Karzai kicks out US forces from Wardak

[UmarJustice]

Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded Sunday the withdrawal of US special forces from Wardak within two weeks, accusing them of fuelling ‘insecurity and instability’ in the volatile province neighbouring the capital Kabul.

"In today's national security council meeting... President Karzai ordered the ministry of defence to kick out the US special forces from Wardak province within two weeks," said presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.

"The US special forces and illegal armed groups created by them are causing insecurity, instability, and harass local people in this province," he told a press conference. The announcement would be another blow to the prestige of US-led forces as they prepare to withdraw combat troops from the war against Taliban Islamist insurgents by the end of next year.

A US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) spokesman said he was aware of the reported comments by Faizi. "We take all allegations of misconduct seriously and go to great lengths to determine the facts surrounding them," he said.

"Until we have had a chance to speak with senior (Afghan) officials about this issue we are not in a position to comment further. This is an important issue that we intend to fully discuss with our Afghan counterparts."

More than 3,200 Nato troops, mostly Americans, have died in support of Karzai's government in the war since the Taliban were ousted by a US invasion in 2001, but relations between the president and the US are often prickly.

Meanwhile, two Taliban suicide bombers killed three members of Afghan security forces on Sunday, but a third attack in Kabul's diplomatic enclave was foiled when police shot dead the would-be assailant, officials said.

The attacker in Kabul was armed with a suicide vest and his SUV was full of explosives, but police opened fire when he tried to penetrate deeper into the capital's diplomatic enclave of Wazir Akbar Khan, the officials said.

In the day's first attack, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a spy agency facility in the town of Jalalabad, 150 kilometres east of Kabul.

It was followed by a similar attack on a police base in Puli Alam, 70 kilometres south of the capital, officials said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed claimed responsibility for the attacks in Puli Alam and Jalalabad, but denied that the militant group was involved in the foiled attack in Kabul.

Authorities had earlier said that two would-be suicide bombers were killed in Kabul. But city police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi said only one attacker was involved, dismissing local reports that a second bomber had managed to escape. "We have intelligence about this. The bomber was shot dead and his car bomb is defused. It's over now," Salangi told AFP. An AFP photographer at the scene saw a young man laying dead in a pool of blood next to his bullet-ridden car on the side of the road near a construction site. The man was shot in the head.

The same construction site was overrun by insurgents as part of a coordinated attack in Kabul and several other provinces in April 2012. In Jalalabad, police spokesman Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal said the bomber rammed his sedan car into the gates of the walled compound of a National Directorate of Security branch and detonated his bombs.

"There was a suicide car bombing in the intelligence facility in city district two. Two intelligence workers were martyred and three others were wounded," Mashriqiwal said.

Police in Puli Alam, the capital of Logar province, said the attack there hit the gates of a police base along the highway leading to Kabul and killed one police officer.

Logar police chief Abdul Saboor Nasrati said the bombing was carried out in a van and caused "a massive explosion" that broke glass and caused damage to nearby homes.

The Taliban have waged an 11-year insurgency against the Kabul government since being ousted from power in a US-led invasion in 2001.

The United States and Nato have around 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, but the vast majority of them will leave next year, with Afghan forces progressively taking over.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-n...+Nation+:+Latest+News)&utm_content=FeedBurner

 

[KRAIT]

Is Karzai going nuts ? Ordering US ?

 

[Dubious]

Is Karzai going nuts ? Ordering US ?

@KRAIT anyone staying over the invitation period would drive any host nuts!

 

[A.Rafay]

Great move by karzai, his first order and decision in 11 years of his tenure, atlast he showed some guts!

 

[hunter_hunted]

So he is trying to bring another province under his Mayor-ship. This guy is either stupid or too stupid by going against his masters who made him Mayor of kabul.

 

[BATMAN]

Pashtoons are waking up after 10 years long genocide, northern alliance warlords have put hitler to shame.

Insiders on this forum, are telling that killings were not carried out by US, instead it was dogs of northern alliance.

 

[Cheetah786]

Is Karzai going nuts ? Ordering US ?

This is all Part of PR to make it look like he has balls.

