Pakistan's War - Documentaries
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fatman17
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Qaeda feels unsafe near Pakistan border: CIA chief
Thu Jan 15, 2009
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leaders no longer feel safe in Afghan-Pakistan border areas, where they face heavy U.S. and Pakistani pressure and their local welcome has worn out, CIA chief Michael Hayden said on Thursday.
Hayden's comments to reporters as he prepares to leave his post underscored a growing Bush administration confidence that al Qaeda's leadership has been crippled, partly by a military campaign that Washington does not acknowledge.
Hayden also said in the wide-ranging discussion he believed Iran was nearing a decision on whether to proceed with development of a nuclear weapon.
He stood by his defense of CIA waterboarding and said that regardless of whether the agency's harsh interrogations will be judged worth the widespread condemnation, they worked.
"The agency did none of this out of enthusiasm. It did it out of duty, and it did it with the best legal advice," he said. "I am convinced that the program got the maximum amount of information. ... I just can't conceive of any other way."
Hayden said a disappointment of his 2 1/2-year term was that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was still at large. But he said bin Laden and top lieutenants were no longer secure in the Pakistan mountain hide-outs believed to be hiding them.
"The great danger was that -- I'm going to use a little euphemism here -- the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan was a safe haven for al Qaeda," Hayden said. "It is my belief that the senior leadership of al Qaeda today believes that it is neither safe, nor a haven. That is a big deal in defending the United States."
An audio message from bin Laden this week may have been intended in part simply to show he was still alive, Hayden suggested.
"What we and our Pakistani allies have been able to do have changed the equation there," he said. U.S. forces in Afghanistan launched about 30 missile strikes in Pakistan in 2008, according to a Reuters tally.
The U.S. government does not acknowledge the strikes, but eight senior al Qaeda leaders have died in the region since July, a U.S. counterterrorism official said this week.
Pakistan has denounced the raids as violations of territorial sovereignty. But Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani said in Washington that Pakistani military cooperation had begun reducing militant infiltration into Afghanistan.
"Instead, now there is a reverse infiltration of Taliban and jihadis from Afghanistan coming into Pakistan to try and protect bases," in tribal areas," Haqqani told a think tank in Washington.
Residents in the border areas have also begun to make al Qaeda feel unwelcome, Hayden said.
'HE'S HIDING'
Hayden said it was likely that bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, would be caught before the al Qaeda leader, because Zawahri was more active and more involved in operations.
"I asked our counterterrorism chief, how come we haven't found him (bin Laden). He said, 'Because he's hiding.' And there's a lot of wisdom in that. He's spending a great deal of energy protecting himself," Hayden said.
Hayden's CIA term began in 2006 and has largely been defined by controversy over the agency's programs to capture and question terrorism suspects. That includes its use of the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.
The waterboarding was limited to three high-value terrorism suspects and discontinued in 2003, Hayden has said.
President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, told a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday he considered waterboarding to be torture.
Obama has signaled he did not intend to prosecute agents over the CIA programs, a view Hayden said he welcomed.
Hayden said he briefed Obama last month on the CIA's covert operations, including its programs for detention and interrogation. He called Obama an "avid customer" of intelligence.
Iran likely will decide soon whether to press ahead with a suspended nuclear weapons program, Hayden said. Its stocks of low-enriched uranium are rising, but the costs of maintaining the enrichment program in the face of international isolation and sanctions would soon force a reckoning, he said.
He counted as a major success the CIA's identification of a suspected covert Syrian nuclear plant. The plant was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2007.
Hayden said the CIA would abide by any government limits on its methods. But he said it worked best when it bumped right up against the limits -- and indicated that could be his legacy.
"When the history of this agency for this period is written, the last thing you are going to say is that it was risk-averse -- trust me," he said.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Peter Cooney)
the US "tack" seems to be changing for the positive. I wonder why?
Thu Jan 15, 2009
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leaders no longer feel safe in Afghan-Pakistan border areas, where they face heavy U.S. and Pakistani pressure and their local welcome has worn out, CIA chief Michael Hayden said on Thursday.
