Why Pakistan is not doing enough

[Zovc]

No matter how much Pakistan does the Americans will demand more. It's kind of like bargaining at a local store.

 

[qsaark]

My friends, i was completely against this War on Terror but recent events have proved that we need to do more. Pakistan Army is holding back, the only thing holding the army back from going in Swat and making an example out of these militants are civilian deaths. We need to support the army, these militants are a disease in our society and they need to be rooted out. They are killing innocent people, blowing up schools and government buildings. They want to impose Shariah in Swat, my friends the situation is very dire and the government needs to act. The army should be given full support so we can root these militants out, they are a disease and unless its not rooted out they will spread to other parts of Pakistan. We need to make an example out of them just like Bhutto did in the 70's against BLA.

YES, the situation is dire indeed. We have to do something, and quickly. BUT, it can’t be achieved by the military means alone. We have tried that formula (nuskha-e-kemia) in Bangladesh, and we were failed BADLY. These non-state actors (Talibans for instance) are born when the STATE does'nt do its job. First of all we have to differentiate between the Tliban.

The Taliban or other insurgents who are fighting in Afghanistan against the occupying forces are doing what I and you will do under an occupation. By defending their home, they are not committing any crime. If we can’t help them due to the political and international situation, we just have to close the border. Don’t support them, but don’t participate in their killing as well. This is only causing troubles and a lot of anger in Pakistani people as well as among the junior ranks in our military. This is a VERY BAD OMEN.

The guys who are challenging the writ of the GOP in Swat or in other areas, a majority of them are obviously the misguided people. We can't control them by using force alone. This will only give them more reasons to resist. We have to mobilize the civil society against them. We have to talk to their parents, to their families so they can be convinced. We are not making any effort to convince the common people of Sawat. We are not even encouraging them to help us. This is what is bad about the dictatorship. There is no say of the people in the decisions that affect their lives. And our enemies don’t want us to go to that path. Because our enemy wants to destabilize us, destroy us. One of the thing that prevented Yahya Khan from getting serious about talks with the Bengalis was his hope on the US 7th Fleet. Which never came to help Yahya, because it di'nt have to come. However, by giving him a false hope, our enemy achieved its objective of the separation of the two wings. So we have to keep an eye on each and every move of our enemies. This has happened for the first time in the history of Pakistan that we are facing a physical threat on the two fronts. There is NOTHING wrong with Shariya laws. If people of Sawat want Shariya, we should help them, instead of trying to shove a foreign system down their throats.

That is the problem with us. We are narrow minded people, and simply undemocratic in nature. We have decided that Shariya is not going to work, even boefore giving it a chance. That is a very wrong attitude. Infact, this is what our dictators have been telling us during all that time. They knew, if there is Islamic law in this country, than dictators have no chance, criminals have no chance, fudals have no chance.

There is a minority of the Taliban who are actually getting all kind of support from our enemies. These are definitely the people whom we have to eradicate. We have to deal with them such that our enemies would never dare to support such traitors. I have no sympathy for these traitors.

Lastly, just want to say that Bhutto didn't set any good example. That action seeded a lot of hateret among the Balochs for the Panjabis. I can say this with confidence because I was born in Quetta, and received all my education in Quetta until the MSc. No, you dont want people roaming around with their hearts full of anger and hateret.

 

[Cheetah786]

YES, the situation is dire indeed. We have to do something, and quickly. BUT, it can’t be achieved by the military means alone. We have tried that formula (nuskha-e-kemia) in Bangladesh, and we were failed BADLY. These non-state actors (Talibans for instance) are born when the STATE does'nt do its job. First of all we have to differentiate between the Tliban.

The Taliban or other insurgents who are fighting in Afghanistan against the occupying forces are doing what I and you will do under an occupation. By defending their home, they are not committing any crime. If we can’t help them due to the political and international situation, we just have to close the border. Don’t support them, but don’t participate in their killing as well. This is only causing troubles and a lot of anger in Pakistani people as well as among the junior ranks in our military. This is a VERY BAD OMEN.

