Held Kashmir inquiry confirms mass graves

An Indian government inquiry says dozens of unmarked graves in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) hold more than 2,000 unidentified bodies.

The Jammu-Kashmir State Human Rights Commission says in a report that police had claimed the 2,156 corpses were militants fighting against Indian rule in portions of the disputed Himalayan region.

Rights groups say, however, that innocent people have been caught up in the conflict and some 8,000 have disappeared since 1989.

The commission was set up in 1997 after widespread allegations of rights abuses by the army, paramilitary and police.

The report is likely to deepen cynicism in restive Kashmir where anti-India sentiment runs deep and most people want independence or merger with Pakistan.

Karzai remains US partner: Gates

KABUL: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai remains a partner of the United States, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday after harsh criticism of US military policy from the Afghan leader.

“We will continue to partner with him through this conflict,” Gates said at a Wall Street Journal conference at which he played down the Afghan president’s complaints, calling Karzai “our partner.”

Karzai called over the weekend for the United States to reduce its military footprint in his country, saying Afghans were losing patience with the continued US presence, which was worsening the war against the Taliban.

Karzai’s recent comments conveyed the frustrations of a country that has been in a state of war for decades, Gates said.

“I think President Karzai is reflecting the impatience of a country that’s been at war for 30 years,” he said. Karzai was

Russian pilots kidnapped in Darfur

Three Russian pilots have been kidnapped in Darfur, in Sudan. The UN World Food Programme, for which the pilots work, confirmed the news.
The governor of South Darfur, Abdel Hamid Kasha, told that it was not known who the kidnappers were and that they were being pursued. This is the latest in a series of kidnappings of foreign aid workers in Darfur in recent months. Ransoms are usually demanded.
Since President Omar al-Bashir was indicted in 2009 by the International Criminal Court for war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur, the situation for humanitarian workers has greatly deteriorated.
About 300,000 people have died since fighting began in 2003, and some 2.7 million people have fled their homes as a result of the conflict.
Rebel movements in Darfur have been fighting government soldiers and Arab militias, backed by Khartoum.

Afghan insurgents dismiss peace talks, NATO upbeat

KABUL: Mid-level Taliban insurgency commanders do not believe their leaders have begun tentative peace talks with the Afghan government, with many vowing on Friday not to give up the fight after nearly 10 years of war.

NATO and Afghan officials have confirmed preliminary contacts between President Hamid Karzai’s government and the Taliban, although doubt surrounds when those contacts were made, who they were made with and what, if any, progress was made.

Karzai is pushing a negotiated settlement to the conflict and has launched a High Peace Council which has said it is prepared to offer concessions to bring insurgents to the table, although Kabul and Washington are adamant they must renounce violence.

But insurgency commanders from across Afghanistan indicated they were not involved in the initial contacts.

“No one has come so far and sat with the

Kurram clash: Another 14 fall prey to rivalry

Another 14 people have been killed while 15 others injured during the ongoing clash between two tribes in Kurram Agency, pushing the toll to 117 within fortnight on Sunday.
The two warring tribes locked horns over water which triggered a dispute continued for the last 16 days in Shalozan, Tangi and Khewas areas.
Many houses of both the rival tribes have been damaged in the ongoing spars. So far, some 117 people have been fallen prey to the conflict with 122 wounded. The political administration managed to hold a ceasefire with the help of local jirga members on one occasion. However, fighting started again after security forces asked them to withdraw their militia.Meanwhile, security forces left the area as soon as tribesmen resumed fighting.
On the other hand, 6 bodies have been recovered in Dara Adamkhel.

Israel hints Jerusalem compromise in peace talks

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM: Israel’s defence minister said on Wednesday the Jewish state would be willing to hand over parts of Jerusalem in peace talks with the Palestinians to be launched by U.S. President Barack Obama.

A flare-up of violence in the occupied West Bank and a deadlock over Jewish settlements there loom as potential deal-breakers for Obama, who will host Middle East leaders for dinner at the White House in Washington.

Obama brought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas together for face-to-face negotiations after months of U.S.-mediated indirect talks. But

he faces deep skepticism about his chances of success.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s rare comments about the need to partition Jerusalem, which is at the heart of the conflict, could signal a softening of Netanyahu’s long-stated refusal to divide

US deaths in Afghanistan hit record in 2010

KABUL: The number of US soldiers killed in the Afghan war in 2010 is the highest annual toll since the conflict began almost nine years ago, according to an AFP count Wednesday.

A total of 323 US soldiers have been killed in the Afghan war this year, compared to 317 for all of 2009, according to a count by AFP based on a website.

Foreign forces suffered a grim spike in deaths last month as the Taliban insurgency intensified, with NATO confirming on Wednesday that a sixth US soldier was killed on one of the bloodiest days this year.