Hayden's comments to reporters as he prepares to leave his post underscored a growing Bush administration confidence that al Qaeda's leadership has been crippled, partly by a military campaign that Washington does not acknowledge.
Hayden also said in the wide-ranging discussion he believed Iran was nearing a decision on whether to proceed with development of a nuclear weapon.
He stood by his defense of CIA waterboarding and said that regardless of whether the agency's harsh interrogations will be judged worth the widespread condemnation, they worked.
"The agency did none of this out of enthusiasm. It did it out of duty, and it did it with the best legal advice," he said. "I am convinced that the program got the maximum amount of information. ... I just can't conceive of any other way."
Hayden said a disappointment of his 2 1/2-year term was that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was still at large. But he said bin Laden and top lieutenants were no longer secure in the Pakistan mountain hide-outs believed to be hiding them.
"The great danger was that -- I'm going to use a little euphemism here -- the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan was a safe haven for al Qaeda," Hayden said. "It is my belief that the senior leadership of al Qaeda today believes that it is neither safe, nor a haven. That is a big deal in defending the United States."
An audio message from bin Laden this week may have been intended in part simply to show he was still alive, Hayden suggested.
"What we and our Pakistani allies have been able to do have changed the equation there," he said. U.S. forces in Afghanistan launched about 30 missile strikes in Pakistan in 2008, according to a Reuters tally.
The U.S. government does not acknowledge the strikes, but eight senior al Qaeda leaders have died in the region since July, a U.S. counterterrorism official said this week.
Pakistan has denounced the raids as violations of territorial sovereignty. But Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani said in Washington that Pakistani military cooperation had begun reducing militant infiltration into Afghanistan.
"Instead, now there is a reverse infiltration of Taliban and jihadis from Afghanistan coming into Pakistan to try and protect bases," in tribal areas," Haqqani told a think tank in Washington.
Residents in the border areas have also begun to make al Qaeda feel unwelcome, Hayden said.
'HE'S HIDING'
Hayden said it was likely that bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, would be caught before the al Qaeda leader, because Zawahri was more active and more involved in operations.
"I asked our counterterrorism chief, how come we haven't found him (bin Laden). He said, 'Because he's hiding.' And there's a lot of wisdom in that. He's spending a great deal of energy protecting himself," Hayden said.
Hayden's CIA term began in 2006 and has largely been defined by controversy over the agency's programs to capture and question terrorism suspects. That includes its use of the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.
The waterboarding was limited to three high-value terrorism suspects and discontinued in 2003, Hayden has said.
President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, told a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday he considered waterboarding to be torture.
Obama has signaled he did not intend to prosecute agents over the CIA programs, a view Hayden said he welcomed.
Hayden said he briefed Obama last month on the CIA's covert operations, including its programs for detention and interrogation. He called Obama an "avid customer" of intelligence.
Iran likely will decide soon whether to press ahead with a suspended nuclear weapons program, Hayden said. Its stocks of low-enriched uranium are rising, but the costs of maintaining the enrichment program in the face of international isolation and sanctions would soon force a reckoning, he said.
He counted as a major success the CIA's identification of a suspected covert Syrian nuclear plant. The plant was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in 2007.
Hayden said the CIA would abide by any government limits on its methods. But he said it worked best when it bumped right up against the limits -- and indicated that could be his legacy.
"When the history of this agency for this period is written, the last thing you are going to say is that it was risk-averse -- trust me," he said.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Peter Cooney)
the US "tack" seems to be changing for the positive. I wonder why?
fatman17
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EXCLUSIVE: U.S. strikes more precise on al Qaeda
Fewer Pakistani civilians hit
Sara A. Carter (Contact)
Friday, January 16, 2009
U.S. strikes against terrorist suspects in Pakistan's tribal region have become more accurate in the past few months, leading to the confirmed deaths of eight senior al Qaeda leaders and a decrease in civilian casualties that have roiled U.S.-Pakistani relations, The Washington Times has learned.
Among those killed was the mastermind of a 2006 plot to detonate liquid explosives aboard planes flying across the Atlantic and the man thought to have planned the Sept. 20 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, that killed 53 people, including two members of the U.S. military.
