Karzai, Petraeus Visit South Afghanistan

Gen. David Petraeus, left, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry listen to Afghan President Hamid Karzai as he talks to Afghans in Argandab district of Kandahar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2010. (GettyImages)

 

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October 09, 2010 (KATAKAMI) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai and top U.S. General David Petraeus are visiting the southern province of Kandahar, where coalition forces are engaged in a major operation against the Taliban.

U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry also is accompanying the Afghan president, who is expected to meet with tribal elders Saturday to rally support for his government and for international forces.

NATO and Afghan troops are trying to drive the Taliban out of its southern stronghold with a military offensive called Operation Dragon Strike.

In another development, the British Foreign Ministry says a British aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan was killed by her captors during a rescue attempt.  Linda Norgrove and three Afghan colleagues were abducted September 26 in the eastern province of Kunar.

Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed “deep sadness” in a statement Saturday confirming Norgrove’s death.

Also, a spokesman for Italy’s Defense Ministry, General Massimo Fogari, says four Italian troops were killed and another was wounded in an attack in western Afghanistan.  He said the soldiers’ convoy was first struck by a roadside bomb, before insurgents attacked with gunfire.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he was saddened by the “tragic ambush.”

Italy has about 3,400 soldiers in Afghanistan, deployed mostly in the west.

On Friday, a bomb blast at a mosque in northern Afghanistan killed 13 people, including the governor of Kunduz, Mohammad Omar, who frequently spoke out against the Taliban and had escaped at least two previous attempts on his life.

VOICE OF AMERICA (VOA)

Karzai Reaches Out to Taliban in New Afghan Peace Council

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, center, speaks during the inaugural session of Afghanistan’s new peace council in Kabul, Afghanistan, 7 Oct. 2010 (AP)

 

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October 08, 2010 (KATAKAMI) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai used the anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan to open the inaugural session of a peace council appointed to help reconcile with the Taliban and other militant groups.

President Karzai offered peace to the Taliban nine years to the day after U.S.-led forces began their effort to topple the group’s government in Kabul.

Mr. Karzai opened the 70-member council meeting.

The Afghan leader said he hoped the High Council for Peace will make the desire of peace and stability a reality for the nation. He said Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development are linked to peace and stability.
The council includes former Taliban officials as well as past Afghan presidents, civilian and religious leaders.
President Karzai made a special appeal to members of the Taliban in their main language, Pashto.

He called again on opposition forces, the Taliban and any Afghan citizen inside or outside of the country to use the opportunity to forge peace.

The U.S. government has expressed support for Mr. Karzai’s long-standing efforts to negotiate peace with the Taliban.

For months, there have been scattered reports that the Karzai administration has been involved in secret talks with the militant group. But the Taliban leadership officially has dismissed the possibility of reconciliation until foreign forces leave the country.

Afghan political analyst Wadir Sapai says he believes that the Taliban will accept a timeline for a coalition withdrawal only if the Afghan government meets its other basic demands, which include government recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political group with sovereignty within its regional strongholds.
Sapai says the Taliban inadvertently finds itself with allies in the current Afghan government, who are echoing its call for changes to the country’s constitution.

“Even the opposition of the present government also wants this amendment, which would be a parliamentary regime with a prime minister and limited authorities for the president,” he said.

Sapai says that a lack of trust in the Afghan government contributes to the belief that Afghanistan has lost more than it has gained after nine years of war.

“Afghanistan has lost in the security sphere, in the economic sphere, in the political sphere and also in the nation building,” he added. “Afghanistan has not gained anything for society, nothing for the peace [and] nothing for the region.”

This year has been the deadliest of the war, with more than 560 foreign troops killed. More than 2,000 foreign troops have died since 2001. As coalition and Afghan forces push deeper into Taliban-controlled territory in the south, analysts warn that the number of causalities will increase.

VOA

US deaths in Afghanistan hit record in 2010

In all, 1,270 US troops have lost their lives since the conflict began with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. — Photo by AP

September 01, 2010

KABUL (KATAKAMI / DAWN.COM) —  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 the independent icasualties.org 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 all, 1,270 US troops have lost their lives since the conflict began with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned that the United States faced a “very tough fight” in Afghanistan, with more casualties and “heartbreak” to come.

“We obviously still have a very tough fight in Afghanistan,” Obama told troops in Texas as the United States marked the formal end of combat operations in Iraq.

“We have seen casualties go up because we are taking the fight to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban,” Obama said. “It is going to be a tough slog.”

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) confirmed that a sixth US soldier died on Tuesday, killed in an insurgent attack in the south of the country.

This followed the previously announced deaths on Tuesday of another five US soldiers, four of them killed in a roadside bomb attack.

Twenty-five Americans have died since Friday.

Military leaders say the spike in deaths reflects the injection of additional troops into the Afghan theatre, which leads to a higher number of battlefield engagements with Taliban-led insurgents.

US General David Petraeus, the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that deployments would reach their full strength of 150,000 within days.

On Monday, eight Nato troops — seven Americans and an Estonian — were killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan.

Icasualties.org is constantly updating its figures as soldiers wounded in battle die of their injuries after they have been evacuated from Afghanistan, sometimes days or weeks later.

Photostream : German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg visits Afghanistan

German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (L) and the President of the lower house of parliament Norbert Lammert leave after a ceremony at a memorial for killed soldiers at the German Bundeswehr army camp Marmal in Masar-i-Sharif, north of Kabul in Afghanistan on August 28, 2010. Zu Guttenberg and Lammert are on a visit to German Bundeswehr armed forces serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. (Getty Images)

German soldiers listen to German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (2nd L) during his visit to the German Bundeswehr army camp Marmal in Masar-i-Sharif, north of Kabul in Afghanistan on August 28, 2010. Zu Guttenberg and Lammert are on a visit to German Bundeswehr armed forces serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.  (Getty Images)

German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg talks to German Bundeswehr army soldiers during breakfast at camp Marmal in Mazar-e-Sharif, north of Kabul, August 29, 2010. Zu Guttenberg and the President of the lower house of parliament Norbert Lammert visited German Bundeswehr armed forces troops with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. (Getty Images)

German army Bundeswehr Major general Hans-Werner Fritz (3R), German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (R) and the President of the lower house of parliament Norbert Lammert (2R) attend a ceremony a memorial for killed soldiers at the Bundeswehr camp Marmal in Masar-i-Sharif, north of Kabul, August 28, 2010. Zu Guttenberg and Lammert visit German Bundeswehr armed forces with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. (Getty Images)

German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (L) and the President of the lower house of parliament Norbert Lammert attend a ceremony at a memorial for killed soldiers at the German Bundeswehr army camp Marmal in Masar-i-Sharif, north of Kabul, August 28, 2010. Zu Guttenberg and Lammert visit German Bundeswehr armed forces with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. (Getty Images)