French troops attacked in Kabul, three people hurt

Sun Feb 1, 5:40 am ET

KABUL (AFP) –

A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of French troops in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday, wounding three people, including one of the soldiers, the French military and the Afghan government said.

The extremist Islamic Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast on the busy southwestern outskirts of the city.

The bomb exploded near a convoy of French soldiers who are helping to train the fledgling Afghan National Army, French military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jerome Salle told AFP.

"One military vehicle has been damaged and one French soldier has been slightly wounded. He does not need hospital treatment," he said.

The Afghan interior ministry said two civilians were also wounded. Witnesses said they were an adult male and a child.

The car used to carry out the attack was destroyed, with only the engine block remaining, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Parts of the vehicle and the attacker's body were flung across the road, which leads into the province of Wardak and then Logar -- both used in the past as staging grounds for attacks on Kabul.

There are about 2,800 French soldiers in Afghanistan as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that is helping to fight a Taliban-led insurgency and build up Afghanistan's own forces.

About 300 of them are involved in training Afghan army soldiers, Salle said.

Many of the others are based in the province of Kapisa, northeast of Kabul.

Suicide attacks have become a regular occurrence in Afghanistan and are most often claimed by the Taliban, which is fighting to take back power after being removed from government in a US-led invasion in 2001.

The last attack in Kabul was two weeks ago on a road between the German embassy and a US military base. Four Afghans and a US soldier were killed in the attack, which was also claimed by the Taliban.

Afghan and international security forces afterwards arrested a man in Kabul suspected of involvement and two others in Logar, where a fourth suspect was shot dead, ISAF said.

About 3,000 US troops have deployed in recent weeks in Wardak and Logar. Up to 30,000 more US troops are expected in the coming months in southern Afghanistan, which sees some of the worst of the insurgency.

The French contribution to ISAF is the fourth largest after those of the United States, Britain and Canada.

It suffered the largest loss of life in battle from among all the 40 ISAF nations when 10 paratroopers were killed after being ambushed by insurgents in August last year.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner last week ruled out increasing the number of French troops deployed in Afghanistan even as NATO is pushing for more.

Canadian soldier killed Afghanistan

Sat Jan 31, 2009, 7:43 pm ET

OTTAWA (AFP) –

A Canadian soldier was killed Saturday by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, bringing to 108 the number of Canadian military losses, the commander of the country's base in Kandahar said.

Combat engineer Sean David Greenfield, 25, was killed when a roadside bomb exploded under his armored vehicle in Zhari district, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Kandahar, commander Denis Thompson told a press conference broadcast on Canadian television.

None of the other soldiers in the vehicle was hurt in the incident, Thompson said.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement offering his condolences over Greenfield's death.

"The Canadian mission in Afghanistan is a difficult one, but the Canadian forces are making a difference in the lives of the Afghan people by maintaining security and stability that will allow the country to rebuild and look to the future," Harper said.

Eleven Canadian soldiers have been killed since December by such explosive devices, which are the leading cause of casualties for the 2,700 Canadian troops that have been deployed in and around Kandahar since their country's mission in Afghanistan began in 2002.

A diplomat and two humanitarian workers have also been killed in Afghanistan.

Suicide bomber hits foreign forces in Kabul

Jan 31, 2009, KABUL (Reuters) –

A Taliban suicide car bomber hit a convoy of foreign troops on the outskirts of the Afghan capital on Sunday, wounding two Afghan civilians and slightly injuring a French soldier, officials said.

The attack took place on Kabul's western edge near a bridge where Italian troops and a Turkish diplomatic convoy have been attacked by Taliban insurgents in the past 18 months.

Two Afghan civilians were wounded, the Interior Ministry said, while a spokesman for NATO-led forces said a French soldier received minor injuries in the blast.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The austere Islamist movement, toppled from power by U.S.-led and Afghan forces after the September 11, 2001 attacks, launched more than 100 suicide bombings last year.

The attack occurred on the main road to the south of the country from Kabul which runs through Maidan Wardak, a province that has seen a sharp increase in violence in the past year as Taliban militants have moved into the area.

