[A-List] Fw: Kabul: 3 German Troops Killed, 8 Injured; Mujahedin On US Afghan Policy

["Christopher Black" <bar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Rozoff" <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 9:09 AM
Subject: Kabul: 3 German Troops Killed, 8 Injured; Mujahedin On US Afghan
Policy


> 1) Three German Soldiers Killed, At Least Eight
> Wounded In Attack On ISAF Bus
> 2) Remote-Controlled Device Activated Near US Vehicle,
> Shopkeeper Injured
> 3) Provincial Building Blown Up By Landmines
> 4) Mujahedin Statement: US Entrapped Former Soviet
> Union In Afghanistan, Now Moves Against Russia And
> China In Central Asia, Seeks Control Of Energy
> Transport Routes
>
>
> -"With the first signs indicating the collapse of the
> former Soviet Union, the American oil companies came
> to the region to divide the lion's share of its
> inheritance among themselves, and that was when
> the US strategy to connect Central Asia's oil fields
> to the Indian Ocean and plan for a broad US military
> and political presence in the region became the talk
> of the day."
> -The} spread of US hegemony in the Central Asian
> Republics, exerting pressure against the Russian
> Federation, getting access to the economic assets of
> the Caucasus region and the Central Asian republics,
> conquering the vast regional markets of several
> neighboring regions, tightening the siege on Iran,
> maintaining military presence over China's borders..."
> were but only a number of the materialized objectives
> of the Americans....
> -"Does the political independence of Afghanistan, the
> restoration of democracy here that is continually
> being promised by the Americans, and the return of the
> country to the hands of the Afghan nation have greater
> importance for American policymakers than the rule of
> energy companies over a main energy path?"
>
>
>
>
>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030607/ap_on_re_as/afghan_explosion&cid=516&ncid=716
>
>
> Bomb Rips Bus in Kabul, Kills 3 Soldiers
> By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer
>
> -Some 5,000 peacekeepers are in Kabul. Germany and the
> Netherlands are currently in joint command of the
> force, but are due to hand over control to NATO on
> Aug. 11.
> In Brussels, NATO spokesman Robert Pszczel offered the
> alliance's "full sympathy to the families of the
> soldiers killed."
>
>
>
>
> KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide attacker detonated a
> car bomb near a bus carrying German peacekeepers in
> Kabul on Saturday, killing three and wounding at least
> eight in the first fatal attack on the international
> force, U.S. officials said.
>
> Another 28 people were injured, the U.S. military at
> Bagram Air Base said in a written statement, but it
> did not identify them or say where they had been
> located during the explosion.
>
> The multinational force in Kabul confirmed that three
> German soldiers had died. In Germany, an army official
> said at least 10 German soldiers were seriously
> injured.
>
>
> The International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF,
> bus was near the city's customs house in eastern Kabul
> when the explosion occurred, Kabul Police Chief Basir
> Salangi told The Associated Press.
>
>
> The attack occurred at 8:30 a.m. on a major road on
> the east side of Kabul near the Afghan National Army
> training facility, the U.S. statement said.
>
>
> Initial reports indicated the suspected suicide bomber
> approached the ISAF bus in a vehicle and detonated the
> explosives, it said.
>
>
> Gen. Afzal Amon, deputy commander of the Kabul
> garrison of the Afghan military, said a yellow and
> white Toyota Carolla taxi was damaged in the blast and
> may have been driven by the suicide bomber.
>
>
> Soon after the explosion, dozens of German
> peacekeepers formed a cordon around the street, not
> allowing any vehicles past, including that of Kabul's
> deputy police chief Amin Khalilzada.
>
>
> Witnesses described a chaotic scene, with bits of
> metal strewn around after the blast.
>
>
> "The explosion made a very loud noise. It shook all of
> our shops," said Fawad Ahmad, who works at a tire
> repair store.
