Extra US troops due near Afghan border with Pakistan

A brigade of 3,500-4,000 extra US troops due in Afghanistan in January will be deployed in the east amid efforts to stop infiltration of militants from Pakistan, the US military said Sunday. The brigade has been approved as part of requested US troop reinforcements for Afghanistan's fight against extremists that could amount to about 20,000 personnel, US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told reporters in Kabul. "The first brigade that is coming will go into the (NATO-led) RC-East (Regional Command East) and they are going to move into areas that are currently not covered," Julian said. The area includes about a dozen provinces, many of which are on the border with Pakistan where Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other militants are said to have training camps and safe havens.

Afghan mine blast kills French soldier

A French soldier was killed and another seriously wounded Saturday in Afghanistan when a mine exploded some 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Kabul, an armed forces spokesman said in Paris. "The explosion happened mid-morning, near the Darulaman camp south of Kabul during a reconnaissance on foot," naval captain Christophe Prazuck told a foreign news agency. Prazuck said the two soldiers were demining specialists making their way towards a firing range. The wounded man was evacuated by helicopter to a nearby military hospital. "He was operated on and his life is not in danger," he added.

No Pak-US deal over tribal area air raids

ISLAMABAD, : US Ambassador in Islamabad N.W. Patterson has denied any deal between Islamabad and Washington about air strikes in the tribal areas.

The US envoy refuted a report published in an American newspaper.

The envoy refused to reply a question about the causes of US air strikes in Pakistan’s tribal region.

Karzai links Mulla Omar’s security with peace talks

KABUL, : Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday he would guarantee security for Taliban leader Mullah Omar if he ever wanted to negotiate and said Western allies should remove him or leave if they disagreed with that.

With the Taliban insurgency spreading seven years after the hardliner Islamists were forced from power, the possibility of talks with more moderate Taliban leaders is increasingly being considered, both in Afghanistan and among its allies.

The Afghan government said it is willing to talk to anyone who recognizes the constitution.

A tentative first step towards talks was taken in September when a group of pro-government Afghan officials and former Taliban officials met in Saudi Arabia for discussions on how to end the conflict.

But the Taliban rejected any suggestion of talks as long as foreign troops remain.

Karzai told a news conference he would guarantee the safety of notorious Taliban leader Mullah Omar, if he ever wanted to talk peace.

“If I hear from him that he is willing to come to Afghanistan or to negotiate for peace … I, as the president of Afghanistan, will go to any length providing protection,” Karzai said.

“If I say I want protection for Mullah Omar, the international community has two choices: remove me or leave if they disagree,” he said.

Taliban vows to win the war of Afghanistan

KABUL, : The Taliban’s senior spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has called on all foreign forces in Afghanistan to leave the country or be ready for defeat.

In a rare radio interview with the BBC by telephone from a secret location in the region, , Mujahid derided US President-elect Barack Obama for his call of a troops surge.

Fielding questions from BBC World Service listeners, he said Mr. Obama’s plans to deploy more troops would not defeat the valiant Afghans and Taliban would succeed in forcing the occupation forces to leave the country.

Mujahid answered listeners for almost an hour, and took follow-up questions from the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner.

He said the Taliban now controlled more than half of Afghanistan, and were running those areas in a more tolerant fashion than in previous years.

Mujahid told the BBC that the Taliban had stopped beheadings and were educating girls in areas under their control. He denied they were behind this week’s acid attack on schoolgirls in Kandahar.

The spokesman denied his movement financed itself from the drugs trade, a statement our correspondent says is unlikely to be taken seriously in Western capitals.

He criticized the US for attacking Afghanistan in 2001, and said there was no proof that Osama Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Al-Qaeda, he said, had been brought to Afghanistan by the Americans, not by the Taliban.

He said he had no idea where Osama Bin Laden was but did confirm that the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar - who has not been seen since 2001 - was hiding “in a secure place”.

Convoy attack kills US soldier

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. military convoy passing through a crowded livestock market in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least eight civilians and an American soldier and wounding 74 people, Afghan officials said.

The American patrol was hit in the Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province, said Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, a U.S. military spokesman. The convoy was about 90 miles east of Kabul on the main road linking the capital to the Pakistan border at Torkham.

