operations abroad at the president's direction and with congressional notice. It armed the mujahedeen in Afghanistan who fought Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, for example. In recent years the U.S. military's secretive commando units have operated more widely, even in countries where the U.S. is not at war, and that's blurred the lines between the intelligence and military spheres.
In this shroud of secrecy, leaks to the news media of classified details about certain covert operations have led to charges that the White House orchestrated the revelations to bolster Obama's national security credentials and thereby improve his re-election chances. The White House has denied the accusations.
The leaks exposed details of U.S. computer virus attacks on Iran's nuclear program, the foiling of an al-Qaida bomb plot targeting U.S. aircraft, and other secret operations.
Two U.S. attorneys are heading separate FBI investigations into leaks of national security information, and Congress is conducting its own probe.
It's not just the news media that has pressed the administration for information about its shadowy wars.
Some in Congress, particularly those lawmakers most skeptical of the need for U.S. foreign interventions, are objecting to the administration's drone wars. They are demanding a fuller explanation of how, for example, drone strikes are authorized and executed in cases in which the identity of the targeted terrorist is not confirmed.
"Our drone campaigns already have virtually no transparency, ccountability or oversight," Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic congressman, and 25 other mostly anti-war members of Congress wrote Obama on Tuesday.
A few dozen lawmakers are briefed on the CIA's covert action and clandestine military activity, and some may ask to review drone strike video and be granted access to after-action reports on strikes and other clandestine actions. But until two months ago, the administration had not formally confirmed in public its use of armed drones.
In an April speech in Washington, Obama's counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, acknowledged that despite presidential assurances of a judicious use of force against terrorists, some still question the legality of drone strikes.
"So let me say it as simply as I can: Yes, in full accordance with the law -- and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives -- the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones," he said.
President George W. Bush authorized drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere, but Obama has vastly increased the numbers.
According to Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal, an online publication that tracks U.S. counterterrorism operations, the U.S. under Obama has carried out an estimated 254 drone strikes in Pakistan alone. That compares with 47 strikes during the Bush administration.
In at least one case the target was an American. Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida leader, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September.
According to a White House list released late last year, U.S. counterterrorism operations have removed more than 30 terrorist leaders around the globe. They include al-Qaida in East Africa "planner" Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was killed in a helicopte strike in Somalia.
The drone campaign is highly unpopular overseas.
A Pew Research Center survey on the U.S. image abroad found that in 17 of 21 countries surveyed, more than half of the people disapproved of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders in such places as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. In the U.S., 62 percent approved of the drone campaign, making American public opinion the clear exception. The U.S. use of cyberweapons, like viruses that sabotage computer networks or other high-tech tools that can invade computers and steal data, is even more closely shielded by official secrecy and, arguably, less well understood.
John McCain, a Republican senator, has been a leading critic of the administration's handling of information about using computers as a tool of war.
"I think that cyberattacks are one of the greatest threats that we face," McCain said in a recent interview, "and we have a very divided and not very well-informed Congress addressing it."
Pakistani militant commander refuses polio vaccine teams over drone attacks
Associated Press June 16, 2012
A militant commander in northwest Pakistan warned polio vaccination teams on Saturday to stay away from the territory he controls near the Afghan border, saying he would not allow immunizations until U.S. drone attacks in the country are stopped.
The statement by Hafiz Gul Bahadur is an obstacle to efforts to beat polio on Pakistan, one of only three nations where the virus is endemic.
The threat came in a pamphlet distributed Saturday in markets in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region. "We don't want benefits from well-wishers who spend billions to save children from polio, which can affect one or two out of hundreds of thousands, while on the other hand the same well-wisher (America) with the help of its slave (Pakistan's government) kills hundreds of innocent tribesmen including old women and children by unleashing numerous drone attacks," it said.
The pamphlet also said spies could enter the region under the cover of vaccination teams to get information for the United States about "holy warriors." It said teams who disregarded his warning would be responsible for any consequences.
The polio virus, which usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions, attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze.
Bahadur is believed to have a truce with the Pakistani army, while he focuses on attacks against U.S. and NATO troops across the Afghan border. Some of his fighters have recently been killed in the U.S. drone attacks, which Pakistan's government also opposes.
Washington has refused to stop the strikes, which it holds are an essential weapon against militants. It is widely believed in Pakistan that most of the dead are civilians, but villagers living near the sites of a number of major strikes told the The Associated Press in a report published earlier this year that a significant majority of those killed were combatants.