>
>
> Since the United States broadened its anti-terrorism
> campaign to include Iraq, there has been a surge in
> attacks on Westerners in the Islamic world. A May 12
> attack on housing complexes in Saudi Arabia killed at
> least 23 people, bombings in Morocco killed 31
> victims, and there have been continued guerrilla
> attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.
>
>
> Suspected Taliban fighters also have been stepping up
> attacks this spring, particularly in the south and
> east of Afghanistan.
>
>
> Before Saturday's attack, 15 peacekeepers had died on
> duty in Afghanistan, all of them in accidents. In
> addition, 62 Spanish peacekeepers died in May when
> their plane crashed in Turkey as they were returning
> home after a four-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.
>
>
> On May 29, a German soldier died and another was
> injured when their vehicle ran over a land mine.
> German officials said they believed the deaths were
> caused by an old land mine, not an attack directed at
> them. Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined
> countries on earth.
>
>
> On May 15, two Norwegian peacekeeping troops were shot
> and wounded by a renegade Afghan soldier as they were
> traveling on a road north of Kabul. Two days earlier,
> a British soldier was slightly wounded when an Afghan
> man threw a grenade at a peacekeeping base.
>
>
> In March, ISAF's headquarters in downtown Kabul was
> hit by a rocket, but no damage or casualties occurred.
> Also in March, an explosive device set off by remote
> control in Kabul wounded one Dutch peacekeeper and
> killed an Afghan translator.
>
>
> Some 5,000 peacekeepers are in Kabul. Germany and the
> Netherlands are currently in joint command of the
> force, but are due to hand over control to NATO on
> Aug. 11. At about that time, the German and Dutch
> forces are scheduled to return home and be replaced by
> about 1,800 Canadian soldiers.
>
>
>
>
>
> In Brussels, NATO spokesman Robert Pszczel offered the
> alliance's "full sympathy to the families of the
> soldiers killed."
>
> "It goes to show what a dangerous environment it is
> there," Pszczel said. "This reinforces our
> determination to do the job the nations have asked us
> to do."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/06/6-SWA/swa-060603.asp
>
> Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
> June 6, 2003
>
> REMOTE BOMB INTENDED FOR U.S. VEHICLE INJURES AFGHAN
> SHOPKEEPER
>
> A remote-controlled explosive device was detonated as
> a U.S. military vehicle passed along the Khost-Gardayz
> road on 4 June, injuring a shopkeeper, the AIP
> reported. According to the report, the incident marked
> the first instance in the region that a
> remote-controlled explosive has been used to carry out
> an attack. On 27 May, a remote-controlled bomb damaged
> a U.S. military vehicle in Khost Province, near the
> Afghan-Pakistani border. The use of remote-controlled
> devices highlights the difficulty that terrorist
> groups and opposition Afghan forces face in
> confronting U.S.-led coalition forces, but it also
> suggests that hostile forces are turning to
> increasingly sophisticated weaponry. AT
> ------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/06/6-SWA/swa-060603.asp
>
>
> Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
> June 6, 2003
>
> BUILDING EXPLOSION IN AFGHANISTAN'S LOGAR PROVINCE
>
> A large explosion destroyed a newly constructed
> building in Logar Province on 4 June, the Bakhtar
> information agency reported on 5 June. The explosion
> did not cause any casualties and is believed to have
> been the result of a personal dispute. A number of
> anti-tank mines were used to destroy the building. The
> case illustrates the ready availability of weapons in
> Afghanistan and the lack of control by either local
> Afghan authorities or international forces in the
> country over their sale and transfer. AT
> ------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030607084441.ehe.shtml
>
> IRNA (Iran)
> June 7, 2003
>
> Periodical defines US objectives in Afghanistan
>
> Kabul, June 6, IRNA -- The official organ of
> Afghanistan's Mojahedin Movement, Payam-e-Mojahed, in
> its latest issue surveyed US intentions and objectives
> in Afghanistan ever since the former Soviet Union's
>
> invasion.
