Afghan Soldiers Kill Three British soldiers

Kandahar, Afghanistan A renegade Afghan soldiers killed three British soldiers in patrolling together on Tuesday in Helmand, the southern provinces, local security sources said that the British news agency Reuters. Two more British soldiers wounded in the attack near Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, where about 9,000 British soldiers deployed as part of the NATO-led force. NATO said in a statement said that three soldiers were killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan, but did not elaborate. “We confirm that one Afghan soldier shot and killed three British soldiers,” said defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi Afghanistan told the French news agency AFP in Kabul.

The attack on Tuesday was not the first time foreign troops were killed by Afghan security forces, which raises concern in the West about the level of infiltration of the Taliban in the country’s security forces, trained and financed as part of NATO’s war against militants, who rose again. “If true, it is very regrettable,” said Waheed Omer, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In the deadliest such attack, an Afghan police killed five British soldiers in training camp in Helmand province in November.

A month later, an Afghan soldier shot and killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two soldiers with the NATO base in Italy and Afghanistan in Badghis, northwest Afghanistan. Happened several other attacks by army and police uniforms against government and foreign troops. It makes 317 the number of deaths of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001. A number of 101 British soldiers killed in Sangin.Kendali those areas will be submitted to the United States troops at the end of this year.(AFP)

Karzai orders investigation into cousin's slaying

Hamid Karzai

KABUL  Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that he has asked the Interior Ministry to investigate the slaying of a young relative in a possible revenge killing connected to a family feud.The October killing of 18-year-old Waheed Karzai in southern Afghanistan had apparently attracted little attention in Afghanistan before it was reported this week by the New York Times, but Karzai was asked about it during a news conference with the visiting NATO chief. The report raised questions about whether Karzai’s administration was trying to downplay the killing and whether powerful families could escape investigation, a sensitive issue amid rising concerns about corruption and impunity in Karzai’s government.

Waheed Karzai was shot to death in October in Karz, the president’s hometown in Kandahar province. He was the son of the president’s cousin, Yar Mohammad Karzai. The Times quoted relatives as saying they believed another cousin, Hashmat Karzai, shot the teenager as vengeance for a so-called honor killing allegedly committed three decades ago.

The report cites relatives as saying that Yar Mohommad Karzai had killed the father of Hashmat Karzai who was also one of the president’s cousins. Hashmat Karzai, in turn, reportedly denies any role in the October shooting of Waheed Karzai and suggests it was committed by drug dealers who targeted the teenager by mistake.

“Anything can be possible, so we will have to wait and investigate if the truth is this, that an accident occurred … or there is something else going on that’s more conspiratorial. We don’t know,” the Afghan leader said.”Both sides have contacted me within the family,” he said. “The Ministry of Interior is also investigating the issue. At this point that is all I can say.”

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, said Karzai ordered the ministry to begin investigating the killing three days ago, the same day the newspaper report was published. He said counterterrorism police and criminal investigators were assisting local officials, who began looking into the killing earlier.

Hashmat Karzai heads the Afghanistan-based Asia Security Group, which provides security for five U.S. military bases in the country.Col. Wayne Shanks, a U.S. military spokesman, declined to comment on the feud allegations. He said Asia Security Group got the contracts because “it was judged to have the best service for the best cost.”

On Tuesday, NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen pledged that operations in Afghanistan will show “new momentum” in 2010 as more troops bolster the international force.”We will focus much more on protecting the population, protecting the roads and protecting development projects. We will train more Afghan army and Afghan police, and starting next year, they will start to take the lead where and when they are ready,” he said.The United States plans to send some 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and another 7,000 are expected from other countries.

Fogh Rasmussen pledged that foreign troops would protect the Afghan people until the country’s own security forces are able to prevent the Taliban from regaining control of the country and to root out al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.”We know that the price of inaction, the price of leaving too early would be far higher,” he said. “So we will stay the course. It is as simple as that.”

NATO, meanwhile, is seeking additional help in Afghanistan from Russia, which already has allowed supply routes from the north to supplement the main route through the Khyber Pass that had increasingly been targeted by militants. Fogh Rasmussen said that during a visit to Moscow last week, he made concrete proposals including Russian equipment for the Afghan army – most particularly helicopters – and training for pilots, police and anti-narcotics officers.”We did not conclude those discussions, and the Russians did not make any pledges during my visit,” Fogh Rasmussen said. The Soviet Union fought a disastrous 10-year war in Afghanistan before withdrawing in 1989.