The guys who are challenging the writ of the GOP in Swat or in other areas, a majority of them are obviously the misguided people. We can't control them by using force alone. This will only give them more reasons to resist. We have to mobilize the civil society against them. We have to talk to their parents, to their families so they can be convinced. We are not making any effort to convince the common people of Sawat. We are not even encouraging them to help us. This is what is bad about the dictatorship. There is no say of the people in the decisions that affect their lives. And our enemies don’t want us to go to that path. Because our enemy wants to destabilize us, destroy us. One of the thing that prevented Yahya Khan from getting serious about talks with the Bengalis was his hope on the US 7th Fleet. Which never came to help Yahya, because it di'nt have to come. However, by giving him a false hope, our enemy achieved its objective of the separation of the two wings. So we have to keep an eye on each and every move of our enemies. This has happened for the first time in the history of Pakistan that we are facing a physical threat on the two fronts. There is NOTHING wrong with Shariya laws. If people of Sawat want Shariya, we should help them, instead of trying to shove a foreign system down their throats.

That is the problem with us. We are narrow minded people, and simply undemocratic in nature. We have decided that Shariya is not going to work, even boefore giving it a chance. That is a very wrong attitude. Infact, this is what our dictators have been telling us during all that time. They knew, if there is Islamic law in this country, than dictators have no chance, criminals have no chance, fudals have no chance.

There is a minority of the Taliban who are actually getting all kind of support from our enemies. These are definitely the people whom we have to eradicate. We have to deal with them such that our enemies would never dare to support such traitors. I have no sympathy for these traitors.

Dont no how to tell ya talking didnt work bargaining all sorts of agreements didnt work didnt work only language these Terrorist not militant understand is the language of bullet do it today when u can if this spread through out other provinces guranteed civil war.

 

[notorious_eagle]

YES, the situation is dire indeed. We have to do something, and quickly. BUT, it can’t be achieved by the military means alone. We have tried that formula (nuskha-e-kemia) in Bangladesh, and we were failed BADLY. These non-state actors (Talibans for instance) are born when the STATE does'nt do its job. First of all we have to differentiate between the Tliban.

The Taliban or other insurgents who are fighting in Afghanistan against the occupying forces are doing what I and you will do under an occupation. By defending their home, they are not committing any crime. If we can’t help them due to the political and international situation, we just have to close the border. Don’t support them, but don’t participate in their killing as well. This is only causing troubles and a lot of anger in Pakistani people as well as among the junior ranks in our military. This is a VERY BAD OMEN.

The guys who are challenging the writ of the GOP in Swat or in other areas, a majority of them are obviously the misguided people. We can't control them by using force alone. This will only give them more reasons to resist. We have to mobilize the civil society against them. We have to talk to their parents, to their families so they can be convinced. We are not making any effort to convince the common people of Sawat. We are not even encouraging them to help us. This is what is bad about the dictatorship. There is no say of the people in the decisions that affect their lives. And our enemies don’t want us to go to that path. Because our enemy wants to destabilize us, destroy us. One of the thing that prevented Yahya Khan from getting serious about talks with the Bengalis was his hope on the US 7th Fleet. Which never came to help Yahya, because it di'nt have to come. However, by giving him a false hope, our enemy achieved its objective of the separation of the two wings. So we have to keep an eye on each and every move of our enemies. This has happened for the first time in the history of Pakistan that we are facing a physical threat on the two fronts. There is NOTHING wrong with Shariya laws. If people of Sawat want Shariya, we should help them, instead of trying to shove a foreign system down their throats.

That is the problem with us. We are narrow minded people, and simply undemocratic in nature. We have decided that Shariya is not going to work, even boefore giving it a chance. That is a very wrong attitude. Infact, this is what our dictators have been telling us during all that time. They knew, if there is Islamic law in this country, than dictators have no chance, criminals have no chance, fudals have no chance.

There is a minority of the Taliban who are actually getting all kind of support from our enemies. These are definitely the people whom we have to eradicate. We have to deal with them such that our enemies would never dare to support such traitors. I have no sympathy for these traitors.

Lastly, just want to say that Bhutto didn't set any good example. That action seeded a lot of hateret among the Balochs for the Panjabis. I can say this with confidence because I was born in Quetta, and received all my education in Quetta until the MSc. No, you dont want people roaming around with their hearts full of anger and hateret.

