[A-List] Afghanistan: the blowback continues

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

US soldier dies in attack in eastern Afghanistan
By James Politi in Washington
Financial Times; Jun 27, 2003

US Central Command said yesterday that a US soldier from a special
operations unit was killed and two were injured by hostile fire in eastern
Afghanistan.

In a separate incident, suspected Taliban militants ambushed a vehicle
containing Afghan soldiers, killing one and injuring another, according to
local police quoted by Reuters news agency.

Both incidents occurred overnight on Wednesday near the Afghan-Pakistani
border, where last week US forces launched a new offensive to disrupt
cross-border activity and "deny sanctuary to anti-coalition forces", in the
words of Richard Myers, US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

The attacks are likely to support the impression that Taliban forces are
beginning to mount an effective resistance against American and Afghan
soldiers in that area.

General John Abizaid, who will replace General Tommy Franks as head of US
Central Command in the next few weeks, said this week that the 10,000 US
troops in Afghanistan were "fighting in tough circumstances".

"I don't know that I'd use the word 'resurgence', but I would say there is a
danger from the Taliban that we shouldn't underestimate," Gen Abizaid told
Congress.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, Taliban leader, this week named a 10-member council to
lead a holy war against foreign troops in Afghanistan and the western-backed
government of President Hamid Karzai.

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Taliban names Afghan holy war council
By Victoria Burnett in Islamabad and Guy Dinmore in Washington
Financial Times; Jun 25, 2003

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Taliban, has named a 10-member
leadership council to co-ordinate a holy war against foreign troops in
Afghanistan and the western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

The move is the latest sign that Taliban commanders have regrouped, despite
assertions by the US military that combat in Afghanistan is over and the
Taliban and al-Qaeda "have no sanctuary".

In a cassette, the elusive one-eyed leader of the Taliban, ousted from power
by a US-led military campaign in October 2001, called on his corps of
leaders to "offer sacrifices to evict the American and foreign soldiers from
Afghanistan", according to a report published by The News, a Pakistani
national newspaper.

Fugitive Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives often use video and audio tapes to
get their message out to their followers and to the press. The authenticity
of the tapes is hard to determine.

The Taliban has been linked to attacks in southern Afghanistan in recent
months, many of them targeting foreign civilians, and is believed to be
working with surviving al-Qaeda stalwarts and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

According to yesterday's report, the new leadership includes several
high-profile Taliban commanders whose names have emerged in the past few
months in connection with attacks. They include Mullah Obaidullah, the
Taliban's former defence minister, Akhtar Mohammad Usmani, the former army
chief, and military commanders Mullah Brader and Mullah Dadullah, the
one-legged commander who reportedly ordered the murder at a road-block in
March of a Red Cross worker.

In Washington a State Department official said he had not heard of the
report but that it appeared to be of little significance. "The Taliban have
not demonstrated any particular effectiveness over the past year. So they
have named a council. So what? What are they going to do - lead a platoon?"
the official said.

* Malaysia plans to open next week an anti-terrorist centre for south-east
Asia in co-operation with the US, in spite of recent bilateral tensions over
the war in Iraq, which Kuala Lumpur opposed, John Burton reports from
Singapore.

The US last year selected Malaysia as the regional site for the centre,
which will focus on studying terrorist organisations because of the
country's tough response to suppressing local Islamic extremist groups.