The region's top health official Mohammed Sadiq said that teams had completed an initial round of anti-polio vaccinations, but would not start another round of the campaign that was scheduled to begin from June 20. He said 162,000 children were to be immunized.
Sadiq said they had informed Pakistani authorities and the World Health Organization about the warning.
Afghan military increases presence in southwest Afghanistan
By Staff Sgt. Brian Buckwalter Stars and Stripes - Sun Jun 17, 5:27 pm ET
DELARAM, Afghanistan – Afghan military leaders are sending more of their soldiers to southwest Afghanistan to bolster their presence in a region known as a hotbed for insurgent activity.
Afghan National Army Brig. Gen. Abdul Wasea, commanding general, 2nd Brigade, 215th Corps, welcomed nearly 500 soldiers from 2nd Kandak, 1st Brigade, 207th Corps, to his area of operations, June 16. The soldiers recently traveled 200 miles from Herat to Delaram to train before heading to Washir district, 30 miles to the east of Delaram.
“I appreciate your service, and I welcome your arrival,” Gen. Wasea, said to the formation in Pashto. He praised the unit for being professional and well-trained. The unit will be relieving another kandak already in the area.
“The (training) that our soldiers have, they are ready to fight against the enemy and serve and defend their country and bring peace and stability for this country,” said Lt. Col. Mohammed Anwar, commander of the incoming kandak. “We want to fight against those enemies of peace that the people don’t like.”
During his speech, Gen. Wasea asked the soldiers to be mindful of how they treat civilians, saying that the previous ANA unit in Washir had a good relationship with the locals.
“Don’t ruin the progress and achievements made by the soldiers that went before you,” he said. “If we do, it will ruin the reputation of our unit, brigade and up to the corps.”
In a counter-insurgency, Gen. Wasea said the ANA can lean upon the cooperation of civilians to point out buried improvised explosive devices and where the enemy is hiding.
He added that the cooperation of Afghan police forces is also critical. Although their training may differ, he said, their efforts have had positive effects in the region.
“They are fighting in the same trench as us,” Gen. Wasea said. “Teach them and train them.”
These words come as coalition forces – the ANA’s teachers and trainers – shift their focus.
For several years, the Marine Corps has fought alongside their Afghan counterparts while training them to take control of the security situation. Marines and other coalition forces are now stepping back into an advising role. General Wasea said over the past three months, 70 percent of all the ANA’s operations in the region were conducted independently from coalition forces.
Marine General John R. Allen, commander, International Security Assistance Force, recently visited the Marines and ANA at Forward Operating Base Delaram II to see this transition in action.
“Here is where it is working well, and I wanted to come and see it,” he said during his June 14 visit. Even with the transition he promised that coalition forces “will be with you for a long time.”
General Wasea noted the commitment of the Marines and coalition forces.
“They have sacrificed and we have to appreciate that,” he said. But he realizes, like most Afghans, outside help can’t and won’t last forever.
“We inherited (this country) from our ancestors and we will return it to our children. This is our responsibility."
Russia Worried Over Afghanistan Becoming a Terrorist Haven
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 16 June 2012
Russia is worried that Afghanistan will once again become a safe haven for Taliban and terrorists, which will be a threat to Russian territory as well.
In a trip to northern Balkh province on Saturday, Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, Andrey Avetisyan, said that terrorism and drug trafficking have remained a major challenge in the region and to fight this challenge, a strong army is necessary for Afghanistan.
Mr Avetisyan also showed support on presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan and said that these forces should fight alongside the Afghan forces to remove this challenge from the region.
"We are concerned that once again Afghanistan turns into a safe haven for international terrorism, which is a direct threat to Russian Federation," Mr Avetisyan added.
He also urged the international community particularly the regional countries to fight drug trafficking and eradicate opium cultivated farms.
"The only way to tackle the problem of drug production and trafficking is a joint combat. A joint combat by Afghanistan, Russia and other countries in the world which have major losses from drug cultivation and trafficking," he added.
Provincial governor of Balkh province, Atta Mohammad Noor, once again supported the presence of foreign troops but strongly opposed the existence of foreign military bases in Afghan territory.
He also urged the international community to help Afghanistan in education, training of both ground and air defence forces and as well as in technology.
"We don't want to rely on others, we need to stand on our own feet, the international community can help us in education, training of our military forces, equipping our air defence forces and in terms of technology."