Bhutto was Sindhi, not Punjabi. You are right, we cannot let people roaming around with their hearts full of anger but there comes a time when we have to take action. The government has held talks with these militants many times but they havent honoured their part of the deal everytime. The only language these bastards understand is a bullet, we need to kill each and everyone of them so we dont see any new Taliban Wannabe's in the future. The government should take all of their leaders and hang them in the middle of the city as a show of force. The government is there to help the people, not take away their civil liberties. The reason why the army is still holding back in Swat is because of civilian casualties. These people are killing innocent people, blowing up schools and government institutions. There is no talking with these fanatics, they are crazy.

 

[batmannow]

An Ex-Detainee of the U.S. Describes a 6-Year Ordeal! OR WAR OF TERROR on muslims?

NYTimes.com

By JANE PERLEZ, RAYMOND BONNER and SALMAN MASOOD
Published: January 5, 2009


LAHORE, Pakistan — When Muhammad Saad Iqbal arrived home here in August after more than six years in American custody, including five at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he had difficulty walking, his left ear was severely infected, and he was dependent on a cocktail of antibiotics and antidepressants.
In November, a Pakistani surgeon operated on his ear, physical therapists were working on lower back problems and a psychiatrist was trying to wean him off the drugs he carried around in a white, plastic shopping bag.

The maladies, said Mr. Iqbal, 31, a professional reader of the Koran, are the result of a gantlet of torture, imprisonment and interrogation for which his Washington lawyer plans to sue the United States government.

The coming administration of President-elect Barack Obama is weighing whether to close the Guantánamo prison, which many critics have called an extralegal system of detention and abuse.

But the full stories of individual detainees like Mr. Iqbal are only now emerging after years in which they were shuttled around the globe under the Bush administration’s system of extraordinary rendition, which used foreign countries to interrogate and detain terrorism suspects in sites beyond the reach of American courts.

Mr. Iqbal was never convicted of any crime, or even charged with one. He was quietly released from Guantánamo with a routine explanation that he was no longer considered an enemy combatant, part of an effort by the Bush administration to reduce the prison’s population.

“I feel ashamed what the Americans did to me in this period,” Mr. Iqbal said, speaking for the first time at length about his ordeal during several hours of interviews with The New York Times, including one from his hospital bed in Lahore.

Mr. Iqbal was arrested early in 2002 in Jakarta, Indonesia, after boasting to members of an Islamic group that he knew how to make a shoe bomb, according to two senior American officials who were in Jakarta at the time.

Mr. Iqbal now denies ever having made the statement, but two days after his arrest, he said, the Central Intelligence Agency transferred him to Egypt. He was later shifted to the American prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and ultimately to Guantánamo Bay.

Much of Mr. Iqbal’s account could not be independently corroborated. Two senior American officials confirmed that Mr. Iqbal had been “rendered” from Indonesia, but could not comment on, or confirm details of, how he was treated in custody. The Pentagon and C.I.A. deny using torture, and American diplomatic, military and intelligence officials agreed to talk about the case only on the condition of anonymity because the files are classified.

After Mr. Iqbal was picked up in Jakarta and interrogated for two days, American officials generally concluded that he was a braggart, a “wannabe,” and should be released, one of the senior American officials in Jakarta said. “He was a talker,” the senior American official said. “He wanted to believe he was more important than he was.”

There was no evidence that he had ever met Osama bin Laden, or had been to Afghanistan, the two senior American officials said. But in the atmosphere of fear and confusion in the months after Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Iqbal was secretly moved to Egypt for further interrogation, said one of the senior American officials.

Mr. Iqbal said he had been beaten, tightly shackled, covered with a hood and given drugs, subjected to electric shocks and, because he denied knowing Mr. bin Laden, deprived of sleep for six months. “They make me blind and stand up for whole days,” he said in halting English, meaning that he had been covered with a hood or blindfolded.

The Pentagon and the C.I.A. have a policy of not talking about the detainees, but a C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said, “The agency’s terrorist detention program has used lawful means of interrogation, reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and briefed to the Congress.

“This individual, from what I have heard of his account, appears to be describing something utterly different,” Mr. Gimigliano added. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. The United States does not conduct or condone torture.”