At 490, the overall death toll for foreign troops for the first eight months of the year is rapidly closing in the number registered in all of 2009, which at 521 was a record since the start of the war in late 2001.

A total of 80 international soldiers died in the Afghan war last month, 56 of them Americans.

In

Kabul attack kills two as Afghan civilian casualites rise

KABUL: Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance of a Kabul guesthouse Tuesday, killing two drivers, hours after a UN study announced the highest civilian casualty figures in the Afghan war.

Two bombers struck near a villa used by Western private security company Hart, killing civilian drivers for the contractor, according to the head of police criminal investigations in the Afghan capital.

“There were two suicide bombers who detonated themselves at the entrance. Two drivers were killed and a security guard was injured,” police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada told reporters.

The UN report said civilian casualties had risen by a third in the first six months of 2010 with insurgents killing seven times more civilians than NATO-led troops.

“We are very concerned about the future because the human cost of this conflict is unfortunately being paid too heavily by the civilian Afghans,” UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura told a news conference in Kabul.

Petraeus issues rules to avoid civilian casualties

KABUL: The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, issued new guidelines to troops on Wednesday, emphasizing the need to avoid civilian casualties, NATO said.

“The directive firmly places the presence of civilians at the centre of every decision involving the use of force” and ensures “that some areas that may have led to misperceptions are clarified,” a statement said.

Petraeus took over command of more than 140,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan on July 4 from sacked US General Stanley McChrystal.

Civilian casualties caused by foreign troops are hugely controversial in the nearly nine-year Afghan war. Reducing the number of such incidents is seen as crucial to a US-led counter-insurgency strategy designed to end the conflict.

Red Cross gives first aid lessons to Taliban

LONDON: The Red Cross in Afghanistan has been teaching the Taliban basic first aid and giving insurgents medical equipment so that fighters wounded during battles with Nato and Afghan government forces can be treated in the field, it was revealed today.

More than 70 members of the “armed opposition” received training in April, the Red Cross said – a move likely to anger the government of Hamid Karzai, which is losing large numbers of police and soldiers in insurgent attacks.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had introduced the classes because pitched battles, landmines and roadblocks stopped people in the most volatile areas from getting to hospital.

The Red Cross, which aims to remain neutral in the conflict, has trained more than 100 Afghan soldiers and policemen, as well as a network of taxi drivers who operate an unofficial ambulance service in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Today, a leading figure in Kandahar”s local government, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the Taliban did “not deserve to be treated like humans”.

He said: “They are like animals, and they treat the people they capture worse than animals. They kidnapped and killed an American lady and then wouldn”t even return her body. These people don”t deserve this help.”

The Afghan ministries of defence and the interior said they were unable to comment on what they described as a highly controversial issue.

A Nato spokesman in Kabul said: “Nato has tremendous respect for the humanitarian work carried out by the ICRC and we recognise the need for this work to be carried out impartially.

“Isaf [Nato] forces also provide treatment to any case caught up in this conflict, including our opponents, in line with our own obligation to respect the rules of armed conflict.”

One of the ICRC-trained drivers, who transports sick and wounded people from Sangin district in Helmand, where some of the most fierce fighting is taking place, to Mirwais hospital in Kandahar city, told the ICRC that roadblocks and insecurity had lengthened the journey to six or seven hours, rather than the normal two.

The extraordinary measure highlights how badly security has declined in southern Afghanistan, undermining this summer”s effort by US-led forces to protect the population from violence. The ICRC said its volunteers in Kandahar and staff at Mirwais hospital had seen a “substantial increase” in the number of patients injured by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other weapons.

Critics of the Nato push in southern Afghanistan, which is aimed at seizing full control of Kandahar city and central Helmand from the Taliban by the end of the year, said that coalition commanders had made the situation worse by publicising where they were going to launch assaults.

By discussing publicly their plans in February for clearing the largely rural area of Marja in Helmand and then their desire to “clear” districts surrounding Kandahar city, Nato hoped many insurgents would simply choose not to fight.

But in many cases, the move gave the Taliban time to dig in and plant IEDS in the areas.

For years the beds at Mirwais hospital have been regularly filled with men with gunshot wounds, many of whom are insurgents. But ICRC staff, who support the work of the hospital, have learned not to ask questions about how they sustained their injuries.

In general the government has been happy to allow fighters to come to the hospital, receive treatment and leave again.

But in Helmand in April, the tacit approval for such humanitarian medical support appeared to break down when Afghan security services raided a hospital in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, run by an Italian NGO called Emergency, which also has a strict policy of providing surgical help to anyone who needs it. Nine staff were arrested and accused of plotting to murder the provincial governor after weapons and suicide bomb vests were found in the compound.

The International Committee of the Red Cross runs hospitals in Afghanistan, visits prisoners on both sides of the conflict and co-operates on various projects with the Afghan Red Crescent Society, a separate organisation, on various projects.

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