"The strikes have become increasingly accurate," a senior Pakistani official told The Times on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject. The official, who has worked closely with U.S. authorities, also said fighting was escalating between the foreign militants and members of native Pakistani tribes in the area along the Afghan border. As a result, he said, Arab al Qaeda members "are increasingly isolated."
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden apparently remains at large, judging from an audio recording released Wednesday. In the message, the terrorist mastermind called for a holy war against Israel because of its Gaza offensive and questioned whether the United States could succeed in Afghanistan. It was the first such recording since May and appeared to be authentic.
Still, officials from the outgoing Bush administration said they have scored significant hits.
"Within the last year or so we've had a very significant impact on senior al Qaeda leadership," Vice President Dick Cheney told PBS' "NewsHour" on Wednesday without elaborating.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told reporters Thursday that al Qaeda is feeling a backlash from Pakistani tribes and is under strain because of the loss of senior leaders.
Pakistan's tribal region, which was once a safe haven for the group, is not "safe nor a haven" anymore, Mr. Hayden said.
The Times obtainedthe names of all eight senior al Qaeda members confirmed killed by U.S. missile strikes in the tribal region in the past six months.
The list, which has not been published before, is as follows:
• Khalid Habib, a veteran combat leader and operations chief involved with plots to attack the West. He was a deputy to Shaikh Saiid al-Masri, al Qaeda's No. 3 leader.
• Rashid Rauf, who was accused of planning to send terrorist operatives with homemade liquid bombs onto several airliners flying from Britain to the United States and Canada in 2006. British police discovered the plot before it could be carried out.
• Abu Khabab al-Masri, al Qaeda's most seasoned explosives expert and trainer. U.S. authorities said he was responsible for attempts to obtain chemical and biological weapons.
• Abdallah Azzam, a senior aide to al-Masri, who founded a charity front based in Pakistan called Maktab al-Khidamat, or "services office."
• Abu al-Hassan al-Rimi, a leader of cross-border operations against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.
• Abu Sulaiman al-Jaziri, a senior external operations planner and facilitator for al Qaeda.
• Abu Jihad al-Masri, al Qaeda's senior operational planner and propagandist.
• Usama al-Kini, who was accused of planning the Marriott hotel bombing. Al-Kini was on the FBI's terrorist most wanted list.
Pakistani officials have protested U.S. strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty. After a Nov. 19 attack on Bannu, a district in the North West Frontier Province, the Pakistani government summoned U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson to the Foreign Ministry and lodged a formal protest.
In early December, U.S. forces based in Afghanistan carried out roughly 25 strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda camps in the border areas, most of them with pilotless craft.
Pakistani officials complained that the strikes were killing innocent people and threatened to shoot down U.S. drones.
In the past six weeks, however, Pakistan has lodged few protests and the public uproar has quieted, suggesting greater U.S. accuracy.
Daniel L. Byman, a terrorism analyst at Georgetown University and member of the Sept. 11 commission, said he supported the policy of targeting al Qaeda militants but was surprised at how little controversy it has provoked in the United States.
"It is interesting that we focus much more on the people we imprison than the people we kill," he said.
A U.S. counterterrorism official told The Times that aggressive efforts are continuing to try to locate bin Laden and other fugitives.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the terrorist organization is still a major threat to U.S. assets and the U.S. mainland.
Al Qaeda's threats against Israel also worry counterterrorism officials who fear that the Gaza offensive is providing new ammunition for anti-U.S. propaganda and al Qaeda links to extremists in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
"Any time Israel is engaged in a conflict with Hamas or other extremist groups, al Qaeda is going to try to get in the mix to show that it remains relevant," the U.S. official said.
Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC
Fewer Pakistani civilians hit
Sara A. Carter (Contact)
Friday, January 16, 2009
U.S. strikes against terrorist suspects in Pakistan's tribal region have become more accurate in the past few months, leading to the confirmed deaths of eight senior al Qaeda leaders and a decrease in civilian casualties that have roiled U.S.-Pakistani relations, The Washington Times has learned.