Mr. Iqbal said he traveled to Jakarta in November 2001 on a personal odyssey to inform his stepmother that her husband — Mr. Iqbal’s father — had died of a stroke in Pakistan.

He fell in with members of the Islamic Defenders Front, according to his statement to the combatant status review tribunal at Guantánamo in 2004. The group is an Indonesian urban-based organization. It is not banned in Indonesia and has not been connected to any terrorist attacks.

According to Mr. Iqbal’s statement before the review tribunal at Guantánamo, he said he had told his new friends that he knew how to make a bomb that could be tucked into a shoe. He denies that now, saying someone else in the group made the boast.

Whatever the truth, the conversation among that circle of acquaintances caught the attention of Indonesian intelligence.

The Indonesian agents passed the information on to the C.I.A. in Jakarta, and Mr. Iqbal was seized at his rented room just before dawn on Jan. 9, 2002.

Mr. Iqbal said he had received his first round of physical abuse at the Jakarta airport, before being shoved onto the plane, shackled and blindfolded.

“One person from Egyptian intelligence, he come and he punch me here, very hard,” he said, pounding his chest, “and he grab me like this and he throw me against the wall. Then they make me naked, they torture me.”

He said he knew that his assailant at the airport was Egyptian from his Arabic accent. According to a senior American official and two Indonesian officials, Mr. Iqbal was flown from Jakarta to Cairo on a C.I.A. aircraft.

During the flight to Cairo, Mr. Iqbal said, he was bleeding from his nose, mouth and ears, and was unable to move because shackles wound tightly around his body.

When the plane landed, he was told he was in Cairo, he said. He was assigned a basement room like “a grave,” about 6 feet by 4 feet, he said, and was kept there for 92 days, according to the transcript of his tribunal hearing. On Jan. 11, 12 and 20, 2002, he was interrogated for 12 to 15 hours on each occasion, he said during the interviews here.

He described the interrogators as Egyptians. Mr. Iqbal said there were other men in the room whose faces were covered and who did not speak, but who passed notes with questions to the Egyptians.

He was asked when he had gone to Afghanistan and how he had met Mr. bin Laden. When he replied that he had never been to Afghanistan and had not met Mr. bin Laden, the Egyptians tortured him with electric shocks, he said. “I cry and I yell,” he said. “Also they gave me brain electric shocks.” He said he was forced to consume liquids that were laced with drugs “so you don’t know what you are talking about.”

In early April, he said, the Americans flew him to Bagram, the American air base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul. He was held there for almost a year, at times shackled and handcuffed in a small cage with other detainees, and further interrogated, he said.
“A C.I.A. person said, ‘We forgive you; just accept you met Osama bin Laden.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not going to say that.’ ” Even though polygraph tests showed that he was telling the truth, he said, he was shifted from cell to cell every few hours and deprived of sleep for six months.
Once he arrived at Guantánamo, on March 23, 2003, Mr. Iqbal was treated as an outcast by the other prisoners because he had not been trained in Afghanistan, according to a fellow inmate, Mamdouh Habib, an Australian who befriended him.

Mr. Iqbal became so depressed he tried to hang himself twice, and went on three hunger strikes, Mr. Habib said.
According to a statement in April 2007 by Dr. Ronald L. Sollock, the commander of the Naval Hospital at Guantánamo Bay, filed with the Court of Appeals in Washington, Mr. Iqbal was diagnosed with a perforated left eardrum, inflammation of the left external ear canal and inflammation of the left middle ear.
From 2003, according to the court filing by Dr. Sollock, Mr. Iqbal was prescribed antibiotics.