Hours after the attack, the charred and twisted remains of cars still smoldered on the tree-lined street.

No one took responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of those conducted by Taliban militants, who regularly use suicide attackers and car bombs.

Stop suicide attacks in afghanistan is difficult

Ahmadi also offered a seemingly contradictory defence of an increased spate of suicide attacks across Afghanistan, saying the group never intended to target civilians.

"Our target is not to kill the civilian people. We are fighting for the freedom of Afghanistan, and until we … get the freedom of Afghanistan, we will fight," Ahmadi said.

"Taliban are brave and we are just looking where to attack on NATO forces or American forces or Canadians or the Afghan people who are working for the internationals," he said.

His comments came on the day eight civilians and a coalition soldier were killed following a suicide car attack on a U.S. military convoy in eastern Afghanistan. Three civilians, including one child, were killed in another suicide attack in Kandahar on Wednesday. The Taliban claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack. No group has yet said its responsible for the Thursday attack.

Canada's top soldier in Afghanistan, Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, has said the Taliban have shifted away from directly engaging NATO and Afghan troops in favour of higher-profile suicide and improvised explosive device attacks.

Meanwhile, Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, Ron Hoffman, said in a Wednesday interview with CBC-TV's Politics that the increasing attacks were desperate acts of rebellion against progress.

Taliban will never talk to the west

The Taliban will never enter into peace negotiations with any Afghan or Western authorities while foreign forces still remain in Afghanistan, and will continue to fight for the country's "freedom," a spokesman told CBC's As It Happens on Thursday.

Speaking on the telephone through an interpreter to host Carol Off from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said peace talks would mean "we are playing with the future of the nation and it will be not good for the nation."

"We will never talk to anyone. We are not ready for peace talks," said Ahmadi.

He rejected suggestions that there may be some dissenting elements of the Taliban that favour negotiating with Afghan or Western parties, adding the Taliban is a group united under one leader — Mullah Omar, who went into hiding seven years ago.

Ahmadi's comments echo those made by other senior Taliban leaders of late, who have spurned recent attempts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to reach out to them.
Defends suicide attacks

Taliban warning to Obama

An Iraqi insurgent coalition and the Taliban warned U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan or face more resistance, U.S. monitoring groups reported on Thursday.

The messages express an openness to new relations with the United States under Obama, who has pledged to break with outgoing President George W. Bush's policies on both wars, but the militant groups demanded U.S. withdrawal and other concessions in exchange.

न्यू प्लान तो दिविदे taliban

ISLAMABAD �" With senior US military and civilian officials engaged in hectic consultations with Pakistani authorities on new American plan to alienate Taliban from al-Qaeda, Pakistan’s security circles fear that this strategy could fail and resultantly further destabilize the country.
General David Petraeus, new chief of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), who concluded his two-day visit to Pakistan on Tuesday, discussed in detail with Pakistani leaders, the US plan of turning the tribesmen living on both the sides of Afghan border against the al-Qaeda and also to reach out to ‘moderate’ militants in the ranks of Taliban.
General Petraeus is given credit by the Bush administration for saving the United States from defeat in Iraq by successfully applying the same plan against al-Qaeda with the help of Iraqi tribesmen. An official here seeking anonymity said that at present the new US plan was in the initial phase of implementation in Bajaur Agency and in some other tribal areas of Pakistan whereas Taliban were also being contacted by the Afghan authorities in their territory.
“However, the security circles here are not sure about the success of Petraeus plan because they believe that Iraqi conditions are totally different from those in Pakistan and Iraq,” he said.
First of all, he said al-Qaeda was a new phenomenon in Iraq but in South Asia, it had been operating for decades now.
“As a result of close interaction spanning over years with local tribesmen and especially the Taliban, the al-Qaeda militants have been able to forge close ties with them and hence it is not easy to divide them,” the official said.
He said that porous Afghan border was another main reason for the likely failure of the US plan as the al-Qaeda and hardcore Taliban militants could easily shift their locations in case they felt any threat from the local tribesmen on both the sides of the frontier.
Moreover, he said that influential Taliban commanders like Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj Haqqani, who were once considered to be Pakistani assets, were now more close to al-Qaeda leadership and it would be a daunting task to break that bond and union.