At a recent conference held in Kabul, the ‘Art of Asia' countries pledged to cooperate with Afghanistan to fight drug trafficking as well as in investment and peace building.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Joshua Partlow and Craig Whitlock The Washington Post Sunday, June 17, 2012
KABUL - A June 1 attack on a U.S. outpost near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was much worse than originally disclosed by the military as insurgents pounded the base with a truck bomb, killing two Americans and seriously wounding about three dozen troops, officials acknowledged Saturday.
The blast flattened the dining hall and post exchange at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province, a frequent target of insurgents in the past. Five Afghan civilians were killed and more than 100 other U.S. troops were treated for minor injuries. U.S. officials estimated that the truck was carrying 1,500 pounds of explosives.
U.S. and Afghan military officials said they killed 14 insurgents, many of whom were wearing suicide vests.
The scale of the attack and the extent of the U.S. casualties contrast with the official description presented by coalition forces on the day of the assault. In a clipped, one-paragraph news release on June 1, the military said U.S. and Afghan forces “successfully repelled the attack and secured the base.”
The statement did not report any casualties, nor that there was a truck bomb.
“It was a very huge explosion,” said Daoud Khan Makeen, head of the provincial council in Khost. He said that houses as far as two miles away were damaged in the blast and that 20 Afghans were wounded, many of them by collapsed buildings.
Although the public was kept in the dark about the details, Obama administration officials seized on the incident afterward as the latest example of how Pakistan is allowing insurgents to use its territory to plan attacks, causing another international row between Washington and Islamabad.
U.S. officials also blamed Pakistan for not taking stronger action against the Haqqani network, which they said was responsible for organizing and carrying out the attack. The Haqqani group is a major faction in the Taliban-led insurgency and takes refuge in camps on the Pakistani side of the border.
Citing the attack on Salerno and pent-up frustration over years of similar assaults, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta harshly criticized Pakistan for failing to crack down on the Haqqanis. “We are reaching the limits of our patience,” he said June 7 while in Kabul, a day after he slammed Pakistan as an untrustworthy partner during a visit to its archenemy, India.
“Secretary Panetta — along with other senior U.S. officials — has had serious long-standing concerns about the Haqqanis,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said. “Of course he was disturbed by this recent attack, which reinforced the fact that even more intense pressure needs to be applied against the network.”
U.S. military officials said they did not try to play down the severity of the attack on the Salerno base. They said it is their long-standing policy to withhold information about wounded or injured troops. At Salerno, many of the service members listed as casualties went to the base clinic as a precaution to be tested for traumatic brain injury, the officials said.
“When you do look at the number of wounded . . . it looks like ‘oh my goodness,’ ” said a senior NATO official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the policy against discussing non-lethal casualties. “It’s not a coverup. It is what it is.”
The official said most of the 100 service members who suffered minor injuries returned to duty that same day.
The Defense Department did later identify a soldier who died three days after the attack as Pfc. Vincent J. Ellis, 22, a member of the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
U.S. officials said Saturday that an American contractor also later died of wounds suffered in the attack, but they declined to provide an identification.
U.S. officials said they were assessing security at Salerno in the aftermath of the truck bombing.
Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, said that at all coalition bases, from the headquarters in Kabul to the smallest combat outpost, “protection is taken very seriously.”
“When you do have an incident like this, you do after-action reviews, you assess the incident to see . . . what can you do better to improve,” he said. “We’re always doing that.”
Salerno is a relatively large base in the mountains near the Pakistani border, named after the town where Allied troops made amphibious landings during their 1943 invasion of the Italian mainland during World War II.
The Haqqanis have repeatedly tried to overrun the Salerno base in recent years, and it is a frequent target of rocket attacks. In August 2008, insurgents were beaten back during an assault on the camp’s perimeter that lasted two days. Two years later, about three dozen Haqqani fighters were killed during a similar attack on Salerno and a nearby installation, Forward Operating Base Chapman.
Chapman is a military base also used by the CIA. It was the target of a December 2009 suicide bombing by an al-Qaeda triple agent who killed seven CIA operatives, the deadliest attack against the agency in 26 years.
Whitlock reported from Washington. Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
Taliban praises India for resisting Afghan entanglement
By Sanjeev Miglani
KABUL (Reuters) - - India has done well to resist U.S. calls for greater involvement in Afghanistan, the Taliban said in a rare direct comment about one of the strongest opponents of the hardline Islamist group that was ousted from power in 2001.
