Gaddafi still a threat, says Libya council chief

DOHA: Muammar Gaddafi, who has not been seen since rebels took over the Libyan capital of Tripoli a week ago, is still a threat to the country and the world, the chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Monday. 

Speaking at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, of defence ministers from countries supporting the insurgency against Gaddafi’s rule, NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil called on NATO to keep supporting the movement.

“I call for continued protection from NATO and its allies from this tyrant,” Abdel Jalil said.

The NTC, which is hunting Libya’s deposed leader and pushing to take over his hometown of Sirte east of Tripoli, said on Saturday it had no firm information on his whereabouts. It has offered a $1.3 million reward and amnesty from prosecution for anyone who kills or captures Gaddafi. AGENCIES

Pakistan tops journalists death list in 2010

BRUSSELS: At least 94 journalists died in violence this year across the world, the International Federation of Journalists said Friday, adding that Pakistan was the most dangerous place in 2010 for media workers.

“Journalists and media personnel remain prime targets for political extremists, gangsters and terrorists,” the Brussels-based organisation said in a report, adding that another three died in accidents over the past 12 months.

The death toll came at the hands of “targeted killings, bomb attacks and crossfire incidents,” it said.

In 2009, the total was 139 journalists.

The IFJ said 15 media workers died in Pakistan this year, adding that the majority of the annual fatalities comprised “victims of violence connected to the insurgency war in Pakistan, the drug war in Mexico as well as the political unrest in Honduras.”

The list was issued two days after Danish and Swedish intelligence agencies said they foiled an attack plot against the daily that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

“Nearly 100 journalists killed is a heavy loss which ought to stir the world governments into action to offer better protection to journalists,” said Jim Boumelha, IFJ president.

The West’s war in Afghanistan is failing: Crisis Group

KABUL: A leading international think tank Sunday issued a damning review of the US-led war in Afghanistan and said NATO plans to end its combat mission by 2014 would lead to the Kabul government’s collapse.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said the coalition’s strategy to break the Taliban, build popular support among civilians, woo disenchanted rebels and boost Afghan security forces was failing.

More than 140,000 US-led troops are waging a counter-insurgency campaign mostly in the south and east of the country amid dwindling support for the war back home as the fighting returns a record number of coalition casualties.

“There is little evidence that the operations have disrupted the insurgency’s momentum…. The Taliban are more active than ever and they still enjoy sanctuary and support in Pakistan,” said the ICG report.

The

Pak Cooperating Nato Forces in Afg: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon admitted Tuesday in a report that progress has been “uneven” in the war in Afghanistan, with only modest gains against the Taliban insurgency despite a surge of US and NATO troops.

However, US military admitted rising cooperation by Pakistan being extended to Nato forces fighting with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, persisting that Pak-Afg border regions were safe heavens for Taliban.

The cautious tone of the report offered a contrast to more upbeat public declarations from top officials and military leaders, who have touted encouraging signs and said the US military has gained the initiative on the battlefield.

“Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance, and development in operational priority areas,” according to the report issued to Congress.

Violence was at an all-time high in the nine-year-old war as coalition forces try to roll back the Taliban from cities and towns, with combat incidents up 300 percent since 2007 and 70 percent since last year, it said.

The report described limited progress by the NATO-led force in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, longstanding Taliban bastions that have been the focus of an influx of 30,000 American troops.

“While kinetic activity is at a historic high, we are seeing some early indications that comprehensive COIN (counter-insurgency) operations are having localized effects in portions of Helmand and Kandahar Provinces,” said the report, a semi-annual update delivered to Congress.

Despite the presence of nearly 100,000 US troops and nearly 50,000 other foreign forces, the insurgency remained resilient and efforts to cut off safe havens and supply links to neighboring Iran and Pakistan “have not produced measurable results,” according to the report, which covered April to September.

While NATO and Afghan forces have “increased pressure on insurgent networks over the past several months, the insurgency has proven resilient with sustained logistics capacity and command and control,” the Pentagon said.

The insurgency “retains momentum in certain areas” while in others the momentum was shifting in favor of Afghan and NATO-led forces, it said.

The gap between the administration’s portrayal of the war and the official report to Congress in part reflects divisions between US intelligence agencies and the rest of the government, with the spy services tending to take a more pessimistic view, officials said.

One senior defense official, who asked not to be named, told journalists that the report focused on conditions through September and did not reflect “important progress” in recent weeks in military operations surrounding Kandahar city.

Describing the state of the insurgency, the report said the Taliban and its allies were adept at propaganda, exploiting widespread dissatisfaction with the corruption-plagued Kabul government.