Some 3,000 U.S. troops, the first of up to 30,000 extra American soldiers expected to be sent in Afghanistan this year, were deployed in Maidan Wardak and neighboring Logar province last month.

(Reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Katie Nguyen)

Three Afghan civilians killed in military action: NATO

Sun Feb 1, 2009, 2:42 am ET

KABUL (AFP) –

The NATO force in Afghanistan said Sunday three civilians -- two children and a tribal leader -- were killed in incidents in which its troops opened fire, including after coming under attack by Taliban.

The issue of civilian casualties from operations against insurgents is one of the most controversial aspects of the foreign military presence in Afghanistan, angering the public and government of President Hamid Karzai.

The children were killed on Saturday when troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force fought Taliban militants who had attacked from a compound in Helmand province, a hotbed of the insurgency, ISAF said.

A search of the compound after the fighting had ended revealed several "killed insurgents" lying alongside rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and ammunition cases, it said.

"Unfortunately, two children were killed and three local Afghan adults were injured during the incident," it added. The wounded were evacuated to hospitals.

The clash took place in the southern province's Nad Ali district, a region that sees regular violence due to the large number of insurgents there.

Troops shot two more Afghans the same day in the eastern province of Paktia, also hit hard by the insurgency, when the vehicle they were in came too close to a convoy despite warnings to stay away, a separate ISAF statement said.

One, a tribal elder, died later of his wounds, it said.

Scores of Afghan civilians have died in such incidents, with troops not allowing ordinary people to approach their bases or convoys in fear of suicide attacks.

Foreign troops came under attack in the capital Kabul Sunday by a suicide bomber in a vehicle. Two Afghans and a foreign soldier were wounded, Afghan officials said.

Karzai has demanded US and NATO forces do more to stop civilian deaths during their operations against militants.

There are about 70,000 foreign forces, mainly from NATO, in Afghanistan battling the Taliban insurgency.

Up to 30,000 more US soldiers are expected over the year to stem a growing wave of violence that has spurred Washington to re-focus on Afghanistan after concentrating on the conflict in Iraq.

Afghan street protests after US raid kills 2

By AMIR SHAH Associated Press Writer

Posted: Sunday, Feb. 01, 2009

KABUL

Hundreds of Afghans demonstrated Sunday against an overnight U.S. military raid that one villager said killed several civilians. The American military said its forces only killed two militants.

The angry protesters gathered on the main highway linking Kabul and Kandahar near the site of the raid, the latest to stir up Afghan ire against foreign forces accused of killing civilians.

Also Sunday, a suicide bomber in a car attacked a convoy of foreign troops in Kabul, wounding two Afghans, police said. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack.

The U.S. military said that its overnight raid in southeastern Ghazni province targeted a militant who coordinates attacks using roadside bombs and other weapons. It said coalition forces conducting the operation called out for all inhabitants to leave the targeted home, but several people barricaded themselves inside one building.

Coalition troops forced their way in and killed two militants, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Sayed Ismail Jahangir, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor, said local officials also reported two people killed in the raid. "We are now investigating. Who are these two killed, civilians or insurgents?" Jahangir said.

The issue of civilian deaths is highly sensitive in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has pleaded for years with U.S. and NATO forces to prevent the deaths of innocent Afghans during military operations.

Over the last month some 50 Afghans - the vast majority civilians, according to Afghan officials - were killed in three separate U.S. Special Forces operations.

The deaths angered Afghans and prompted Karzai to set a one-month deadline for U.S. officials to respond to his demand that Afghan soldiers lead overnight raids in villages.

On Sunday, Baz Mohammad, a villager from Qarabagh district who participated in the highway demonstration, claimed that six people were killed in the Ghazni operation, but no officials confirmed that figure.

Mohammad also said one woman was bitten by a military dog. The U.S. military statement said a "noncombatant" was injured in the operation but gave no details.

On Saturday, an Afghan tribal leader from southeastern Paktika province was fatally shot by a NATO patrol after the vehicle he was in failed to stop when soldiers signaled it to, the NATO-led force said in a statement Sunday. A second Afghan was wounded.

