Besieged Karzai Pleads For Western Help As Afghanistan Slips Out Of His Control

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To:                     r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx
From:                   Rick Rozoff <R_ROZOFF@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject:                Besieged Karzai Pleads For Western Help As Afghanistan 
Slips Out Of His Control
Date sent:              Wed, 1 Oct 2003 10:19:28 -0700 (PDT)
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1) Besieged Karzai Pleads For British Help As
Afghanistan Slips Out Of His Control
2) Taliban Claims To Have Captured Five Afghan
Districts
3) US Bombs Home In Pakistan Tribal Area
4) Citing Security Threats, Kabul Regime Postpones
Deployment To Districts After Deadly Attack On US
Forces
5) The Real Power Struggle Begins: Kabul Announces
Plan To Disarm 100,000 Battle-Hardened Anti-Taliban
Militia
6) US Wants Afghan Vice-President's Militia Disarmed;
Cancellation Of Appointed National Election Mooted As
Karzai's Support Drops
7) Karzai: Election May Be Put Off


1)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-837325,00.html

The Times (London)
October 1, 2003

Afghan president seeks help as Taleban attacks
continue
>From Zahid Hussain in Islamabad
  
-The Taleban has dramatically intensified guerrilla
operations in Afghanistan over the past few months.
More than 300 people have been killed ? including
civilians, aid workers, police and US soldiers ? in
the past two months in increasingly brutal assaults. 
Coalition bases along the border with Pakistan come
under rocket attack almost every day and skirmishes
are commonplace.  
-So daring have the rebels become that they have
occupied administrative headquarters and police
centres in Zabul and Oruzgan provinces and killed
government soldiers. Suspected Taleban guerrillas also
killed seven bodyguards of the Governor of the
province of Helmand. 
-Thousands of heavily armed Taleban fighters have
taken sanctuary in Pakistan?s lawless tribal region.
Intelligence sources confirm that they are armed with
anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles.




Taleban insurgents killed one American soldier and
wounded two others in an attack on a military outpost
in southeastern Afghanistan. 
The soldier?s death during a battle near a coalition
base at Shkin, close to the Pakistani border, on
Monday raised the American death toll to four in the
past month and served as a reminder of the Taleban?s
resurgence over the summer. 

President Karzai will address the Labour Party
conference in Bournemouth today as part of a tour to
persuade European countries to continue their support
for his Government. 

In a speech at St Andrew?s University yesterday, he
said that the Taleban?s rise had been fuelled by
money, encouragement and political design. Much of the
responsibility for this lay with the international
community. 

The heroin sold on the streets of London sustained
terrorism in his own country, he argued. ?I don?t
think that Afghanistan on its own can do much to
prevent the resurgence, the regrouping, the re-
equipping and the refinancing of the Taleban without
co-operation.? 

The Taleban has dramatically intensified guerrilla
operations in Afghanistan over the past few months.
More than 300 people have been killed ? including
civilians, aid workers, police and US soldiers ? in
the past two months in increasingly brutal assaults. 

Coalition bases along the border with Pakistan come
under rocket attack almost every day and skirmishes
are commonplace. In late August, two US soldiers were
killed near the same base at Shkin when they came
under fire. 

Attacks have become more frequent and bold,
particularly in the south and the east, where ethnic
Pashtuns who made up the backbone of the Taleban
movement live. Audacious assaults on district
headquarters indicate the growing threat. Last month,
more than 800 rebels engaged the US and Afghan troops
for more than a week in Zabul province. 

Taleban leaders portray the Zabul battle as a turning
point in the resistance of the past 20 months, saying
their men hit back, despite massive US bombing. Afghan
officials said that more than 100 rebels were killed
in the battle. 

So daring have the rebels become that they have
occupied administrative headquarters and police
centres in Zabul and Oruzgan provinces and killed
government soldiers. Suspected Taleban guerrillas also
killed seven bodyguards of the Governor of the
province of Helmand. 

Taleban leaders claim that the concentration of such a
large number of fighters in one area would not have
been possible without local support. They say that
people who are frustrated by the rule of US-backed
warlords have started to heed their appeal. 

Many former Taleban commanders who had gone into
hiding in Pakistan after the fall of their Government
have resurfaced. They move freely between Pakistan and
Afghanistan. Officials said the upsurge in rebel
attacks indicated that the Taleban had regrouped and
reorganised its command structure. 

The group is now divided between ten military
commanders appointed by Mullah Muhammad Omar, their
supreme leader, and have forged new alliances with
other rebel groups and anti-government warlords. The
attacks have been restricted to southern Afghanistan,
but the insurgents said that they would extend the
fight to the north soon. 

Western-backed efforts to improve security by
assisting the development of a new national army have
moved slowly and a 12,500-strong US-led force has not
been able to prevent the assaults. There are an
additional 5,500 Nato-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan,
but they are restricted to the capital, Kabul. 