The Taliban aimed to inflict enough losses on coalition forces to undermine international support for the war effort and “prompt a rapid withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan,” it said.

The report cited the training of Afghan security forces as “one of the most promising areas of progress,” with the Afghan army and police reaching recruitment goals in July, ahead of an October target.

The quality of the Afghan forces and a high attrition rate remained cause for concern, however, according to the report, which was written in coordination with intelligence agencies, the State Department and other government departments.

NATO says two soldiers killed in Afghanistan

KABUL: NATO said Tuesday two foreign soldiers were killed fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan, bringing the toll so far this year to 629, according to an AFP count.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said one soldier was killed in an insurgent attack on Monday in the country’s east, and another in the south by an improvised bomb.

The nationalities of the fatalities were not released and there were no further details.

AFP’s tally is based on a count kept by independent website icasualties.org, which is regularly updated, and also logs deaths of soldiers evacuated out of Afghanistan for treatment of injuries.

NATO and the United States have more than 150,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan to fight the insurgency, led by Taliban militants who have stretched their presence to most parts of the country. AGENCIES

Taliban Hold Secret Talks with Hamid Karzai

KABUL: Three Taliban leaders secretly met Afghanistan’s president two weeks ago in an effort to weaken the US-led coalition’s most vicious enemy, a powerful al-Qaeda-linked network that straddles the border region with Pakistan.

Held in Kabul, the meeting included a wanted former Taliban governor and an imprisoned extremist who were flown to the capital from the Pakistani city of Peshawar, according to a former Afghan official.

The talks were not directly linked to the Afghan government’s efforts to broker peace with the Taliban and find a political resolution to the insurgency. Rather, they were part of an effort to weaken the Haqqani network, the former official said over the weekend.

A Western official, who spoke anonymously, confirmed that a meeting between President Hamid Karzai and Taliban figures had taken place but did not know its full details or the names of all the participants.

Led by the ailing Jalaluddin Haqqani and controlled by his son, Sirajuddin, the network is thought to be responsible for most attacks on US troops in eastern Afghanistan and has been a key US military target. The network is linked to al-Qaeda and is believed to be sheltering its second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Weakening the network would take the pressure off US forces and bolster Karzai’s efforts to broker some kind of peace with the Taliban in portions of the country.

The Taliban leaders who met Karzai were Maulvi Abdul Kabir, the governor of eastern Nangarhar province during Taliban rule and the current head of the Taliban’s Peshawar council; his deputy governor in the Taliban regime, Sedre Azam; and Anwar-ul-Haq Mujahed, a militant leader from eastern Afghanistan credited with helping Osama bin Laden escape the US assault on Tora Bora in 2001, the former official said.

The source told men were brought by helicopter from Peshawar in neighbouring Pakistan and driven into Kabul. Mujahed has been in Pakistani custody since June last year when he was picked up in a raid in Peshawar. Kabir is on the US most wanted list.

They spent two nights at a heavily fortified hotel in the Afghan capital before returning to Peshawar by helicopter, where Mujahed was placed again in custody.

The US earlier this month acknowledged facilitating some Taliban trips to Kabul but provided no specifics. The Pakistani military has not commented on such reports.

The former Afghan official, who asked not to be named, described Kabir and his associates as “mid-level” contacts because they have little, if any, influence over the more powerful Quetta and Waziristan shuras.

Those two shuras provide leadership for the majority of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and are overseen by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the fanatical one-eyed Taliban leader.

Karzai has formed a 70-member high peace council in an effort to try to reconcile with the Taliban and find a political solution to the insurgency.

The Taliban say their leaders will not discuss peace with the government unless foreign troops first leave Afghanistan.