Sunday's suicide attack targeted a convoy of foreign troops in Kabul's western outskirts, said Gen. Zulmay Khan Horiyakheil, a regional police commander. It was not clear if the bomber hit the convoy. Representatives for NATO and U.S. troops said they were checking the report.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, claimed responsibility for the blast in a phone call to an Associated Press reporter in Kabul.

Insurgents regularly launch suicide attacks on foreign and Afghan troops throughout Afghanistan, but the number of such attacks in the capital has decreased over the past year.

There are some 70,000 U.S. and other NATO troops in the country.

President Barack Obama's administration has indicated it is likely to send 30,000 additional troops in hopes of turning the tide of Taliban gains and extending the control of the central government into the far reaches of the country.

Production of opium poppies, which help finance the Taliban, is likely to decrease in Afghanistan in 2009 but the illegal crop remains entrenched in the country's most unstable southern provinces, a U.N. report said Sunday.

The falling price of opium and rising price of wheat - along with drought and pressure from the government - brought production down in most of the country in 2008, the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime said.

Afghanistan remains the world's largest producer of opium, the main ingredient of heroin, accounting for 90 percent of the world's production. The U.N. said last year that up to $500 million in profits might line the pockets of Taliban fighters and criminal groups.

"This year could be a turning point," said Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan. "A major reduction is within reach."

"And since this industry is so intimately linked to crime, corruption and food insecurity, the effects could be wide-ranging and very positive," Eide said.

Obama considers grim options in dealing with Afghanistan, resurgent Taliban; economy is key

By ANNE GEARAN , Associated Press

Last update: January 31, 2009 - 11:00 AM

WASHINGTON -

President Barack Obama, who pledged during his campaign to shift U.S. troops and resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, has done little since taking office to suggest he will significantly widen the grinding war against a resurgent Taliban.

On the contrary, Obama appears likely to streamline the U.S. focus with an eye to the worsening economy and the cautionary example of the Iraq war that sapped political support for President George W. Bush.

"There's not simply a military solution to that problem," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said last week, adding that Obama believes "that only through long-term and sustainable development can we ever hope to turn around what's going on there."

Less than two weeks into the new administration, Obama has not said much in public about what his top military adviser says is the largest challenge facing the armed forces. The president did say Afghanistan and Pakistan are the central front in the struggle against terrorism, a clue to the likely shift toward a targeted counterterrorism strategy.

After Obama's first visit to the Pentagon as president, a senior defense official said the commander in chief surveyed top uniformed officers about the strain of fighting two wars and warned that the economic crisis will limit U.S. responses. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama's meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff was private.

Obama said he wants to add troops to turn back the Taliban, but he has not gone beyond the approximately 30,000 additional forces already under consideration by the previous administration. Those troops will nearly double the U.S. presence in Afghanistan this year. But they amount to a finger in the dike while Obama recalibrates a chaotic mishmash of military and development objectives.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week warned of grandiose goals in Afghanistan, prescribing a single-minded strategy to prevent Afghanistan from being a terrorism launching pad.

"Afghanistan is the fourth or fifth poorest country in the world, and if we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose," Gates said, referring to a haven of purity in Norse mythology. "Nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience or money, to be honest."

Obama has ordered a fast internal review of his military, diplomatic and other options in Afghanistan before he makes decisions that define how aggressively he will answer the growing threat of failure in Afghanistan.

Along with that review, coordinated by the National Security Council, Obama will have results of a just-completed classified Joint Chiefs of Staff assessment of a largely stalemated fight against the Taliban and counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaida and affiliated groups along the Pakistan border.

That report, which has not yet gone to the White House, talks broadly about lowering expectations in the Afghan war.

Instead, it suggests that key goals should be to make modest gains to stabilize the governance and to eliminate terrorist safe havens, senior defense officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is secret.

It also calls for military commanders to better articulate what their objectives in Afghanistan are because only then can leaders determine what types of troops should be deployed and how many.

The Joint Chiefs review also stresses that the strategy must be driven by what the Afghans want and that the U.S. cannot impose its own goals on the Afghan government.

Also ahead is Army Gen. David Petraeus' wider survey of both the Afghan and Iraq wars and other issues in the Middle East. Petraeus, military architect of the troop increase of U.S. troops in Iraq, is not likely to recommend a similar one in Afghanistan.

___

Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.