Among those killed was the mastermind of a 2006 plot to detonate liquid explosives aboard planes flying across the Atlantic and the man thought to have planned the Sept. 20 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, that killed 53 people, including two members of the U.S. military.
"The strikes have become increasingly accurate," a senior Pakistani official told The Times on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject. The official, who has worked closely with U.S. authorities, also said fighting was escalating between the foreign militants and members of native Pakistani tribes in the area along the Afghan border. As a result, he said, Arab al Qaeda members "are increasingly isolated."
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden apparently remains at large, judging from an audio recording released Wednesday. In the message, the terrorist mastermind called for a holy war against Israel because of its Gaza offensive and questioned whether the United States could succeed in Afghanistan. It was the first such recording since May and appeared to be authentic.
Still, officials from the outgoing Bush administration said they have scored significant hits.
"Within the last year or so we've had a very significant impact on senior al Qaeda leadership," Vice President Dick Cheney told PBS' "NewsHour" on Wednesday without elaborating.
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told reporters Thursday that al Qaeda is feeling a backlash from Pakistani tribes and is under strain because of the loss of senior leaders.
Pakistan's tribal region, which was once a safe haven for the group, is not "safe nor a haven" anymore, Mr. Hayden said.
The Times obtainedthe names of all eight senior al Qaeda members confirmed killed by U.S. missile strikes in the tribal region in the past six months.
The list, which has not been published before, is as follows:
• Khalid Habib, a veteran combat leader and operations chief involved with plots to attack the West. He was a deputy to Shaikh Saiid al-Masri, al Qaeda's No. 3 leader.
• Rashid Rauf, who was accused of planning to send terrorist operatives with homemade liquid bombs onto several airliners flying from Britain to the United States and Canada in 2006. British police discovered the plot before it could be carried out.
• Abu Khabab al-Masri, al Qaeda's most seasoned explosives expert and trainer. U.S. authorities said he was responsible for attempts to obtain chemical and biological weapons.
• Abdallah Azzam, a senior aide to al-Masri, who founded a charity front based in Pakistan called Maktab al-Khidamat, or "services office."
• Abu al-Hassan al-Rimi, a leader of cross-border operations against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.
• Abu Sulaiman al-Jaziri, a senior external operations planner and facilitator for al Qaeda.
• Abu Jihad al-Masri, al Qaeda's senior operational planner and propagandist.
• Usama al-Kini, who was accused of planning the Marriott hotel bombing. Al-Kini was on the FBI's terrorist most wanted list.
Pakistani officials have protested U.S. strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty. After a Nov. 19 attack on Bannu, a district in the North West Frontier Province, the Pakistani government summoned U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson to the Foreign Ministry and lodged a formal protest.
In early December, U.S. forces based in Afghanistan carried out roughly 25 strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda camps in the border areas, most of them with pilotless craft.
Pakistani officials complained that the strikes were killing innocent people and threatened to shoot down U.S. drones.
In the past six weeks, however, Pakistan has lodged few protests and the public uproar has quieted, suggesting greater U.S. accuracy.
Daniel L. Byman, a terrorism analyst at Georgetown University and member of the Sept. 11 commission, said he supported the policy of targeting al Qaeda militants but was surprised at how little controversy it has provoked in the United States.
"It is interesting that we focus much more on the people we imprison than the people we kill," he said.
A U.S. counterterrorism official told The Times that aggressive efforts are continuing to try to locate bin Laden and other fugitives.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the terrorist organization is still a major threat to U.S. assets and the U.S. mainland.
Al Qaeda's threats against Israel also worry counterterrorism officials who fear that the Gaza offensive is providing new ammunition for anti-U.S. propaganda and al Qaeda links to extremists in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
"Any time Israel is engaged in a conflict with Hamas or other extremist groups, al Qaeda is going to try to get in the mix to show that it remains relevant," the U.S. official said.
Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC
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“”Qaeda feels unsafe near Pakistan border: CIA chief””
“”EXCLUSIVE: U.S. strikes more precise on al Qaeda”
So Mr. Michael Hayden has raked in some phenomenal success stories in his Afghan – FATA adventures!