The Taliban also said they won't let Afghanistan be used as a base against another country, addressing fears in New Delhi that Pakistan-based anti-India militants may become more emboldened if the Taliban return to power.
The Afghan Taliban have longstanding ties to Pakistan and striking a softer tone towards its arch rival India could be a sign of a more independent course.
Direct talks with the United States - which have since been suspended - and an agreement to open a Taliban office in Qatar to conduct formal peace talks have been seen as signs of a more assertive stance.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta this month encouraged India to take a more active role in Afghanistan as most foreign combat troops leave in 2014. The Taliban said Panetta had failed.
"He spent three days in India to transfer the heavy burden to their shoulders, to find an exit, and to flee from Afghanistan," the group said on its English website.
"Some reliable media sources said that the Indian authorities did not pay heed to (U.S.) demands and showed their reservations, because the Indians know or they should know that the Americans are grinding their own axe."
There had been no assurance for the Americans, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters on Sunday.
"It shows that India understands the facts," he said.
India is one of the biggest donors in Afghanistan, spending about $2 billion on projects ranging from the construction of highways to the building of the Afghan parliament. It has also won an iron ore concession in a $11 billion investment.
But New Delhi has avoided involvement in bolstering Afghan security, except for running courses for small groups of Afghan army officers at military institutions in India.
"No doubt that India is a significant country in the region, but is also worth mentioning that they have full information about Afghanistan because they know each other very well in the long history," the Taliban said.
"They are aware of the Afghan aspirations, creeds and love for freedom. It is totally illogical they should plunge their nation into a calamity just for the American pleasure."
India backed the Northern Alliance during the civil war and was frozen out of Afghanistan once the Taliban took over in 1996 until their ouster by U.S. forces. It has since developed close ties with Kabul, prompting Pakistani fears of encirclement.
Pakistan has strong traditional links with the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups. Islamabad denies that it uses them as proxies to gain leverage in Afghanistan ahead of any settlement to the war, or in case civil war breaks out after foreign troops leave.
Vikram Sood, a former chief of India's intelligence agency, said the Taliban statement held an implicit warning for India.
"It's more a gentle reminder asking India not to mess around in Afghanistan after the Americans leave," he told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Afghan local police force reaches 15,000: official
KABUL, June 17 (Xinhua) -- The strength of Afghan Local Police (ALP) has surpassed 15,000, the Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
"The strength of the Afghan Local Police at the moment is more than 15,000 and the ALP has been playing a leading role in providing security in 65 far-flanged districts and areas where the ALP has been deployed," spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi told reporters in a press briefing.
The NATO and U.S.-funded ALP or community police was established in August 2010 to protect villages and districts around the insurgency-hit country where Afghan army and police have limited presence.
The number of the ALP is expected to reach 30,000 in the future, he said.
Asked about the recent reports that some members of the ALP were involved in committing human rights abuses, he said "The Ministry of Interior has registered 20 cases and already suspended several members of ALP, who may have been involved in abuse and mistreatment of locals in parts of the country, and put them in custody over the past two years."
"Afghan Local Police represents the only legitimate security force programs authorized by presidential decree and administered by Ministry of Interior. Let me emphasize that Afghan Local Police activities will also help the security transition plan to be a successful process," he said.
The ANP (Afghan National Police), including civil order police and border police totals more than 140,000, according to officials.
Transition of security responsibilities from NATO-led forces to Afghan army and police began last July.
The Afghan forces and NATO troops have completed transition in the first two of five tranches of provinces and districts across the country where about half of the Afghan population now lives. Around 130,000-strong NATO and U.S.troops currently station in Afghanistan.
Under U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 10,000 U.S. troops already pulled out from Afghanistan last year and another 23,000 will return home by September this year.
Feature: Jobless young Afghans find escape in Bollywood movies
By Abdul Haleem, Chen Xin
KABUL, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Attired in western dress and keenly looking at a billboard to choose his favorite film, Fazal Rahman said he is a fan to Indian movies.
"Indian movie is a movie of love, passion and joy. We have the right to enjoy life," Rahman, 17, said behind a cinema wall in the Afghan capital Kabul.
"I love Shah Rukh Khan's life style, hair style and dressing style. I love his role as hero in any film," the Afghan teen said, adding he has already changed his own hair and dressing style to imitate Shah Rukh Khan, a popular Bollywood star.