>
> In an article entitled "Us and the US," the periodical
> writes: "In 1979, White House officials and US
> diplomats in Kabul not only interfered vastly in
> Afghanistan's internal affairs, but practically
> encouraged Pakistan, China and some other countries,
> too, to follow suit and thus paved the way for the
> invasion of the former Red Army."
> Quoting some parts of a US Embassy letter in Kabul
> dated May 9, 1979, the periodical further rites: "The
> (then) White House officials were aware of the great
> possibility of the Soviet forces near-future direct
> involvement in civil clashes in Afghanistan, and they
> also knew that without their assistance and
> confirmation the Soviet officials would not have
> entrapped their forces in a Vietnam-type quagmire in
>
> there."
>
> Payam-e-Mojahed elsewhere argues that Zbigniew
> Brzezinski, national security advisor of the then US
> president Jimmy Carter, in an interview with the
> French magazine Novel Obsevatoire, in June 1988
> revealed that "six months before the former Red Army
> invaded Afghanistan the Americans paved the path for
> the former Soviet Union to experience its own
> Vietnam."
> In response to the said French daily's question of
> "whether the Americans ever felt sorry for backing the
> Islamic fundamentalists gainst the Soviet Red Army and
> of arming members of a group who later
> became international terrorists," Brzezinski answered,
> "Which of the two weighed more in international
> politics and world history: the coming to power and
> being ousted of a number of emotional and moody
> Muslims (the Taliban), or the liberation of Central
> Europe, the collapse of the former Soviet Union and
> the end of the Cold War?"
> The Afghan periodical then asks: "Who then is to
> answer for the death, loss of family members and body
> limbs and homelessness of millions of Afghans who are
> the victims of that satanic game played in their
> country?"
>
> "With the first signs indicating the collapse of the
> former Soviet Union, the American oil companies came
> to the region to divide the lion's share of its
> inheritance among themselves, and that was when
> the US strategy to connect Central Asia's oil fields
> to the Indian Ocean and plan for a broad US military
> and political presence in the region became the talk
> of the day," says the Payam-e-Mojahed
> columnist.
>
> When America's Afghan policy switched from supporting
> the Taliban into fighting them, it was not a major
> change in US strategy since that country took long
> strides towards safeguarding its economic,
> strategic and political objectives in the region in
> both cases, argues the periodical's columnist.
>
> "But it was again the Afghan children, women, and
> men--young and old--who fell prey to the US policies,"
> according to Payam-e-Mojahed.
> Run by the young and radical followers of
> Jamiat-e-Eslami Party, which was close to the late
> Afghan commander and national hero Ahmad Shah Massoud,
> the periodical further writes: "With its presence in
>
> Afghanistan the United States has secured many
> strategic and political
> objectives."
>
> It said the "...spread of US hegemony in the Central
> Asian Republics, exerting pressure against the Russian
> Federation, getting access to the economic assets of
> the Caucasus region and the Central Asian republics,
> conquering the vast regional markets of several
> neighboring regions, tightening the siege on Iran,
> maintaining military presence over China's borders..."
> were but only a number of the materialized objectives
> of the Americans in their so-called "Operation:
> Liberation of Afghanistan."
>
> Payam-e Mojahed added: "There are some 10,000 US
> soldiers and hundreds of US officers in Afghanistan
> today, and the Afghan-born special representative of
> US President George W. Bush--Zalmy Khalilzad
> --is the real "de facto" ruler of Afghanistan today
> and until an unpredictable future date."
>
> The Afghan periodical finally poses several assertive
> questions, which include: "Does the political
> independence of Afghanistan, the restoration of
> democracy here that is continually being promised by
> the Americans, and the return of the country to the
> hands of the Afghan nation have greater importance for
> American policymakers than the rule of energy
> companies over a main energy path?"
>
>
>
>
>
>
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