Kabul demands more US pressure on Pakistan

The Kabul government on Saturday demanded that Washington increase pressure on Pakistan to act against insurgents using its soil to attack Afghanistan, saying Afghans were running out of patience.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks with US regional envoy, Marc Grossman, in Kabul just days after President Barack Obama warned Pakistan there were “some connections” between its intelligence services and extremists.

“The Afghan president asked Grossman to put more pressure on Pakistan so that future meetings with them should bring a positive result,” one official at the presidential palace said on condition of anonymity.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, long mired in distrust, have recently deteriorated with Kabul alleging that the murder of its peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani was hatched in Pakistan and carried out by a Pakistani.

Kabul accused Islamabad of hindering the investigation and also claimed to have foiled an alleged plot  in Pakistan to assassinate Karzai.

The palace quoted Grossman as promising that the United States will “continue putting pressure on Pakistan to take practical steps forward”.

Karzai said further meetings with Pakistan “should bring positive results, because after all these suicide attacks and terrorism the people of Afghanistan are losing thier patience,” added the statement.

US embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall said that Grossman was on a tour of the region to discuss preparations for international conferences on Afghanistan s future in Istanbul and Bonn later this year.

“That s what he met President Karzai about this morning,” Sundwall said.

Washington has stepped up calls on Islamabad in recent weeks to break ties with the Al-Qaeda linked Haqqani network, blamed for last month s 19-hour siege on the US embassy in Kabul.

On Thursday, Obama accused Pakistan of “hedging its bets” in “having interactions with some of the unsavory characters who they think might end up regaining power in Afghanistan” after US-led foreign troops leave.

“And there is no doubt that there s some connections the Pakistani military and intelligence services have with certain individuals that we find troubling,” he added.

Islamabad denies links between the Haqqanis and its intelligence services.

Pakistan Senator says Obama pressure on militants hurts Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: President Barack Obama’s warning to Islamabad over suspected ties to militants will only fuel anti-Americanism and make it harder for Pakistan to support U.S. efforts to stabilise Afghanistan, a senior senator said on Friday.

Pakistan is seen as critical to bringing peace to neighbouring Afghanistan, but the United States has failed to persuade it to go after militant groups it says cross the border to attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

“This is not helping either the United States, Afghanistan or Pakistan,” Salim Saifullah, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters.

“There will be pressure on the (Pakistan) government to get out of this war,” he said, referring to the U.S. war on militancy.

Obama warned Pakistan on Thursday that its ties with “unsavory characters” had put relations with the United States at risk, as he ratcheted up pressure on Islamabad to cut links with militants mounting attacks in Afghanistan.

His comments are likely to deepen a crisis in the strategic alliance between the United States and Pakistan.

Obama accused Pakistan’s leaders of “hedging their bets” on Afghanistan’s future, but stopped short of threatening to cut off U.S. aid, despite calls from lawmakers for a tougher line over accusations that Pakistani intelligence supported strikes on U.S. targets in Afghanistan.

Pakistan says it has sacrificed more than any other nation that joined America’s global “war on terror” after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, losing 10,000 soldiers and security forces, and 30,000 civilians.

But its performance against militants operating from its unruly tribal northwest border region is a frequent source of tension between Washington and Islamabad.

Pakistan is often accused of playing a double game, vowing to help the United States fight some militant groups while using others as proxies in Afghanistan.

Ties were heavily damaged after U.S. special forces launched a secret raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May, which Islamabad saw as a violation of its sovereignty.

On Thursday, a Pakistani commission said a Pakistani doctor accused of running a vaccination programme that helped the CIA track down bin Laden should be tried for high treason, which is punishable by death.

Relations deteriorated further after the top U.S. military official accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency of supporting a Sept. 13 attack by the Taliban-allied Haqqani militant group on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

Saifullah said Washington’s public criticism of Pakistan would only encourage militant groups.

“War in Afghanistan is passing through a critical phase, evolutionary phase,” he said. “At this stage, muddying water is not appropriate. This is exactly what the militants want. They are playing to their tune. This is adding strength to them.”

Some analysts agree with his assessment.

“This will create more tension and what the Americans want is not likely to happen in the near future,” said political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

The United States has long called for a military offensive against the Haqqani network, which it says is based in North Waziristan, a global hub for militants on the Afghan border.

Pakistan sees the Haqqani network — perhaps the most feared insurgents in Afghanistan — as a counterweight to the growing influence of rival India there, analysts say.

Pakistan denies links to the group, which says it no longer operates from sanctuaries in North Waziristan.

Obama made clear that future U.S.-Pakistani relations would depend heavily on whether Islamabad complies with Washington’s demands to sever connections with insurgents.

Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, wondered if the two sides could ever repair ties.

“There are too many issues, and too much mistrust to call this a strategic relationship,” he said.

But public demands from Washington will make Islamabad more reluctant to take action because caving in after constant pressure could be political suicide in a country where anti-American sentiment runs high, and the government is unpopular.

Many Pakistanis believe they have been dragged into a war against militancy that only serves American interests.

That sentiment is growing because of an escalation of U.S. drone aircraft missile strikes against militants in Pakistan under the Obama administration.

“Are we owned by the United States? If so, please make our terms of servitude clear, Mr. Obama, so we can just get on with it,” said Mishayl Naek, a bank employee in the city of Karachi, in reaction to the U.S. president’s demands of Pakistan.

For Asad Ali Bangash, 45, Obama’s comments were proof of what he has feared all along.

“America wants an excuse to invade Pakistan. There are difficult times ahead for Pakistan, because America has decided that Pakistan has to be eliminated because it is a fort of Islam,” said Bangash, who runs a medical supply business.