By the time he returned home to Pakistan, Mr. Iqbal was dependent on a “long list of drugs,” Mohammad Mujeeb, a professor of ear, nose and throat at the Services Hospital in Lahore, said in an interview. He said that part of Mr. Iqbal’s difficulty in walking appeared to be psychological, with scans showing only “mild to moderate” compression of the nerves in his back.
After Guantánamo, he was flown on an American military aircraft to the Islamabad airport, where two American Embassy officers, First Lt. Brian Strait and Keith Easter, witnessed his release, according to a United States government document he displayed. He was admitted to a hospital in Islamabad for treatment, and then questioned for three weeks at a safe house by Pakistani intelligence officers in what Mr. Iqbal called friendly sessions. Pakistani security officers then drove him back to Lahore and his extended family. “It was like a new life for me,” he said. “I was born again. There is no word to explain.”
Mr. Iqbal’s case is now being fought in the American courts. His lawyer, Richard L. Cys of Davis Wright Tremaine, who visited him in Guantánamo, said he planned to sue the American government for the unlawful detention of Mr. Iqbal.
Mr. Cys has also filed a lawsuit in the federal courts to win the release of Mr. Iqbal’s medical records for the period he was at Guantánamo, hoping to confirm Mr. Iqbal’s account of his abuse in Egypt.
In Lahore, Mr. Iqbal wants to return to teaching the Koran. “It’s easy for the United States to say no charges were found,” he said. “But who is responsible for the seven years of my life?”

Jane Perlez and Salman Masood reported from Lahore, Pakistan, and Raymond Bonner from Jakarta, Indonesia

Guantanamo Bay Detainees by Age
Name Nationality Released Age (approximate) Birthplace
washingtonpost.com

Pakistan
Name Nationality Released Age (approximate) Birthplace NLEC
Abas, Mohammad Pakistan Yes Unknown Village 426, Pakistan
Abu Rahman, Abdul Rabbani Abd Al Rahim Pakistan No 40 Unknown
Ahmad, Bashir Pakistan Yes 33 Chah Kote Wala, Pakistan
Ahmad, Sultan Pakistan Yes 25 Sargodha, Pakistan
Ahmed, Ali Pakistan Yes 27 Baluchistan, Pakistan
Ahmed, Saghir Pakistan Yes 34 Sargodha, Pakistan
Ahmed, Sar Faraz Pakistan Yes 43 Lahore, Pakistan
Akbar, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 36 Helmand, Afghanistan
Al-Deen, Jamal Muhammad Pakistan / Bangladesh Yes 42 Feni, Bangladesh
Ali, Said Saim Pakistan Yes 32 Karachi, Pakistan
Alikhel, Sha Mohammed Pakistan Yes 28 Swaat, Pakistan
Amin, Aminulla Pakistan Yes Unknown Chaman, Pakistan
Ansar, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 28 Jalan Makhdoom, Pakistan
Anwar, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 29 Pakistan
Ashraf, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 29 Kalaswala, Pakistan
Ayub, Haseeb Pakistan Yes 35 Budho, Pakistan
Ayubi, Salahodin Pakistan Yes 35 Lahore, Pakistan
Baluchi, Ammar


Key lieutenant for Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and other plots. One of the "high value" detainees whose transfer from a secret foreign prison to Guantanamo Bay was announced by President Bush on Sept. 6, 2006, during a speech in which he outlined a reformed detainee policy.



Status Review Tribunal Transcript Pakistan No Unknown Unknown
Fazaldad, Fnu Pakistan Yes 27 Atian, Pakistan Yes
Fiyatullah, Kay Pakistan Yes 26 Narmasperlay, Pakistan
Hafez, Khalil Rahman Pakistan Yes 25 Punjab, Pakistan
Hudin, Salah Pakistan / Afghanistan Yes 27 Jalalabad, Afghanistan
Ijaz, Mohammed Pakistan Yes Unknown Blonoval, Pakistan
Ilyas, Mohammad Pakistan Yes 67 Taman, Pakistan
Iqbal, Faik Pakistan Yes 27 Karachi, Pakistan
Iqbal, Zafar Pakistan Yes 26 Sambal, Pakistan
Irfan, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 30 Punjab, Pakistan
Irfan, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 27 Bahalwapur, Pakistan
Ishaq, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 26 Panjgoor, Pakistan
Khan, Bacha Pakistan Yes 37 Bajawor, Pakistan
Khan, Ejaz Ahmad Pakistan Yes 34 Mardan, Pakistan
Khan, Hamood Ullah Pakistan Yes 38 Hyberabad, Pakistan
Khan, Isa Pakistan Yes 34 Bannu, Pakistan
Khan, Majid