Karzai reiterated his call urging the Taliban to enter negotiations, saying that foreign troops would not be needed in the country if there were peace.The Taliban has so far rejected proposals for talks, while resentment of the presence of international forces in Afghanistan appears to be rising and fueling support for the militants.

Also Tuesday, NATO reported that several militants had been killed in operations in two parts of the country. In a statement, it said several were killed Monday in Ghazni province as a joint Afghan-international force searched compounds where insurgent activity had been reported and that a joint force pursuing a Taliban commander in Kandahar province on Tuesday killed some militants. The statement did not give specific numbers or other details.

Karzai’s office said that he and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown held a telephone conversation about preparations for the international conference on Afghan security, governance and civilian engagement that is to be held in London on Jan. 28.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai needed to pay for larger army

Hamid Karzai

KABUL  Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday it will be at least 15 years before his government can bankroll a security force strong enough to protect the country from the threat of insurgency.

Speaking at a news conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Karzai repeated his claim that Afghan security forces would take the lead in securing the nation within five years. But Gates suggested the U.S. can’t wait that long.

“I would hope that we not only could meet the timelines that President Karzai has laid out, but that as more Afghans are trained we will be able to beat those timelines,” Gates said.Karzai’s comments come a week after President Barack Obama’s announcement that while the U.S. was sending 30,000 more troops, they will start coming home in 18 months.

The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has set the goal of building the Afghan security force to 400,000 by 2013 – up from roughly 94,000 Afghan police officers and 97,000 soldiers.

When asked whether he would be able to sustain a larger Afghan force, Karzai said financial backing from the international community would be needed for years.”For a number of years, maybe for another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources,” Karzai said.

Gates, the first member of Obama’s Cabinet to visit Afghanistan since the president’s announcement, said he and Karzai discussed how to recruit more Afghan soldiers and police to battle militants. “There is a realism on our part that it will be some time” before the Afghan security forces can stand on their own, he said.Gates has sought to assure the Afghans that the U.S. won’t abandon them, but at the same time impose a sense of urgency.

“On a gradual, conditions-based premise, we will be reducing our forces after July of 2011,” Gates said.He added that the U.S. expects the drawdown to be “a several-year process.””Whether it’s three years or two years or four years remains to be seen,” he said. “But as President Obama has made clear, this is not an open-ended commitment on the part of the United States.”

Gates also addressed a fear among the Afghan people that more troops in their country will result in more violence and civilian casualties.”Our top priority remains the safety of civilians,” he said.Just before the two leaders spoke, the Afghan government accused NATO forces of killing civilians during a pre-dawn strike Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan.

NATO said seven militants were killed, but no civilians were injured or killed. A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry said some civilians died in the attack aimed at a Taliban operative in Laghman province. Provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Karim Omeryar said 12 Afghans died, including one woman.

During the press conference, Karzai reaffirmed his commitment to fight corruption. The president, who won re-election to a second term in a ballot marred by fraud, is under intense international pressure to nominate a slate of reformists, and it will be the first test of his willingness to meet his pledge to reform the government.

“We will try our best as Afghans to present a Cabinet to the Afghan people that can also be appreciated and supported by the international community,” Karzai said.

Karzai said he was ready to send parliament 40 percent of his Cabinet nominees now, but that he would meet lawmakers’ demand to send a full, not partial, list to the assembly. He said he would send the full list to the parliament next Tuesday or Wednesday or earlier. He said ministers with proven track records of service would remain in the Cabinet, although he did not say if they would stay in their same posts.

Karzai has repeatedly argued that while there is corruption in the Afghan government, there is also corruption within international contracting processes.

Gates said the U.S. and other international partners bore some responsibility because the billions of dollars the international community has been spending in Afghanistan has enabled a climate of corruption.

“I think President Karzai has taken responsibility for dealing with the problem in so far as the Afghans are concerned,” Gates said. “We have to do what we can do to help make it more difficult for people to misbehave.”