Pretty soon the menace of Taliban and Al-Qaida will be over, and a “Victory” declared for the Fourth (4th) time!
It has been a success story for Dick Cheney all along; his Halliburton Corp. has raked in phenomenal profits thanks to its US$ 15 b uncompleted contracts in the past 8 years.
It’s been a long downslide for the American nation. A once proud and prosperous America has 7.2% of its work force unemployed, and 15% partly employed. This will soon balloon to 12% and 23% respectively.
In the next 48 hours Bush administration will be committed to the dustbin of history. These guys have the cheeks and gusto to declare victories. Such jokers can only sell their gin to the gullible American Public.
“”EXCLUSIVE: U.S. strikes more precise on al Qaeda”
So Mr. Michael Hayden has raked in some phenomenal success stories in his Afghan – FATA adventures!
Pretty soon the menace of Taliban and Al-Qaida will be over, and a “Victory” declared for the Fourth (4th) time!
It has been a success story for Dick Cheney all along; his Halliburton Corp. has raked in phenomenal profits thanks to its US$ 15 b uncompleted contracts in the past 8 years.
It’s been a long downslide for the American nation. A once proud and prosperous America has 7.2% of its work force unemployed, and 15% partly employed. This will soon balloon to 12% and 23% respectively.
In the next 48 hours Bush administration will be committed to the dustbin of history. These guys have the cheeks and gusto to declare victories. Such jokers can only sell their gin to the gullible American Public.
fatman17
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Pakistan arrests senior Taliban aide
Ustad Yasar, a sometime spokesman for Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, is captured in a rare instance of cross-border cooperation with Afghanistan.
By Laura King
January 4, 2009
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan -- In an unusual instance of cross-border cooperation, Pakistani authorities arrested a ranking figure in Afghanistan's Taliban movement after receiving a tip that he had entered Pakistan, officials disclosed Saturday.
Few details were provided about the capture of Ustad Yasar, a senior aide to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. He had been released by Afghan officials in 2007in a much-criticized prisoner exchange to secure the freedom of a kidnapped Italian journalist.
Pakistani officials said Yasar was picked up in the frontier city of Peshawar, the hub of the nation's volatile northwest and a growing center of the Islamist insurgency on the Pakistan side of the border. They did not say when the arrest occurred.
Western military officials say senior Taliban commanders as well as lower-level fighters move freely back and forth across the rugged, poorly marked Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier. But only rarely do Pakistani officials move to seize such figures.
Yasar's arrest was disclosed one day after a meeting in Kabul, the Afghan capital, at which senior Afghan, Pakistani and Western officials discussed ways to better coordinate efforts to fight Islamic insurgents. The capture provided a glimpse of the intertwined command structures of the Taliban movements in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to Pakistani news reports, Omar sent Yasar, his sometime spokesman, to Pakistan to try to mediate a dispute among Pakistani Taliban factions. These Taliban fighters have their own leaders and their own agenda of carrying out attacks against Pakistani troops, government installations and other targets. But they are also known to coordinate with Afghan counterparts.
Yasar was first captured in 2005 in Pakistan, where he had fled into the largely lawless rural border region with many other Afghan Taliban fighters. Turned over to Kabul authorities, Yasar was jailed in Afghanistan until March 2007, when he was freed in exchange for journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo -- a case that turned out to be a precursor to a string of similar kidnappings.
Mastrogiacomo, a veteran correspondent for the Italian daily La Repubblica, was seized along with his driver and an Afghan colleague in southern Afghanistan. His captors beheaded the driver in front of him, documenting the execution in a grisly video. After Mastrogiacomo made a videotaped plea for his own life, Afghan authorities freed Yasar and four other senior Taliban militants, as demanded by the kidnappers.
Mastrogiacomo was released unharmed, but the Afghan journalist, Ajmal Naqshbandi, was later found dead.
Aid agencies, foreign security officials and others warned at the time that the Afghan government's willingness to strike a deal with the kidnappers probably would spur similar abductions. These fears proved well-founded; the latter part of the year saw an upsurge in such incidents.