One of the "high value" detainees whose transfer from a secret foreign prison to Guantanamo Bay was announced by President Bush on Sept. 6, 2006, during a speech in which he outlined a reformed detainee policy.
Detainee's Lawyers Fear That Mail Is Uselessly Slow at Guantanamo



Formal Charges



Status Review Tribunal Transcript Pakistan No Unknown Unknown
Khan, Mohammad Kashef Pakistan Yes 30 Karachi, Pakistan
Khan, Muhammed Ijaz Pakistan Yes 33 Kafilgarh, Pakistan
Khan, Tariq Pakistan Yes 31 Village 426, Pakistan
Khan, Tila Mohammed Pakistan Yes 29 Wazierstan, Pakistan
Madni, Hafez Qari Mohamed Saad Iqbal


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation..._prisoner.html Pakistan Yes 32 Pakistan
Manzu, Hafice Leqeat Pakistan Yes 32 Kanaval District, Pakistan
Mehmood, Majid Pakistan Yes 30 Bahawal District, Pakistan
Mohammad, Tarik Pakistan Yes 37 Kohat, Pakistan
Mohammed, Ali Pakistan Yes 57 Rahamibad, Pakistan
Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh


Key Sept. 11, 2001 attacks planner. One of the "high value" detainees whose transfer from a secret foreign prison to Guantanamo Bay was announced by President Bush on Sept. 6, 2006, during a speech in which he outlined a reformed detainee policy.



Status Review Tribunal Transcript Pakistan No Unknown Unknown
Mohhamed, Hanif Pakistan Yes 27 Adda Shenal, Pakistan
Mowla, Abdul Pakistan Yes 40 Malakan District, Pakistan
Nafeesi, Abdul Satar Pakistan Yes 38 Miachinu, Pakistan
Naseer, Munir Bin Pakistan Yes 31 Karachi, Pakistan
Noman, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 32 Pakistan
Omar, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 23 Larkana, Pakistan
Paracha, Saifullah Pakistan No 62 Mongwal, Pakistan
Rabbani, Mohammed Ahmad Ghulam Pakistan No 39 Medina, Saudi Arabia
Rafiq, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 29 Kabal, Pakistan
Raza, Abid Pakistan Yes 28 Digary Sindh, Pakistan
Raza, Mohammed Arshad Pakistan Yes 29 Bahawal Nagar, Pakistan
Raziq, Abdul Pakistan Yes 37 Kot Marakand, Pakistan
Sadiqi, Abdul Halim Pakistan Yes 41 Pakistan
Saeed, Hafiz Ihsan Pakistan Yes 31 Lahore, Pakistan
Safollah, Ghaser Zaban Pakistan Yes 30 Madanchak, Pakistan
Sanghir, Mohammad Pakistan Yes 57 Kohestan, Afghanistan
Sattar, Abdul Pakistan Yes 28 Bumb, Pakistan
Sayed, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 36 Abbotabad, Pakistan
Sultan, Zahid Pakistan Yes 28 Abdabot, Pakistan
Tariq, Mohammed Pakistan Yes 36 Alladand Dehry, Pakistan
Ul Haq, Israr Pakistan Yes 29 Topi, Pakistan
Ul Shah, Zia Pakistan Yes 33 Karachi, Pakistan
Ullah, Asad Pakistan Yes 28 Swahbi, Pakistan
Urayman, Sajin Pakistan Yes 25 Gujaranwala, Pakistan
Usman, Shabidzada Pakistan Yes 27 Malal, Pakistan
Wali, Jihan Pakistan Yes 42 Diir, Pakistan
still not enough? it will never be enough?

 

[batmannow]

US pays $40,000 after 15 Afghans die in raid

Associated Press
Writer Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jan 27, 3:42 pm ET


The issue of civilian deaths is increasingly sensitive in Afghanistan, with President Hamid Karzai accusing the U.S. of killing civilians in three separate cases over the last month. Karzai has repeatedly warned the U.S. and NATO, saying such deaths undermine his government and the international mission.

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed Karzai's concerns, telling a Senate committee that "civilian casualties are doing us enormous harm in Afghanistan."

As U.S. commanders paid villagers near 15 newly dug graves, Karzai met Tuesday in the capital with relatives of some of those killed. He told the villagers he has given the U.S. and NATO one month to respond to a draft agreement calling for increased Afghan participation in military operations.

