Two Westerners kidnapped in Pakistan held by Taliban

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Two Western aid workers kidnapped in Pakistan in January are being held by the Pakistan Taliban near the border with Afghanistan, a senior militant commander told Reuters on Saturday.  

Gunmen stormed a house in Multan in southern Punjab province on Jan. 19 and drove away with two foreigners — one an Italian citizen and the other believed to be a German.  

“The two NGO (non-governmental organization) workers who were kidnapped in Multan nearly a month ago are in our custody near the border. We haven’t made any demands yet,” a senior commander of the Pakistan Taliban said.  

“They are in good health.”  

A Punjab provincial police chief said last month the foreigners were being held for ransom.   

Criminal gangs often target foreign aid workers in Pakistan in hope of securing large ransoms for their release. Pakistani officials say militant groups such as the Taliban are also involved in kidnappings.       

The senior commander said the Westerners were being held by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group of Pakistani militant factions formed in 2007 which is also allied with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda.  

In January, a Kenyan aid worker and his Pakistani driver went missing in southern Sindh province. A British doctor with the International Committee of the Red Cross was kidnapped by gunmen from the southwestern city of Quetta on Jan. 5.  

Last year, American aid worker Warren Weinstein was kidnapped from the central Pakistani city of Lahore. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for Weinstein’s abduction in December.  

In July, a Swiss couple was kidnapped from the southwestern Baluchistan province by the Pakistani Taliban.  

Such kidnappings in Pakistan put off long-term investors. Foreign direct investment in Pakistan fell 37 percent to $531.2 million in the second half of 2011 from $839.6 million in the final six months of 2010. AGENCIES

Pakistan denies hidden agenda, Taliban deny talks

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has rejected accusations that it was secretly supporting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, while the Taliban denied plans for peace talks with the Afghan government in Saudi Arabia.

The statements came as a leaked NATO report charged that Pakistan’s security services were backing the Taliban militia, who consider victory inevitable once Western combat troops leave in 2014.

The leak was spectacularly bad timing for Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who was in Kabul for the first time since taking office last year in a bid to thaw frosty ties between the two neighbours.

“We have no hidden agenda in Afghanistan,” Khar told reporters after meeting President Hamid Karzai. “These claims have been made many, many times. Pakistan stands behind any initiative that the Afghan government takes for peace.”

The Taliban chose the same day to deny that they would soon hold talks with Karzai’s government in Saudi Arabia to end the decade-long war since they were toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001.

“There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia in the near future,” the Taliban said on their website.

Afghan officials had suggested that talks in Saudi Arabia would be in addition to contacts in Qatar between the Taliban and the United States.

But it was never clear whether the Taliban, who have resisted talks with the Afghan government, or the Saudis, who have conditioned involvement on the Taliban renouncing Al-Qaeda, would come on board.

Taliban negotiators have begun preliminary discussions with the United States in Qatar on plans for peace talks aimed at ending the war. But they said in their statement Wednesday that they had not yet “reached the negotiation phase with the US and its allies”.

“Before there are negotiations there should be a trust-building phase, which has not begun yet,” the statement said.

One of the Taliban’s demands is for the United States to free five of its leaders from detention in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. AGENCIES

"Secret" report says Afghan Taliban set to retake power

LONDON: The United States military has said in a secret report that the Taliban, allegedly backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control over Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw from the country, Britain’s Times of London newspaper said on Wednesday.

“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” the newspaper said, quoting the report. “Once ISAF (NATO-led forces) is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable,” it quoted the report.

The Times said the “highly classified” report was put together by the U.S. military at Bagram air base in Afghanistan for top NATO officers last month. The BBC also carried a report on the leaked document.

Large swathes of Afghanistan have already been handed back to Afghan security forces, with the last foreign combat troops due to leave by the end of 2014.

The document cited by the Times and the BBC also stated that Pakistan’s powerful security agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was assisting the Taliban in directing attacks against foreign forces — a charge denied by Islamabad.

Washington and its allies have long complained that the Taliban and other criminal groups operate out of safe havens in tribal areas in Pakistan’s west and northwest.

The document’s findings were based on interrogations of more than 4,000 Taliban and al Qaeda detainees, the Times said, adding however it identified only few individual insurgents.

A State Department spokesman and Britain’s Foreign Office both declined comment on the report. NATO and Pakistani officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Despite the presence of about 100,000 foreign troops, violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001, according to the United Nations.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says levels of violence are falling.