Dressed in jeans and T-shirt, the stylish Afghan teenage boy said the continuing war and instability have eroded the life of the nation and deprived everyone of the right to live in peace.
"We have grown in war and could not go to school, we hate the war. We are fed up with conflicts, bombings, suicide attacks and destruction, it is the time to give up war and enjoy the rest of our life," the boy said, looking exhausted yet ambitious.
He also was able to understand and even speak the Indian language, saying the love stories, beautiful scenes and melodies displayed on the silver-screen enables anyone to learn.
Unlike in other countries, people in Afghanistan have few entertainment places to go. Bars, discos, karaokes, and casinos are nowhere to find, to list just a few.
The few pastimes available to Afghans in the post-Taliban era are TV serials, movies offered in a handful of cinemas, listening to music, going to net caf and visiting coffee shops. All these were banned during Taliban regime that was toppled by the U.S.-led military campaign in late 2001.
"I like Indian dance and song very much and I come to cinema at least once a week to watch Indian movie," another youth Abdul Wahid said.
Wahid, a 20 something and a 11th grader in school, said he is already the bread earner of his family.
"Hard study at school in the morning and boring work in the afternoon to support my family have sandwiched me. To forget the pain, a rational way is to watch Indian movies in cinema," Wahid said in a low voice.
Indian movies are popular in Afghanistan as the cable TVs and local television channels usually air Indian films and serials.
The pictures of Hollywood stars were also pasted on the billboard but few have shown interest, saying it is difficult to know English language.
Not far from the cinema Pamir, hundreds of jobless people have been waiting from dawn to dusk for jobs.
"Whenever I am tired, I visit cinema to forget my pains," said Abdul Manan, a 38-year-old a daily wager while sitting by the road leading to cinema Pamir.
Drones, computers new weapons of US shadow wars
Associated Press June 16, 2012
After a decade of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American way of war is evolving toward less brawn, more guile.
Drone aircraft spy on and attack terrorists with no pilot in harm's way. Small teams of special operations troops quietly train and advise foreign forces. Viruses sent from computers to foreign networks strike silently, with no American fingerprint.
It's war in the shadows, with the U.S. public largely in the dark.
In Pakistan, armed drones, not U.S. ground troops or B-52 bombers, are hunting down al-Qaida terrorists, and a CIA-run raid of Osama bin Laden's hide-out was executed by a stealthy team of Navy SEALs.
In Yemen, drones and several dozen U.S. military advisers are trying to help the government tip the balance against an al-Qaida offshoot that harbors hopes of one day attacking the U.S. homeland.
In Somalia, the Horn of Africa country that has not had a fully functioning government since 1991, President Barack Obama secretly has authorized two drone strikes and two commando raids against terrorists.
In Iran, surveillance drones have kept an eye on nuclear activities while a computer attack reportedly has infected its nuclear enrichment facilities with a virus, possibly delaying the day when the U.S. or Israel might feel compelled to drop real bombs on Iran and risk a wider war in the Middle East.
The high-tech warfare allows Obama to target what the administration sees as the greatest threats to U.S. security, without the cost and liabilities of sending a swarm of ground troops to capture territory; some of them almost certainly would come home maimed or dead.
But it also raises questions about accountability and the implications for international norms regarding the use of force outside of traditional armed conflict. The White House took an incremental step Friday toward greater openness about the basic dimensions of its shadowy wars by telling Congress for the first time that the U.S. military has been launching lethal attacks on terrorist targets in Somalia and Yemen. It did not mention drones, and its admission did not apply to CIA operations.
"Congressional oversight of these operations appears to be cursory and insufficient," said Steven Aftergood, an expert on government secrecy issues for the Federation of American Scientists, a private group.
"It is Congress' responsibility to declare war under the Constitution, but instead it appears to have adopted a largely passive role while the executive takes the initiative in war fighting," Aftergood said in an interview.
That's partly because lawmakers relinquished their authority by passing a law just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that essentially granted the White House open-ended authority for armed action against al-Qaida.
Secret wars are not new.
For decades, the CIA has carried out covert operations abroad at the president's direction and with congressional notice. It armed the mujahedeen in Afghanistan who fought Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, for example. In recent years the U.S. military's secretive commando units have operated more widely, even in countries where the U.S. is not at war, and that's blurred the lines between the intelligence and military spheres.