Karzai said if he does not receive a response within that time, he would ask Afghans what he should do about international military operations. The statement from the presidential palace describing the meeting did not elaborate.
The U.S. is doubling its troop presence in Afghanistan this year to take on the Taliban militia; the Taliban and other militants now control wide swaths of territory. Last year, 151 U.S. troops died in Afghanistan, the most in any year since the U.S. invaded the Taliban-ruled country in late 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan, led Tuesday's delegation into the village of Inzeri, a small collection of stone and mud homes set high in a steep, rocky valley. Insurgents have a strong presence in the region just 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Kabul.

A raid the night of Jan. 19 killed 15 people in Inzeri, including a targeted militant commander named Mullah Patang.
Afghan officials admit that Patang was killed, but villagers say civilians also died and have pressed their complaints with U.S. officials and Karzai.The U.S. regularly makes payments to Afghan relatives of those killed in operations, but the payments are rarely publicized.

The villagers met the U.S. delegation about 100 yards from 15 newly dug graves. American officials asked for a list of the dead, but villagers said no one there was literate.
Julian told villagers that U.S. forces did not come Jan. 19 intending to fight, but opened fire after villagers fired on them. Many Afghan families are armed.

"Perhaps there may have been some people accidentally killed," Julian said as he looked at a mud-brick home where villagers said some Afghans died. "If there was collateral damage, I'm very sorry about that."
The village elder, a man named Asadullah who goes by one name, showed Julian a picture of men in Afghan army uniforms. Asadullah said they were the sons of the militant Patang.

On the back of an Afghan army truck, U.S. officials paid $40,000 in Afghan currency to representatives of the 15 people killed — $2,500 for each death plus $500 for two wounded men and $1,500 for village repairs.

Lt. Col. Steven Weir, a military lawyer who helped oversee the payments, said the payments were not an admission by the U.S. that innocents were killed.
"It's a condolence payment," he said. "The villagers said none of them were in the Taliban, just peaceful individuals from the village. So by this payment they will understand it's not our goal to kill innocent people. This may help them understand we're here to build a safer and more secure Afghanistan."

When asked if the U.S. was paying money to relatives of people that the U.S. had wanted to kill or capture, Weir said: "If we did accidentally shoot someone, we want to make that right, and if we have to pay money to someone who didn't deserve it ... it's kind of like it's better to let nine guilty people go free than to jail one innocent person."

Villagers seemed appreciative. Gul Akbar, 24, who said his father died in the raid, told Julian he respected and appreciated his visit.

"I'm just very sad someone gave the other soldiers the wrong information," he said.

Abdul Hadi Wairi, a counterterrorism official in Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, said he believes there were militants in the village but that some noncombatants also died.

"There were some civilians killed as collateral damage, and there were some old people killed, too," he said. "There were militants among them. But it was a village, it was dark. The insurgents are trying to stay in populated areas and use the villagers as a human shield."

Ghulam Qawis Abubaker, the governor of Kapisa province who was part of the delegation that met with Karzai, said Patang, the targeted militant, was among the dead. Abubaker said Patang and other villagers had weapons.

The issue of civilian casualties appears to be putting a severe strain on the U.S.-Afghan relationship.

But Weir said the U.S. couldn't just stop targeted raids on leaders of militant cells.

"When you stop these operations, the bad guys get more IEDs (bombs) in place, they bring in more foreign fighters, they destroy the bridges we build," he said. "It just goes on and on."

Julian on Wednesday planned to meet with elders from neighboring Laghman province.

Karzai said 17 civilians were killed in a Laghman raid on Jan. 7; the U.S. has said it killed 32 militants in that operation. The Afghan president also says U.S. forces killed 16 civilians during a raid in Laghman on Saturday.

Gates said that despite the obstacles, U.S. forces must strive to avoid civilian deaths.

"I believe that the civilian casualties are doing us enormous harm in Afghanistan, and we have got to do better in terms of avoiding casualties, and I say that knowing full well that the Taliban mingle among the people, use them as barriers," the U.S. defense secretary told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"My worry is that the Afghans come to see us as part of their problem rather than part of their solution, and then we are lost."
still need more?