Citing the same report, the BBC reported on its website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16821218) that Pakistan and the ISI knew the locations of senior Taliban leaders and supported the expulsion of “foreign invaders from Afghanistan”.

“Senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel, who advise on strategy and relay any pertinent concerns of the government of Pakistan,” it said.

Pentagon officials said they had not seen the reports and could not comment on their specifics. But Pentagon spokesman George Little said: “We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks.”

Little said U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “has also been clear that he believes that the safe havens in Pakistan remain a serious problem and need to be addressed by Pakistani authorities.”

The Times said in its report the document suggested the Taliban were gaining in popularity partly because the austere Islamist movement was becoming more tolerant.

It quoted the report: “It remains to be seen whether a revitalised, more progressive Taliban will endure if they continue to gain power and popularity. Regardless, at least within the Taliban, the refurbished image is already having a positive effect on morale.” AGENCIES

Afghan govt, Taliban to hold Saudi talks: diplomat

RIYADH: Afghan government officials and representatives of the country’s former Taliban rulers are to hold peace talks in Saudi Arabia, a Riyadh-based Afghan diplomat said on Monday.

“An Afghan government delegation and a Taliban delegation will hold talks in Saudi Arabia,” the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity, but he could not give a timing.

He said the talks in Saudi would be separate from the US-brokered meetings held in Qatar and be the first such talks to take place in the Sunni Muslim kingdom.

Taliban negotiators have begun preliminary discussions with the United States in Qatar on plans for peace talks aimed at ending the decade-long war in Afghanistan.

They have also announced plans to set up an office in Doha.

A member of the Taliban’s leadership council, the Pakistan-based Quetta Shura, said Sunday “the idea that the Taliban should have a point of contact in Saudi is pushed by the Pakistan and Afghan governments.”

Pakistan was feeling “sidelined” from the US-brokered talks, he said.

Supporting this theory, Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai announced Sunday that Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar would visit Kabul on Wednesday.

Mosazai told a news conference the visit would mark a “new phase” in cooperation between the two countries, adding that Khar would hold talks with Afghan Foreign Minister Zulmai Rasoul and President Hamid Karzai.

“Both sides will discuss the fight against terrorism and Pakistan’s essential support to the peace process in Afghanistan.

Khar’s visit comes after Pakistan made overtures to Afghanistan to resume talks on the Taliban that broke down following the assassination of Kabul’s chief peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September, officials said.

Karzai accused Pakistan of responsibility for the murder and last month said Islamabad was sabotaging all attempts at negotiations with the Taliban, which US-led forces toppled in 2001.

The Afghan diplomat, however, said there were no plans for a third party to attend the negotiations in Saudi Arabia. “So far, there is no third party that will be present at the talks,” he said.

The Afghan government has not yet officially confirmed the Saudi talks, but on Sunday, in response to questions on the plan, the foreign ministry spokesman said his government supports “any steps towards the Afghan peace process.”

A senior Afghan government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged on Sunday that the Saudi talks would take place but also did not say when.

“We will always pursue all roads towards peace in Afghanistan, including contacts with the Taliban that are not limited to the Qatar office,” the official told AFP. AGENCIES

Badin road mishap: 4 police die; 12 hurt

TrendPK.com

BADIN: At least four policemen died while another 12 sustained injuries in a road accident near Badin district, reports SMAA on Sunday night.

According to police sources, the accident took place in Merwah Mori area, located in the suburb of Badin, when a Karachi-bound police van containing 16 under-training personnel including the driver, met a head-on collision with a truck.

Consequent to terrible collision, up to 04 police officials died on the spot while 12 others incurred injuries.

Injured have been rushed to a local hospital for immediate medical attention, sources maintained, fearing the death toll may further escalate as few among under-treatment police have been said to be critical in condition. TrendPK

Six soldiers, 17 Taliban killed in NW Pakistan clash

Too soon to say Taliban involved in French deaths: NATO

KABUL: A NATO spokesman said Tuesday it was too early to conclude that the Taliban were involved in the killing of four French troops by an Afghan soldier last week.

“As we’ve seen with incidents of this type — we have found through investigations there are many reasons for these incidents,” NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on its Twitter feed.

“It is too early to make claims of Taliban involvement in such incidents at this time.”

The attack on the soldiers, who were unarmed, came on Friday at a base in eastern Afghanistan and left 15 other French troops wounded, eight of them seriously.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reacted angrily, threatening to pull his forces out of Afghanistan ahead of the 2014 deadline for all US-led coalition combat troops and dispatched Defence Minister Gerard Longuet to Kabul.