Karzai holds ‘secret talks’ with Taliban

Three Taliban figures met secretly with Afghanistan’s president two weeks ago in an effort by the Afghan government to weaken the US-led coalition’s most vicious enemy, a powerful al-Qaeda linked network that straddles the border region with Pakistan.
A former Afghan official said the meeting in Kabul included an ex-Taliban governor, Maulvi Abdul Kabir. He comes from the same Zadran tribe as the leaders of the Haqqani network, an autonomous wing of the Taliban responsible for many attacks against US and Afghan forces, the former official said over the weekend. US and Afghan officials hope that if Kabir agrees to quit the insurgency, it could split the Zadran tribe and undercut the pool of recruits from which the Haqqanis currently draw fighters. But it was unclear whether any progress toward that end was made during the talks.
Weakening the Haqqanis’ grip over the Zadran tribe could help shift the power balance in eastern provinces where the network poses a major threat. The Haqqani network, led by ailing Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, is believed to be sheltering top al-Qaida leaders across the border in Pakistan. Kabir served as governor of Nangarhar province and deputy prime minister during the Taliban rule, which ended with the U.S.-led invasion of 2001. He is believed to run the Taliban council in the Pakistani city of Peshawar but is not considered a powerhouse in the Taliban. The two other Taliban who took part in the talks were Mullah Sadre Azam and Anwar-ul-Haq Mujahed. Mujahed is credited with helping Osama bin Laden escape the US assault on Tora Bora in 2001, the former official said. He has been in Pakistani custody since June last year when he was picked up in a raid in Peshawar, where one of several Afghan Taliban shuras, or councils, is located. The men were brought by helicopter from Peshawar and spent two nights in a luxury Kabul hotel before returning to Pakistan. The US earlier this month acknowledged facilitating some Taliban trips to Kabul but provided no specifics. The Pakistani military has not commented on such reports. The former Afghan official, who asked not to be named because of his relationship with both the government and the Taliban, described Kabir and his associates as midlevel contacts because they have little, if any influence over more powerful Taliban factions. Karzai has formed a 70-member council to try to reconcile with the Taliban and find a political solution to the insurgency. The Taliban’s top leadership has denied that any of their representatives have been involved in talks. They claim their leaders will not discuss peace with the government unless foreign troops first leave Afghanistan.

Taliban hold secret talks with Karzai

KABUL: Three Taliban leaders secretly met Afghanistan’s President two weeks ago in an effort to weaken the US-led coalition’s most vicious enemy, a powerful al-Qaeda linked network that straddles the Pak-Afghan border region.

Held in Kabul, the meeting included a wanted former Taliban governor and an imprisoned militant who were flown to the capital from the Pakistani city of Peshawar, according to a former Afghan official.

The talks were not directly linked to the Afghan government’s efforts to broker peace with the Taliban and find a political resolution to the insurgency. Rather, they were part of an effort to weaken the Haqqani network, the former official said over the weekend.

A western official confirmed that a meeting between President Hamid Karzai and Taliban figures had taken place, but did not know its full details or the names of all the

Taliban attack on Afghan post repelled, 30 killed

International forces in Afghanistan Saturday fought off a Taliban attack on a combat post in a remote and mountainous region bordering Pakistan, killing more than 30 insurgents, NATO said.
Insurgents attacked the post from all directions using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms fire, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. Five ISAF soldiers were injured, it said.
The incident took place at 1.30 am Saturday (2200 GMT Friday) in Bermal district in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan’s lawless North Waziristan tribal region.
The coalition forces called for air weapons team and close-air support during the engagement. A coalition aircraft engaged an insurgent firing position with three precision-guided munitions, it said. The air weapons team also engaged a large number of insurgents near the outpost, it said, adding: Initial operational reporting indicates more than 30 insurgents were killed in the failed attack on the outpost.
The five wounded soldiers continued fighting, it said. None were killed. The proximity of the combat post to the border hints at the possibility the insurgents had crossed from Pakistan, where the Taliban’s leadership council is believed to be based. The insurgency in Afghanistan is now in its 10th year since the Taliban’s regime was overthrown in the US-led invasion in late 2001.
Remote border regions have proven particularly volatile in recent years. NATO said Saturday that two of its soldiers died in separate attacks in the volatile south of Afghanistan, where the insurgency is concentrated. One died in an insurgent attack on Friday, the other in a similar incident on Saturday. The nationalities of the soldiers were not revealed, according to policy.The total number of foreign soldiers died in the war this year reached at 609, as compared to 521 for 2009. NATO and the United States have more than 150,000 troops in Afghanistan, many of them deployed to the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand in a major counter-insurgency push.

Bomb kills Afghan governor, 15 others

KUNDUZ: A bomb attack inside a mosque killed the governor of Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province and 15 others as they attended Friday prayers, the local police chief said.

The rare assassination of a top official is the latest in a string of bloody incidents in the once quite peaceful north, where the insurgency has been strengthening its hold.

Governor Mohammed Omar had narrowly escaped two previous attempts on his life, one a roadside bomb just two months ago that destroyed a police escort vehicle in his convoy, and the other an ambush last year.

Omar died in neighbouring Takhar province, where he was originally from and kept a home. The mullah of the mosque also died in the blast and at least 20 people were wounded.

“The situation is chaos, we do not know whether it was a suicide attack or whether the bomb was already planted in the mosque,”

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