Afghans working with international aid agencies are
the Taleban?s main target. Insurgents claimed
responsibility for the murder of five Afghan aid
workers last week and gave warning that anyone working
for the United States and foreign relief agencies
deserved to die. 

An engineer with the Voluntary Association for
Rehabilitation of Afghanistan was killed in an ambush
last week and this month four Afghans working for a
Danish aid agency were killed by rebels in
southeastern Ghazni province. The Taleban accuses the
foreign aid groups of spoiling the Islamic faith of
the Afghan people by preaching Christianity. 

Reports suggest that the rebels receive funds and
material support from radical Islamic groups in
Pakistan. 

Thousands of heavily armed Taleban fighters have taken
sanctuary in Pakistan?s lawless tribal region.
Intelligence sources confirm that they are armed with
anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles.
------------------------------------------------------
2)
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2003-daily/01-10-2003/main/update.shtml#18

Jang (Pakistan)
October 1, 2003

Taliban claims capturing five Afghan districts

KABUL: Taliban militia has claimed capture of five
districts in Afghanistan and named Maulvi Wakeel Ahmed
the new Taliban commander for the southern
Afghanistan, Geo news channel reported on Wednesday. 

Maulvi Naseer Ahmed, a Taliban spokesman, talking with
Geo news channel on satellite phone claimed that the
Taliban militia has captured five districts of Zabul
and Paktika provinces of the southern and eastern
Afghanistan. The districts were named as Mizan,
Arghur, Wai Chopan, Barmal, and Janikhel. 

An Afghan defence ministry official said that the
government has prepared strategy for removing the
rebels from the five Afghan districts as preparations
for the anti-Taliban campaign were finalized. Two
thousand additional Afghan troops were deployed for
the operation against Taliban militants, he further
said. 
------------------------------------------------------
3)
http://www.dawn.com/2003/10/01/top6.htm

Dawn (Pakistan)
October 1, 2003

US planes bomb house in tribal area 
By Abdul Sami Paracha 

KOHAT, Sept 30: US planes dropped bombs at a house
near the border town of Angor Adda in South Waziristan
Agency, 415km south-west of Islamabad on Tuesday
afternoon, eyewitnesses said. 

Hussain Jan, a local resident, told Dawn on telephone
from Angor Adda that two planes dropped bombs at the
house of Badshah Jan in Jabba area, two kilometres
north of Angor Adda at around 2pm. 

He said that nobody was hurt in the air raid as men
were out of home and two women had luckily left it
moments before the attack to fetch water. 

He said that bombardment by the US planes had
increased in the Paktika province bordering South
Waziristan Agency during the last couple of days. "US
planes dropped bombs in the disputed territory claimed
by both Pakistan and Afghanistan on Monday noon in
which nobody was hurt," he said. 

He said that people coming from across the border had
told him that a fierce battle was going on in the
Paktika province between the US troops and the Taliban
fighters. 
------------------------------------------------------
4)
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/10/6-SWA/swa-011003.asp

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 1, 2003


U.S. SOLDIER KILLED IN SOUTHEASTERN AFGHAN PROVINCE...


One U.S. solider was killed and two were wounded
during combat against "anticoalition soldiers" in the
Shkin District of the southeastern Paktika Province on
29 September, Radio Afghanistan reported the next day.
U.S. military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis said "the
deceased soldier was engaged in combat maneuvers
against anticoalition soldiers, or I shouldn't say
soldiers -- anticoalition personnel -- when he was
wounded," RFE/RL reported. Shkin has been the scene of
violence -- blamed by numerous Afghan officials on
neo-Taliban or remnants of the former Taliban regime
-- that has resulted in dozens of U.S.- and
Afghan-troop and civilian deaths since December.  AT


...AS AFGHANISTAN DELAYS TROOP DEPLOYMENT IN THE
REGION 

Paktika Province Governor Mohammad Ali Jalali said on
30 September that the planned deployment of 500 troops
loyal to the Afghan Transitional Administration in the
Barmal and Shkin districts has been delayed, Voice of
the Islamic Republic of Iran reported on 1 October. On
29 September, Jalali had elaborated on plans to deploy
additional troops in the region to respond to
increased attacks on Afghan and coalition forces.
Jalali cited financial and security obstacles to the
troop deployment. He added that the security situation
in Paktika is unsatisfactory and people in the
province expect the central authorities in Kabul to
ensure peace and security there. AT 
------------------------------------------------------
5)
http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/al/Qafghanistan-military-un.RrEe_DO1.html

Agence France-Presse
October 1, 2003

Afghan disarmament programme to begin on October 25:
UN 

KABUL, Oct 1 (AFP) - A long-awaited programme to
disarm, demobilise and reintegrate (DDR) some 100,000
Afghan militiamen will start on October 25, the United
Nations said on Wednesday.

"The programme will start off with a pilot project
before we go to the main phase," Paul Cruickshank,
operations manager for the UN-supported Afghanistan's
New Beginnings Programme (ANBP), told reporters.