Last week, U.S. Ambassador William Wood told journalists in Afghanistan that there were about twice as many abductions in 2008 as in 2007, mostly involving Afghan nationals, but also a number of foreign aid workers and journalists.
Some of the kidnappings have been criminal cases involving large ransom demands, but others have apparently been politically motivated.
The Mastrogiacomo case clearly struck a chord with Western and Afghan officials. Of the five militants freed in the swap, three were eventually tracked down and killed by coalition troops. Yasar, meanwhile, was thought to have been under surveillance for some time.
laura.king@latimes.com
Special correspondent Zulfiqar Ali in Peshawar contributed to this report.
Ustad Yasar, a sometime spokesman for Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, is captured in a rare instance of cross-border cooperation with Afghanistan.
By Laura King
January 4, 2009
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan -- In an unusual instance of cross-border cooperation, Pakistani authorities arrested a ranking figure in Afghanistan's Taliban movement after receiving a tip that he had entered Pakistan, officials disclosed Saturday.
Few details were provided about the capture of Ustad Yasar, a senior aide to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. He had been released by Afghan officials in 2007in a much-criticized prisoner exchange to secure the freedom of a kidnapped Italian journalist.
Pakistani officials said Yasar was picked up in the frontier city of Peshawar, the hub of the nation's volatile northwest and a growing center of the Islamist insurgency on the Pakistan side of the border. They did not say when the arrest occurred.
Western military officials say senior Taliban commanders as well as lower-level fighters move freely back and forth across the rugged, poorly marked Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier. But only rarely do Pakistani officials move to seize such figures.
Yasar's arrest was disclosed one day after a meeting in Kabul, the Afghan capital, at which senior Afghan, Pakistani and Western officials discussed ways to better coordinate efforts to fight Islamic insurgents. The capture provided a glimpse of the intertwined command structures of the Taliban movements in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to Pakistani news reports, Omar sent Yasar, his sometime spokesman, to Pakistan to try to mediate a dispute among Pakistani Taliban factions. These Taliban fighters have their own leaders and their own agenda of carrying out attacks against Pakistani troops, government installations and other targets. But they are also known to coordinate with Afghan counterparts.
Yasar was first captured in 2005 in Pakistan, where he had fled into the largely lawless rural border region with many other Afghan Taliban fighters. Turned over to Kabul authorities, Yasar was jailed in Afghanistan until March 2007, when he was freed in exchange for journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo -- a case that turned out to be a precursor to a string of similar kidnappings.
Mastrogiacomo, a veteran correspondent for the Italian daily La Repubblica, was seized along with his driver and an Afghan colleague in southern Afghanistan. His captors beheaded the driver in front of him, documenting the execution in a grisly video. After Mastrogiacomo made a videotaped plea for his own life, Afghan authorities freed Yasar and four other senior Taliban militants, as demanded by the kidnappers.
Mastrogiacomo was released unharmed, but the Afghan journalist, Ajmal Naqshbandi, was later found dead.
Aid agencies, foreign security officials and others warned at the time that the Afghan government's willingness to strike a deal with the kidnappers probably would spur similar abductions. These fears proved well-founded; the latter part of the year saw an upsurge in such incidents.
Last week, U.S. Ambassador William Wood told journalists in Afghanistan that there were about twice as many abductions in 2008 as in 2007, mostly involving Afghan nationals, but also a number of foreign aid workers and journalists.
Some of the kidnappings have been criminal cases involving large ransom demands, but others have apparently been politically motivated.
The Mastrogiacomo case clearly struck a chord with Western and Afghan officials. Of the five militants freed in the swap, three were eventually tracked down and killed by coalition troops. Yasar, meanwhile, was thought to have been under surveillance for some time.
laura.king@latimes.com
Special correspondent Zulfiqar Ali in Peshawar contributed to this report.
sohailbutt
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kidwaibhai, Agnostic Muslim thank u so very much guys for posting the war videos, guys im completely blank on this topic, and now i c the severity of the war in FATA and other tribal regions, even after watching 6500 videos on youtube to date i have not come across these documentaries which u both have posted, hats off to u guys, keep up the excellent work.