Longuet said in Kabul that he was told the killer was a Taliban infiltrator in the ranks of the Afghan army.

But well-placed security sources have told AFP that the man arrested for the shooting has confessed to interrogators that he did it because of a recent video showing US Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters.

The ISAF spokesman said “there are no indicators of a systemic issue of infiltration into the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces), we look at this closely every day”.

He said all recruits went through an eight-step vetting process, but improvements needed to be made.

“Tragic events such as those last week will not undermine the confidence and trust between forces,” he said, noting that some 130,000 foreign troops work with 300,000 members of the Afghan security forces.

“We know the suspect was a member of the Afghan National Army and the suspect is in custody of the ANA. It would be dangerous for us to come to conclusions at this point.”

According to a classified coalition report published by the New York Times last Friday, a rise in attacks by allied Afghan forces on US and NATO soldiers represents a “systemic” problem and is not rooted in isolated incidents.

The report emphasises the killings are the result of a decade of contempt that each side has for each other, despite being supposed allies, and profound ill will among both civilians and militaries on both sides.

It downplayed the role of Taliban infiltrators in the incidents.

Between May 2007 and May 2011 at least 58 US and NATO personnel were killed in 26 attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police, the classified 70-page report said, according to the newspaper. AGENCIES

Afghan boxing girls aim for 2012 Olympic gold

Women in Afghanistan have been fighting for more rights at home and in society since the Taliban was toppled a decade ago.

Shabnam, 19, and her sister Sadaf Rahimi, 18, are taking the fight more literally than most of their peers, throwing punches in a ring as members of their country s first team of female boxers.

They practice inside a spartan gym with broken mirrors, flaking paint, four punching bags, and a concrete floor padded with faded pink and green mats. Some girls even wear face masks to keep away the dust coming up from the floor.

But they seem oblivious to their modest surroundings as they follow the whistle changes of a rigorous training routine.
“I hope to promote my boxing career and approach the highest level. I wish to be able to win the gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics,” said Sadaf, slightly out of breath from punching the bag.

Female boxing is still relatively unusual in most countries, but especially in Afghanistan, where many girls and women still face a struggle to secure an education or work, and activists say violence and abuse at home is common.

Three times a week, the girls come to practise at the Ghazi stadium, once used for public punishment by the Taliban, the hardline Islamists who ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.

Women were stoned for adultery there and despite an expensive revamp, its gory past sometimes spooks the athletes.

Under the Taliban, all sports for women were banned. They still have far fewer opportunities for exercise than men.

Many in this conservative society still consider fighting taboo for women, and the girls deal with serious threats.

“My family has been threatened several times because we three sisters are in the boxing club, they asked my family why the three girls from one family are boxing. Boxing is a hard and difficult sport even for men that is why people are surprised and our family was threatened because of our choice,” said Sadaf.

Salman Taseers son kidnapped

Four men on motorbikes intercepted Shahbaz Taseer in his car in the Gulberg area and took him to a nearby street before whisking him away, police said, quoting witnesses.

“Shabhaz was out with a friend when four unidentified people kidnapped him,” his brother Sheryar Taseer told.

“Our family has been receiving threats from the Taliban and extremist groups,” he said, adding they could be behind the abduction. No one has yet claimed the responsibility.

The governor, Salman Taseer, of the ruling Pakistan People s Party, was killed by his own bodyguard early this year after he came out in support of a woman accused of committing blasphemy.

Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of four, was sentenced to death in a case stemming from a village dispute, putting Pakistan s harsh blasphemy law in the spotlight. Shahbaz Taseer s abduction is the second high-profile kidnapping in Lahore this month.

Police are still searching for an American aid expert who was kidnapped about two weeks ago.

Warren Weinstein, 70, the country director for J.E. Austin Associates Inc., had been working on a project in Pakistan s northwestern tribal areas where Pakistani troops have been battling Islamist insurgents for years.

Up to eight assailants kidnapped Weinstein in a pre-dawn raid on his house in Lahore on August 13.

Taliban gunned down US drone

Taliban spokesman Zabihollah Mojahed claimed that the militants gunned down the aircraft late on Saturday. Reports quoted witnesses as saying that they saw the drone catching fire mid-air and crashing into a civilian house. Earlier this week, another US drone crashed due to technical problems in eastern Ghazni Province, NATO said in a statement. But Taliban claimed the first crash as well.

The Taliban militants say they have shot down several aircraft and NATO choppers in different parts of Afghanistan over the past few months. Taliban have stepped up their attacks on US-led forces in the recent months.

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