Top commander in Afghanistan says Kandahar next

KABUL (AFP) –

The commander of international forces in Afghanistan was quoted as saying Monday that the southern province of Kandahar was likely to be the next target of operations to eradicate the Taliban.

US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of 121,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, said a major offensive now in its second week in a poppy-growing valley in Helmand province was a "model for the future".

Helmand and neighbouring Kandahar -- where Kandahar city was once the Taliban capital -- have been the main hotspots of the insurgency launched soon after the US-led invasion toppled the Islamists' 1996-2001 regime.

NATO and Afghan officials have said that Operation Mushtarak (Together) under way in Helmand is a template for expanding the campaign to at least three other Taliban-held areas of the province.

McChrystal was quoted by Britain's The Times newspaper as telling reporters that operations will also move into Kandahar, although he did not specify any areas.

"We are going to go to where significant parts of the population are at risk and Kandahar is clearly very, very important not just to the south but to the nation," he said, adding: "It is not the only area though."

Some 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops are facing some strong resistance from Taliban fighters in the Marjah and Nad Ali areas of the central Helmand River valley, slowed by snipers and hidden bombs.

Operation Mushtarak is a test of a new US-led strategy for wresting control from Taliban and drug traffickers in the region as part of a blueprint for re-establishing Afghan government sovereignty.

It is also the first test of US President Barack Obama's faith in McChrystal's counter-insurgency plans for Afghanistan, in which the military works closely with civilian authorities to neutralise insurgent influence.

"In many ways it is a model for the future: an Afghan-led operation supported by the coalition, deeply engaged with the people," McChrystal was quoted as saying.

Top US General David Petraeus told US television on Sunday that Mushtarak is the initial stage of a plan McChrystal has mapped out for the coming 12-18 months -- coinciding with Obama's timetable for withdrawal of US troops.

U.S. toll in Afghanistan nearing 1,000

KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 24, 2010, (UPI) --

The number of U.S. military personnel killed in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 is edging toward 1,000, figures show.

Figures as of Tuesday showed 996 Americans have died in Operation Enduring Freedom, as the war in Afghanistan is called, The Washington Post reported.

The latest confirmed casualty was Army Pfc. J.R. Salvacion, 27, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, who died Sunday of wounds suffered in an insurgent attack near Kandahar, the Post reported.

The Iraq war has killed 4,336 Americans since 2003 but the Post report said the heightening campaign in Afghanistan is taking a greater toll of those who came back safely from Iraq before returning to the new war.

The milestone death toll comes as U.S. and NATO forces along with Afghan security personnel have launched Operation Moshtarak to drive the Taliban from Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.

"We've learned that the public doesn't react reflexively to the tote board of (war deaths)," Peter Feaver, who served in the Bush administration and teaches political science at Duke University, told the Post.

"The American people and the governing class have accepted that war has become a permanent condition," retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, whose son died in Iraq in 2007, said. "Protracted war has become a widely accepted part of our politics."

In addition to the U.S. toll, more than 600 troops from NATO allies and other countries, and thousands of Afghan civilians, soldiers and police officers have died in Afghanistan since 2001.

Gunmen kill government official in southern Afghanistan

 DPA, Earth Times, Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:20:10 GMT

Kandahar -

Two gunmen shot dead a provincial official in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, police said. Haji Abdul Majeed Babai, director of the information and culture department in Kandahar province, was gunned down by two men on a motorbike in Kandahar city, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Shah Farouqi said.

Babai was en route to his office on Wednesday morning when he was attacked, Farouqi said, adding that a manhunt was launched by the police in the area.

No group immediately took responsibility for Wednesday's shooting, but one of Babai's relatives, Abdul Qader, said that he was killed "because of his role in provincial government."

Taliban fighters have assassinated many government officials as part of their insurgency against the NATO-led security force and national armed forces.

In neighbouring Helmand province, the major operation by Afghan and NATO troops against one of the Taliban's main bastions, Marjah, a town in Nad Ali district, entered its 12th day.

Some 15,000 Afghan and NATO troops are taking part in operation Mushtarak, the biggest since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Meanwhile, Taliban militants on Tuesday night attacked the house of a former insurgent commander who had defected to the government forces, Mahboobullah Sayedi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said.

Sayed Murad and one of his men were wounded in the Chardarah district of Kunduz province, while the attackers took hostage two of his men, Sayedi said. Three Taliban fighters were killed in the firefight, he added.

Murad was commanding a group of Taliban in Qasab village in the same district in operations against Afghan and NATO troops until last week, before changing sides along with his 25 armed fighters on Sunday. He raised the national flag in his village and was appointed security chief of the area by the provincial government.

Under the new Western-backed peace initiative, the Afghan government has announced that it is to provide protection, jobs and other economic incentives to Taliban fighters in return for their renunciation of violence.

Latest News from pro-Taliban website alemarah.info/english:

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23 02 10 Gerishk bombing kills 2 NATO soldiers, wounds 3 in Helmand
23 02 10 Remote-controlled bomb kills Americans in Helmand, destroys U.S. tank
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23 02 10 15 dead in Kunduz battle, 3 German tanks destroyed
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23 02 10 Six U.S. soldiers killed in ambush attack in Kunar
23 02 10 Fifteen French soldiers killed or injured in Kapisa
23 02 10 Dozens of Americans die as 9 U.S military tanks blown apart by blasts in Marjah
23 02 10 A larger group of surrounded Americans flee from Marjah
23 02 10 22 American, Afghan soldiers killed, 4 tanks destroyed in Marjah
23 02 10 Blast kills 13 Americans in Kandahar