May Allah help our soldiers and other military personal succeed in the fighting against these terrorists.
May Allah help our soldiers and other military personal succeed in the fighting against these terrorists.
sergente rehan
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Salute to the brave Pak-Army mens who gives their lives for the peace in the world!
S-2
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60 minutes followed a U.S. rifle company from the 101st in Konar. Really interesting footage. Lots of contacts to include a rocket attack as well as accompanying a patrol that makes contact, kills one militant and absorbs the wounding of one of their own.
In the course of the firefight, the militants broke contact and retreated into a cornfield. As the U.S. troops swept the cornfield one found a video camera. Shortly thereafter, they make point blank contact with a militant in a spider hole just over a berm. One G.I. is wounded and you watch a U.S. sergeant dispatch the militant.
Video footage from the camera details the surveillance of the American forces. The company commander suspected he was viewing his own unit. Lt. Gen. Schlosser flies into the FOB where he admits we fire into Pakistan. Good footage of the militants as well. Some look arab or European. I'll let you guys decide that.
In the course of the firefight, the militants broke contact and retreated into a cornfield. As the U.S. troops swept the cornfield one found a video camera. Shortly thereafter, they make point blank contact with a militant in a spider hole just over a berm. One G.I. is wounded and you watch a U.S. sergeant dispatch the militant.
Video footage from the camera details the surveillance of the American forces. The company commander suspected he was viewing his own unit. Lt. Gen. Schlosser flies into the FOB where he admits we fire into Pakistan. Good footage of the militants as well. Some look arab or European. I'll let you guys decide that.
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RedBaron
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This is some good footage...similar to another one I saw last year shot by Frontline. The story was pretty similar too...companies laboriously scouring the rocky and dusty countryside on foot, isolated firefights, IED search. In the other one, at dusk, they actually find some five IEDs before a sixth one obliterates a Humvee right in front of the cameras killing everyone.
I can't help but think that the additional 17,000 troops are like a drop in an ocean. They will probably reinforce these companies that are trying to hold major roads leading to Kabul, and pay for it with their blood. But as the general mentioned, Taliban forces have increased by 20-30% as well, and they hold the countryside. What's the endgame? Surely the good guys are losing?
And the increasingly dysfunctional Karzai gov't is now talking to Haqqani, who everyone agrees, is responsible for all major suicide attacks in Kabul. The insurgents shown in the footage responsible for planting the IED and engaging US forces could very well be Haqqani's men, or some faction allied to his. Talk about working at cross-purposes...
I can't help but think that the additional 17,000 troops are like a drop in an ocean. They will probably reinforce these companies that are trying to hold major roads leading to Kabul, and pay for it with their blood. But as the general mentioned, Taliban forces have increased by 20-30% as well, and they hold the countryside. What's the endgame? Surely the good guys are losing?
And the increasingly dysfunctional Karzai gov't is now talking to Haqqani, who everyone agrees, is responsible for all major suicide attacks in Kabul. The insurgents shown in the footage responsible for planting the IED and engaging US forces could very well be Haqqani's men, or some faction allied to his. Talk about working at cross-purposes...
S-2
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Hey, if you're queasy, best not follow Afghanistan this spring, summer, and fall. We've given any and all fair warning that we expect a spike in U.S. combat casualties. I suspect that means the Dutch, Danes, Brits, Canadians, and Aussies as well as we'll be going south and looking to phuck with the Helmand opium crop.
That province alone controls 70% of Afghanistan's opium, and with it, the key to taliban operations. We've not been south of Garmsir District which is actually fairly far north. There is much of Helmand that is utterly untouched by ISAF or the Afghani gov't.
That simply must change.
That province alone controls 70% of Afghanistan's opium, and with it, the key to taliban operations. We've not been south of Garmsir District which is actually fairly far north. There is much of Helmand that is utterly untouched by ISAF or the Afghani gov't.
That simply must change.
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RedBaron
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I'm not queasy about spike in coalition effort or casualties, but about the so-called negotiations GoA plans to conduct with the Taliban, real or imaginary, this disjointed strategy is worrying. I am following events keenly though. Helmand is Ground Zero, and everyone knows it, including the new Council of United Mujahideen. I'm sure you've read this one...