In this shroud of secrecy, leaks to the news media of classified details about certain covert operations have led to charges that the White House orchestrated the revelations to bolster Obama's national security credentials and thereby improve his re-election chances. The White House has denied the accusations.
The leaks exposed details of U.S. computer virus attacks on Iran's nuclear program, the foiling of an al-Qaida bomb plot targeting U.S. aircraft, and other secret operations.
Two U.S. attorneys are heading separate FBI investigations into leaks of national security information, and Congress is conducting its own probe.
It's not just the news media that has pressed the administration for information about its shadowy wars.
Some in Congress, particularly those lawmakers most skeptical of the need for U.S. foreign interventions, are objecting to the administration's drone wars. They are demanding a fuller explanation of how, for example, drone strikes are authorized and executed in cases in which the identity of the targeted terrorist is not confirmed.
"Our drone campaigns already have virtually no transparency, ccountability or oversight," Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic congressman, and 25 other mostly anti-war members of Congress wrote Obama on Tuesday.
A few dozen lawmakers are briefed on the CIA's covert action and clandestine military activity, and some may ask to review drone strike video and be granted access to after-action reports on strikes and other clandestine actions. But until two months ago, the administration had not formally confirmed in public its use of armed drones.
In an April speech in Washington, Obama's counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, acknowledged that despite presidential assurances of a judicious use of force against terrorists, some still question the legality of drone strikes.
"So let me say it as simply as I can: Yes, in full accordance with the law -- and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives -- the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones," he said.
President George W. Bush authorized drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere, but Obama has vastly increased the numbers.
According to Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal, an online publication that tracks U.S. counterterrorism operations, the U.S. under Obama has carried out an estimated 254 drone strikes in Pakistan alone. That compares with 47 strikes during the Bush administration.
In at least one case the target was an American. Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida leader, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September.
According to a White House list released late last year, U.S. counterterrorism operations have removed more than 30 terrorist leaders around the globe. They include al-Qaida in East Africa "planner" Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was killed in a helicopte strike in Somalia.
The drone campaign is highly unpopular overseas.
A Pew Research Center survey on the U.S. image abroad found that in 17 of 21 countries surveyed, more than half of the people disapproved of U.S. drone attacks targeting extremist leaders in such places as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. In the U.S., 62 percent approved of the drone campaign, making American public opinion the clear exception. The U.S. use of cyberweapons, like viruses that sabotage computer networks or other high-tech tools that can invade computers and steal data, is even more closely shielded by official secrecy and, arguably, less well understood.
John McCain, a Republican senator, has been a leading critic of the administration's handling of information about using computers as a tool of war.
"I think that cyberattacks are one of the greatest threats that we face," McCain said in a recent interview, "and we have a very divided and not very well-informed Congress addressing it."
Pakistani militant commander refuses polio vaccine teams over drone attacks
Associated Press June 16, 2012
A militant commander in northwest Pakistan warned polio vaccination teams on Saturday to stay away from the territory he controls near the Afghan border, saying he would not allow immunizations until U.S. drone attacks in the country are stopped.
The statement by Hafiz Gul Bahadur is an obstacle to efforts to beat polio on Pakistan, one of only three nations where the virus is endemic.
The threat came in a pamphlet distributed Saturday in markets in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region. "We don't want benefits from well-wishers who spend billions to save children from polio, which can affect one or two out of hundreds of thousands, while on the other hand the same well-wisher (America) with the help of its slave (Pakistan's government) kills hundreds of innocent tribesmen including old women and children by unleashing numerous drone attacks," it said.
The pamphlet also said spies could enter the region under the cover of vaccination teams to get information for the United States about "holy warriors." It said teams who disregarded his warning would be responsible for any consequences.
The polio virus, which usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions, attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze.
Bahadur is believed to have a truce with the Pakistani army, while he focuses on attacks against U.S. and NATO troops across the Afghan border. Some of his fighters have recently been killed in the U.S. drone attacks, which Pakistan's government also opposes.
Washington has refused to stop the strikes, which it holds are an essential weapon against militants. It is widely believed in Pakistan that most of the dead are civilians, but villagers living near the sites of a number of major strikes told the The Associated Press in a report published earlier this year that a significant majority of those killed were combatants.
The region's top health official Mohammed Sadiq said that teams had completed an initial round of anti-polio vaccinations, but would not start another round of the campaign that was scheduled to begin from June 20. He said 162,000 children were to be immunized.