Taliban militants kill intelligence official in S Afghanistan

KABUL, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Two armed men shot dead an intelligence official Monday evening in southern Afghan province of Kandahar, said an official on Tuesday.

Abdul Qayum Qatawazi, the provincial intelligence chief told Xinhua that it occurred at around 6:30 p.m. local time (1330 GMT) when two gunmen in motor bike opened fire at Azizullah the deputy chief of intelligent department in Kandahar city near his house killing him on the spot.

Meanwhile, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, the purported Taliban spokesman took responsibility for that attack.

This incident just came two days after the killing of a police trainer in the same city of Kandahar where Taliban militants often carried out such assaults against whom was working for government and international troops.

Spiraling conflicts and Taliban-linked insurgency have claimed around 5,000 people with over 1,500 civilians so far this year in strife-torn Afghanistan while Taliban insurgents have vowed to intensify assaults against interests of Afghan government and international troops before the coming winter.

Taliban storm Afghan culture ministry

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters stormed the Ministry of Culture in the heart of Kabul Thursday, killing five people in an attack the president said aimed at derailing the government's new effort to draw militants into a peace process and end a seven-year insurgency.

The fighters shot their way inside the building, where one of the militants blew himself up, a police guard wounded in the blast said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and gave a similar account.

"Our enemies are trying to undermine the recent efforts by the government for a peaceful solution to end the violence," U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai said in a terse statement.

The attack came three days after senior Afghan and Pakistani officials decided at a meeting held in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, to reach out to the Taliban militants to propose talks on ending the insurgency. The meeting was part of a process initiated by President Bush and his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts in 2006.

The Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan said the two sides recently had contacts in Saudi Arabia. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the incoming head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, have both endorsed efforts.

Karzai's remarks suggested that elements of Taliban are seeking to sabotage the nascent efforts for reconciliation. But the attack is not likely to derail the overture because after years of unsuccessfully trying to repress the Taliban by force with the help of U.S. and NATO troops, the government has concluded talks are the only way out of the conflict. The Taliban has proved resilient, emerging with new force this year to challenge the government.

While the Taliban regularly use suicide attacks against Afghan and foreign forces around the country, they rarely strike in Kabul.

Amir Mohammad, a police guard who was wounded in Thursday's attack, said three assailants opened fire on police guards outside the Ministry of Information and Culture before entering its cavernous hall where one of them blew himself up.

"There were three people. They were running. They opened fire on our guard first and then they entered" the building, Mohammad told The Associated Press from his hospital bed in Kabul.

The force of the blast flung Mohammed onto the street, where he lay unconscious among shattered glass and pools of blood.

Five people were killed in the attack, including a policeman, three ministry employees and a civilian, the Interior Ministry said.

An additional 21 were wounded, said Abdul Fahim, the spokesman for the Health Ministry, which supervises the hospitals where the injured were taken.

The culture ministry was a pointed target. Before the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden, the regime banned art, secular music and television, vandalized the National Museum of Afghanistan and destroyed artwork or statues deemed idolatrous or anti-Muslim. Taliban fighters also blew up two giant statues of Buddha, cultural treasures that had graced the Silk Road town of Bamiyan for 1,500 years.

The ministry is in the center of the city, at a busy intersection lined with shops. One of the side walls of the building collapsed, while glass littered the roads nearby and office equipment was scattered over the area. The light-blue metal gates in the ministry entrance were twisted from being flung open.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said three militants stormed the building by throwing hand grenades at the guards at the main gate. A man named Naqibullah from the eastern Khost province carried out the suicide attack, Mujahid told the AP. The other two men fled, he said.

Abdul Rahim, a witness, said he first heard machine gun shots and saw a policeman lying on the ground and then saw the explosion that rocked the building.

Ministry workers were helped out of the building by security personnel. Ambulances carried the wounded to hospitals.

Though attacks in the capital are rare, on July 7 a suicide attacker set off explosives outside the gates of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing more than 60 people and wounding 146.

Four police were killed Thursday in Panjwayi district of Kandahar province when their patrol vehicle struck a newly planted mine, said Zulmai Ayubi, the provincial governor's spokesman. He blamed the Taliban for the attack.

More than 5,200 people have died this year in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan, according to a tally of figures compiled by the AP.