Obama wants to stabilise Afghanistan as U.S. forces are drawn down with the goal of ending their combat mission by 2014.

Instead of public confrontation, Obama should work more closely with Pakistan to help Afghanistan, said Saifullah.

“This is no time for this kind of (allegation) when they are pulling out,” he said. “They should be seriously working on the endgame.”

Even if Pakistan wanted to eliminate the Haqqanis, an assault could be risky. The group, which says it has more than 10,000 fighters, spent years forming alliances with various militant groups seeking to topple the U.S.-backed government.

The Haqqanis’ ties with powerful tribes are another concern. Intelligence officials say Pakistan fears an assault would provoke a larger tribal uprising in North Waziristan. AGENCIES

Act responsibly, Pakistan tells Afghanistan

Pakistan is warning Afghanistan to behave responsibly in the wake of Kabul’s new strategic pact with India, Islamabad s archenemy.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua said on Thursday that Pakistan expects Afghanistan to demonstrate maturity.

Janjua says Pakistan seeks friendly ties with Afghanistan, rooted in common history, culture and tradition. She says this is no time for “point-scoring, playing politics or grandstanding.”

Afghanistan and India signed the agreement on Tuesday, the first of its kind for Kabul with any country. It promptly sparked new concern in Pakistan over India s influence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is sandwiched between the two countries, with Afghanistan to its west and India to its east.
She has further said Pakistan will only act regarding Rabbani’s murder when Afghanistan provides evidence. So far,

Pakistan has been given a confessional statement of some Hamidullah Akhundzada.

Rally in Kabul wants NATO out

Hundreds of Afghans have taken to the streets of the country s capital to demand the immediate withdrawal of international troops ahead of the 10th anniversary of the US invasion.

Thursday s peaceful demonstration in downtown Kabul was meant to mark the Oct. 7 invasion of Afghanistan 10 years ago, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States.

The invasion came after Taliban leader Mullah Omar refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, purportedly because of his disbelief that the al-Qaida chief was responsible for the attacks and because it went against the Afghan tradition of hospitality and protection of guests.

US forces killed bin Laden in a raid on his hideout in Pakistan in May.

Suicide attack hits Afghan army bus in Kabul-police

KABUL: A suicide bomber attacked an Afghan army bus on the outskirts of Kabul on Saturday, wounding up to 10 soldiers and civilians, less than a week after a suicide attack on a foreign military base in the city, a police spokesman said.

Fresh protests in Afghanistan over Koran burning

KABUL: Fresh protests erupted in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday over the burning of a Koran by a US pastor, taking angry and violent demonstrations into a fifth day, an AFP photographer said.

Several hundred people gathered at Kabul University chanting “death to America” and “we want the burner of the Koran to be tried” in the wake of previous protests which have left 24 people dead, including seven UN staff.

“A protest has started by Kabul University students in front of the university. It is peaceful and under control at the moment,” interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.

The protesters were contained within the university campus by heavy police deployments and all roads leading in and out of the university were blocked, the AFP photographer said.

Angry protests over the burning of a Koran by evangelical preacher Wayne Sapp in a Florida church began in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, where the UN office was ransacked and seven of its employees killed.

Five Afghan protesters were also killed in clashes with police.

A dozen others died in two days of violent protests in the southern city of Kandahar.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation of the protests.

Religion is a highly sensitive issue in ultra-conservative Afghanistan, where international troops, the bulk of which are from the United States, are fighting a bloody Taliban insurgency. AGENCIES

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

Afghan spy agency denies talks with Taliban impostor

KABUL: Afghanistan’s intelligence agency on Saturday denied pursuing talks with a fake Taliban leader after media reports claimed that British spies had flown the impostor to government peace talks in Kabul.

The reports said Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 had paid a man who was believed to be insurgent leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour several hundred thousand dollars and flown him to Kabul on several occasions.

Agents even flew the man on Royal Air Force transport planes from Pakistan to Kabul on several occasions, but it now appears he was a minor rebel, a shopkeeper or even just a conman, The Times in London and the Washington Post reported.

But Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the impostor was sniffed out after early talks in the border areas of Afghanistan-Pakistan and was never flown to the Afghan capital to meet

Pakistan to walk tightrope on Afghan peace

kABUL: Pakistan will need to walk a tightrope to secure its interests in US-backed reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan, at risk of being sidelined by the Taliban and the Kabul government, analysts say.

British and US newspapers have been awash with reports on the nature of peace efforts needed to end the nine-year Taliban insurgency and allow the 150,000 US-led NATO contingent in Afghanistan to withdraw.

The Taliban have denied any talks are taking place, and Afghan and Pakistani experts on insurgent groups dismiss such reports as as Western propaganda.

But Pakistan is determined to ensure that an allied government is in power in Kabul once the United States and its allies have withdrawn their troops from from Afghanistan.

Washington and Kabul agree there can be no peace in Afghanistan without cooperation from Pakistan, which has repeatedly offered

US awards $500 mln contract to expand Afghan embassy

KABUL: The U.S. State Department has awarded a contract worth more than half a billion dollars to expand its embassy in Afghan capital Kabul, a project it says will create hundreds of jobs and reflect its dedication to Afghanistan.

The $511 million contract was awarded to U.S. construction firm Caddell Construction, Inc. by the U.S. Department of State Overseas Building Operations to build an addition to the chancery and expand permanent housing, the U.S. embassy in Kabul said.

The contract will create more than 1,500 local jobs and inject around $200 million dollars into the Afghan economy through employment, purchase of materials, transportation and the lease of property, it said.

Wednesday’s announcement draws comparisons with U.S. behaviour in Iraq, where it unveiled plans for a massive new embassy in Baghdad in 2007, also seen as a step meant to symbolise

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