Coalition and Taliban forces battle throughout Afghanistan
By Bill RoggioMarch 20, 2009 5:42 PM
Scores of Taliban fighters and several Afghan officials were killed in fighting throughout Afghanistan. The violence marks the opening of the spring fighting season in Afghanistan as the Coalition and the Taliban surge forces for what is expected to be the toughest year of fighting since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
The largest battle took place in the Gereshk district in the southern province of Helmand on March 19. Afghan soldiers and their Coalition advisers conducting "combat reconnaissance in an area of known militant presence" took fire from Taliban fighters and engaged, the US military said in a press release.
The Afghan forces returned fire and routed the Taliban force. Thirty Taliban fighters were killed and one Afghan soldier was wounded in the firefight.
The same day, the Taliban killed a member of parliament, the highway police chief, and three bodyguards in an IED attack on a convoy in Helmand province. MP Dad Mohammad Khan "was known for his long opposition to the Taliban, which dated back to the hardliners' time in government between 1996 and 2001," The Associated Press reported. He served as the province's intelligence chief before being elected to parliament in 2005.
Helmand has been active the past several days. On March 18, a US airstrike killed two senior Taliban leaders in the Now Zad district.
Helmand province is one of the most violent in Afghanistan as the Taliban have taken advantage of local support and the opium drug industry to maintain a foothold in the province. The US Marines killed more than 500 Taliban fighters in Helmand province after surging into the region in 2008.
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Pakistani Taliban leader threatens suicide campaign against US forces
Across the border in Pakistan, one of the three senior leaders of a new Taliban alliance said his group has prepared a suicide campaign that is specifically designed to hit US troops in Afghanistan.
Mullah Nazir, one of the two main Taliban leaders in South Waziristan, told ABC News that US soldiers in Afghanistan "absolutely" were the target of his suicide bombers.
"We have readied suicide bombers for them, they cannot escape us," Nazir told ABC News.
Nazir and North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar put aside tribal feuds and strategic differences with South Waziristan and Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud at the end of February and created the Council of United Mujahideen. Previously, Nazir and Bahadar had feuded with Baitullah due to tribal disputes as well as Baitullahs rising power as the senior leader of the Pakistani Taliban.
The council was formed at the behest of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. The three leaders had pamphlets distributed throughout North and South Waziristan to announce the formation of the Council of United Mujahideen. The Taliban leaders have united according to the wishes of Mujahideen leaders like Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden, The Nation reported.
The Taliban alliance said it supported Mullah Muhammad Omar and Osama bin Ladens struggle against the administrations of US President Barack Obama, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The new alliance further stated it was waging war in an organized manner to stop the infidels from carrying out acts of barbarism against innocent people just as Omar and bin Laden were waging war against Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the US.
Nazir was often described by the media and the Pakistani government as a "pro-government Taliban" because he did not advocate fighting Pakistani security forces. This is a perception the Pakistani government has been willing to promote. The government signed a peace agreement with Nazir in mid-October 2008, and the military refuses to conduct operations against Nazir and Bahadar, despite the fact that their forces attack Afghan and Coalition forces inside Afghanistan.
But Nazir openly supports al Qaeda and its leadership. He admitted he would provide shelter to senior al Qaeda leaders. "How can I say no to any request from Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar under tribal traditions, if they approach me to get shelter?" Nazir asked the Pakistani press in the spring of 2007.
Al Qaeda runs terror camps inside Nazir's tribal areas and helps to finance his operations. The US routinely targets Nazir's tribal areas. In July 2008, Abu Khabab al Masri, the chief of al Qaeda's weapons of mass destruction program, and his staff were killed in an airstrike in Nazir's tribal areas South Waziristan. Last fall, one of Nazir's senior deputies threatened to attack Pakistani military forces if the government did not stop US airstrikes in the tribal areas.
Coalition and Taliban forces battle throughout Afghanistan - The Long War Journal
Garmsir seems to be the southern-most district in Helmand. Did you mean some other district?