Sadiq said they had informed Pakistani authorities and the World Health Organization about the warning.
Afghan military increases presence in southwest Afghanistan
By Staff Sgt. Brian Buckwalter Stars and Stripes - Sun Jun 17, 5:27 pm ET
DELARAM, Afghanistan – Afghan military leaders are sending more of their soldiers to southwest Afghanistan to bolster their presence in a region known as a hotbed for insurgent activity.
Afghan National Army Brig. Gen. Abdul Wasea, commanding general, 2nd Brigade, 215th Corps, welcomed nearly 500 soldiers from 2nd Kandak, 1st Brigade, 207th Corps, to his area of operations, June 16. The soldiers recently traveled 200 miles from Herat to Delaram to train before heading to Washir district, 30 miles to the east of Delaram.
“I appreciate your service, and I welcome your arrival,” Gen. Wasea, said to the formation in Pashto. He praised the unit for being professional and well-trained. The unit will be relieving another kandak already in the area.
“The (training) that our soldiers have, they are ready to fight against the enemy and serve and defend their country and bring peace and stability for this country,” said Lt. Col. Mohammed Anwar, commander of the incoming kandak. “We want to fight against those enemies of peace that the people don’t like.”
During his speech, Gen. Wasea asked the soldiers to be mindful of how they treat civilians, saying that the previous ANA unit in Washir had a good relationship with the locals.
“Don’t ruin the progress and achievements made by the soldiers that went before you,” he said. “If we do, it will ruin the reputation of our unit, brigade and up to the corps.”
In a counter-insurgency, Gen. Wasea said the ANA can lean upon the cooperation of civilians to point out buried improvised explosive devices and where the enemy is hiding.
He added that the cooperation of Afghan police forces is also critical. Although their training may differ, he said, their efforts have had positive effects in the region.
“They are fighting in the same trench as us,” Gen. Wasea said. “Teach them and train them.”
These words come as coalition forces – the ANA’s teachers and trainers – shift their focus.
For several years, the Marine Corps has fought alongside their Afghan counterparts while training them to take control of the security situation. Marines and other coalition forces are now stepping back into an advising role. General Wasea said over the past three months, 70 percent of all the ANA’s operations in the region were conducted independently from coalition forces.
Marine General John R. Allen, commander, International Security Assistance Force, recently visited the Marines and ANA at Forward Operating Base Delaram II to see this transition in action.
“Here is where it is working well, and I wanted to come and see it,” he said during his June 14 visit. Even with the transition he promised that coalition forces “will be with you for a long time.”
General Wasea noted the commitment of the Marines and coalition forces.
“They have sacrificed and we have to appreciate that,” he said. But he realizes, like most Afghans, outside help can’t and won’t last forever.
“We inherited (this country) from our ancestors and we will return it to our children. This is our responsibility."
Russia Worried Over Afghanistan Becoming a Terrorist Haven
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 16 June 2012
Russia is worried that Afghanistan will once again become a safe haven for Taliban and terrorists, which will be a threat to Russian territory as well.
In a trip to northern Balkh province on Saturday, Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, Andrey Avetisyan, said that terrorism and drug trafficking have remained a major challenge in the region and to fight this challenge, a strong army is necessary for Afghanistan.
Mr Avetisyan also showed support on presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan and said that these forces should fight alongside the Afghan forces to remove this challenge from the region.
"We are concerned that once again Afghanistan turns into a safe haven for international terrorism, which is a direct threat to Russian Federation," Mr Avetisyan added.
He also urged the international community particularly the regional countries to fight drug trafficking and eradicate opium cultivated farms.
"The only way to tackle the problem of drug production and trafficking is a joint combat. A joint combat by Afghanistan, Russia and other countries in the world which have major losses from drug cultivation and trafficking," he added.
Provincial governor of Balkh province, Atta Mohammad Noor, once again supported the presence of foreign troops but strongly opposed the existence of foreign military bases in Afghan territory.
He also urged the international community to help Afghanistan in education, training of both ground and air defence forces and as well as in technology.
"We don't want to rely on others, we need to stand on our own feet, the international community can help us in education, training of our military forces, equipping our air defence forces and in terms of technology."
At a recent conference held in Kabul, the ‘Art of Asia' countries pledged to cooperate with Afghanistan to fight drug trafficking as well as in investment and peace building.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com