 

[Iggy]

Most probably a move to impress his rivals also.. US will move out by 2014.. He is the one who is going to stay back in Afghan .. He need to do some extraordinary moves to clear his image among Afghanese.

 

[KRAIT]

@KRAIT anyone staying over the invitation period would drive any host nuts!

If someone provides security to you for years, suddenly you see that the person is causing so called trouble, you give them ultimatum ?

Diplomacy isn't done this way.

 

[Ayush]

karzai ordering usa???

 

[batmannow]

Afghanistan Order U.S. Troops From Key Province
www.NewYorkTimes.com
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
An Afghan soldier and resident of Maidan Wardak Province, which the government has decreed off limits to United States forces.

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Published: February 25, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan government barred elite American forces from operating in a strategic province adjoining Kabul on Sunday, citing complaints that Afghans working for American Special Operations forces had tortured and killed villagers in the area.
The ban was scheduled to take effect in two weeks in the province, Maidan Wardak, which is seen as a crucial area in defending the capital against the Taliban. If enforced, it would effectively exclude the American military's main source of offensive firepower from the area, which lies southwest of Kabul and is used by the Taliban as a staging ground for attacks on the city.
By announcing the ban, the government signaled its willingness to take a far harder line against abuses linked to foreign troops than it has in the past. The action also reflected a deep distrust of international forces that is now widespread in Afghanistan, and the view held by many Afghans, President Hamid Karzai among them, that the coalition shares responsibility with the Taliban for the violence that continues to afflict the country.
Coalition officials said they were talking to their Afghan counterparts to clarify the ban and the allegations that prompted it. They declined to comment further.
Afghan officials said the measure was taken as a last resort. They said they had tried for weeks to get the coalition to cooperate with an investigation into claims that civilians had been killed, abducted or tortured by Afghans working for American Special Operations forces in Maidan Wardak. But the coalition was not responsive, they said.
A Western official said late on Sunday that a commission of Afghan and coalition officials would be announced in the next few days to investigate the claims.
The Afghan officials said that without information from the coalition, they could provide few specifics about who was accused or which units they worked with.
A statement from the presidential palace suggested that abuses might have been committed by American troops, and not just by Afghans working alongside them. But in interviews after the announcement, Afghan officials indicated that the Afghans were the main suspects, and that the Americans were seen as enabling the abuses rather than perpetrating them.
Throughout the war, the United States military and the C.I.A. have organized and trained clandestine militias. A number still operate, and remain beyond the knowledge or control of the Afghan government. Aimal Faizi, the spokesman for Mr. Karzai, said it was time for foreign forces to hand over control of the "parallel structures," as he called them, to the government.
Much of the work done by American Special Operations forces in Afghanistan or anywhere else is highly classified, and information about it is closely guarded. A senior American military officer, for instance, said he did not know whether such forces were based in Maidan Wardak or were based elsewhere and were flown in for missions.
Afghan officials are, for the most part, told even less, and many in the Karzai administration no longer wish to allow Americans to continue "running roughshod all around our country," said a person who is close to Mr. Karzai.
As additional evidence of that sentiment, the person close to Mr. Karzai, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing internal deliberations, cited an order issued earlier this month by Mr. Karzai sharply curtailing the circumstances in which Afghan forces could call in coalition airstrikes.
That order, however, simply brought Afghan forces into line with the rules that coalition troops have followed since last year. Neither Afghan nor foreign military commanders believe its impact will be far-reaching.
It will probably be harder to assess the effects of the ban decreed on Sunday, and the competing views on the matter illustrate just how far apart Afghan and coalition officials are when it comes to charting a course for the war.
With the withdrawal of American forces picking up pace, most of the coalition's conventional forces in eastern Afghanistan, including in Maidan Wardak, have shifted into advisory roles. Among coalition troops, offensive operations are increasingly becoming the sole purview of the Special Operations forces.
United States officials, in fact, are planning to rely heavily on the elite troops to continue hunting members of Al Qaeda and other international militants in Afghanistan after the NATO mission here ends in 2014.
Afghans have expressed far less enthusiasm about foreign forces, either conventional or Special Operations troops, continuing to operate in Afghanistan for years to come. "The international forces, they are also factors in insecurity and instability - it's not only the insurgency," said Mr. Faizi, the presidential spokesman.
As for concerns that the new ban could reduce pressure on the Taliban, Mr. Faizi said that the Afghan Army and the police would "certainly be able to handle this work."
He said the security situation in Maidan Wardak had not improved in years, even after the Special Operations forces stepped up their activity there, mostly focused on killing or capturing Taliban field commanders and other high-ranking insurgents. Those operations have failed to reduce the violence, Mr. Faizi said, and now "local people are blaming the U.S. Special Forces for every incident that is taking place there."
"It is better to make the Special Forces withdraw from the province, and let the local people understand that they are facing only Afghan forces," he continued. "That will bring clarity to the situation."
The provincial government in Maidan Wardak expressed support for the ban. "There have been lots of complaints from the local people about misconduct, mistreatment, beating, taking away, torturing and killing of civilians by Special Forces and their Afghan associates," said Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial government.
He cited a raid on a village on Feb. 13, when American troops and Afghans working with them detained a veterinary student. "His dead body was found three days later in the area under a bridge," Mr. Khogyani said, prompting protests against foreigners.
Mr. Faizi said that villagers in Maidan Wardak had reported a number of similar episodes in recent months, including the disappearance of nine men in a single raid. "People from the province, elders from villages, have come to Kabul so many times, and they have brought photographs and videos of their family members who have been tortured," he said.
Afghan officials have provided the coalition with pictures and videos of the men thought responsible for the abuses, he said. They appeared to be Afghan, but could be Afghan-American.
Mr. Faizi said that when the government first approached the coalition about the allegations, coalition officers seemed ready to cooperate, but their position soon shifted. Coalition officers said the men in question had disappeared or had never worked with American forces. The officers questioned whether there had been any killings or torture, and if so, whether anyone tied to the Americans was responsible.
Mr. Faizi said the Afghan government simply wanted to investigate, and was open to the possibility that the perpetrators had no connection to the coalition. But that would raise another question: "Let's imagine that the U.S. Special Forces are not involved," Mr. Faizi said. "Then how come they have not once heard about this? How come they do not know who is doing this?"
Violence continued in the country on Sunday, with three Taliban car bombers striking in separate attacks, including two in Logar Province just east of Maidan Wardak. Two security guards and a police officer were killed as well as the three bombers. Five other people were wounded.
A fourth bombing was foiled on Sunday when Afghan intelligence agents in Kabul shot a man in a sport utility vehicle packed with explosives, said Gen. Mohammed Ayoub Salangi, Kabul's police chief.
Habib Zahori and Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