"At the moment we anticipate the likely start date to
be the 25th of October."

A pilot project to disarm 1,000 militiamen in each of
four main cities -- Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif in the
north, Gardez in the southeast and the capital Kabul
-- will kick off the DDR programme.

Bamiyan in central Afghanistan and Kandahar in the
south were to follow in spring 2004 before the main
phase of the programme gets underway early next
summer, he said.

The start of the DDR programme had been delayed by
long-awaited reforms to the ministry of defence,
finally announced last month, to make the
Tajik-dominated ministry more representative of the
country's ethnic diversity. Militias were reluctant to
hand over their weapons to a ministry dominated by a
rival faction.

Disarming the militiamen is a top priority of
President Hamid Karzai's government in an effort to
improve security outside Kabul.

Militiamen have been blamed for insecurity in the
provinces, with regular armed conflicts between rival
factions and soldiers implicated in serious human
rights abuses, the ANBP said.

Cruickshank also gave a demonstration of mobile
disarmament units, housed in container trucks, to be
used to collect weapons and house staff overseeing the
programme.

"The mobile units will go across the country and will
be responsible for physical disarmament of weapons
collection at nominated locations," he said.

Some of the disarmed militiamen will be integrated
into the new national army, which currently numbers
around 6,000 against a forecast eventual strength of
70,000. Others will be retrained and helped to find
employment by the government, UN agencies and
non-governmental organisations.
------------------------------------------------------
6)
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2003-daily/01-10-2003/main/update.shtml#32

Jang (Pakistan)
October 1, 2003

US sees General Fahim's militia  a threat to Karzai's
power: report

KABUL: United States has asked the Afghan defence
minister and vice president General Fahim to give his
private militia under the Afghan government forces
command, an Arabic channel reported on Wednesday. 

United States think the large private militia of
General Fahim a threat to the Karzai's leadership in
Afghanistan, the channel said. 

In present scenario there are hints of postponement of
the 2004 presidential elections in the country, in
which President Hamid Karzai's winning chances are
diminishing with time. 
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_1-10-2003_pg7_2

Daily Times (Pakistan)
Agence France Press
October 1, 2003

Afghanistan may not meet election date: Karzai

 * One US soldier killed, two injured 
* French soldiers take over from US troops in southern
Afghan town 

MONTREAL: Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai on
Tuesday said he would not rule out postponing his
country?s presidential election, currently scheduled
for June 2004.

The goal is to meet the June 2004 deadline, Karzai
said in a television interview with the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation. But ?if we fail for whatever
reason, technical or otherwise,? then ?we should go to
the Afghan people and say, ?here we have not been able
to do it. Now will you give us another month or two?.?

?But we must try to reach that point in having the
elections done on time. That?s when our legitimacy
runs out,? he said.

Until now Karzai said that all of the deadlines for
restoring the country to democracy have been met. He
also said his government was ?very confident that we
will have the Grand Council again in December to
ratify the constitution.? However ?what begins from
there once we have the new constitution is the
difficult part,? he said. ?We don?t have a voters
list,? he said. ?We don?t have the mechanisms in
place. We don?t have lots of other things.?

Karzai wished he had more time to fix the
shortcomings. ?But we don?t have it,? he said. ?We
have promised the Afghan people we?ll go to them in
June and ask them for a direct vote to elect another
government, another head of state.? Karzai met with
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien over the weekend
in Ottawa.

Meanwhile, around 150 French Special Forces soldiers
have replaced US troops based in the southern Afghan
border town of Spin Boldak, an AFP correspondent
observed Tuesday. Since the start of August, French
troops have been installed in a discreet base on the
outskirts of Spin Boldak, Kandahar province, close to
the border with Pakistan.

They have taken over from US Special Forces, who have
returned to their base in Kandahar city, local
officials said. The elite French troops are ?to take
part, under US operational control and under the
command of the chief of staff of the French Army, in
the war against remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda,?
said a French Army staff source in Paris, contacted by
telephone from Afghanistan.

Their operational area covers the whole of the Spin
Boldak frontier region, according to district chief
Syeed Faizaluddin Agha.

French military on the spot refused to comment on the
identity of the elite units deployed. Around 20
militiamen are employed by the French at the back of
their base, where at least two US liaison officers are
also posted, according to district official Said
Mohammad Jan.

Spin Boldak is an important area of operations against
suspected Taliban, their al-Qaeda allies and other
anti-government insurgents An American soldier died of
wounds after fighting in eastern Afghanistan, the
fourth US fatality in just over a month in operations
against the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in
Afghanistan, the US military said on Tuesday. Two US
soldiers were wounded and two opposing fighters were
killed in the fighting on Monday near Shkin in Paktika
province close to the Pakistan border, US military
spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis told reporters at the
Bagram Air Base. Another spokesman, Major Richard
Sater, confirmed the three casualties from the 12,500
allied troops in Afghanistan were Americans. 




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