 

[muse]

This is all Part of PR to make it look like he has balls.

Possibly but Mr. Karzai is a talented politician - He's not slow getting behind an idea that has strength in society - it will be interesting to see how the US choose to deal with this and how it will play in Afghanistan

 

[xyxmt]

Pashtoons are waking up after 10 years long genocide, northern alliance warlords have put hitler to shame.

Insiders on this forum, are telling that killings were not carried out by US, instead it was dogs of northern alliance.

thats maybe true but his goons who are NA are telling him its US special forces doing it, they are trying to squeeze his balls between NA and US, stupid that he is he is falling for it

 

[Hyperion]

We already knew this. Post 2014 there will be a golden age where all odd looking / shorty Afghans (Uzbeks/Tajiks/Etc Etc) will be taken care of by the Pashtuns. Sher Malang should be first on the list. Traitor.

Pashtoons are waking up after 10 years long genocide, northern alliance warlords have put hitler to shame.

Insiders on this forum, are telling that killings were not carried out by US, instead it was dogs of northern alliance.

 

[Vassnti]

Pashtoons are waking up after 10 years long genocide, northern alliance warlords have put hitler to shame.

Insiders on this forum, are telling that killings were not carried out by US, instead it was dogs of northern alliance.

Seeing Wardak is a majority Hazara area and those missing and killed were locals what makes you think the northern alliance?

So many Pashtun seem to talk about payback you might want to think again about who is doing the killing?