KABUL (AFP) — With Taliban rebels launching mass jail breaks, threatening a major city and killing more foreign troops than ever, Afghanistan is replacing Iraq as the focus of the "war on terror", analysts say.
The Islamist movement has dealt a series of stunning blows to President Hamid Karzai's fragile government in the past week, causing jitters among Western nations who together have around 70,000 troops in the country.
Hundreds of insurgents escaped from a prison in Kandahar on Friday and within days rebels had massed in villages outside the southern city, forcing 1,000 Afghan and NATO troops to launch a major offensive to drive them out.
Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama spelt out his priorities if elected by saying on Monday that the real front of the "war on terror" was now Afghanistan and that the US mission in Iraq had been a disaster.
Further underscoring the instability is the fact that Afghanistan was deadlier for foreign forces than Iraq during the month of May for the first time since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.
In Iraq the number of coalition soldiers killed dropped to 21 last month, 17 of them in action, according to US Defense Department statistics on the independent icasualties.org website.
But nearly seven years after US-led forces invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, coalition soldier deaths in Afghanistan rose to 23 during May, 19 of them by hostile fire.
"At the end of the day they have to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and win against it here, not in Iraq," Ahmad Behzad, a member of Afghanistan's parliament and a former journalist, told AFP.
"If Taliban get grounded here and stronger its impact will be seen in US and in the West."
In a sign of international concern, world donors gathered in Paris a week ago pledged 20 billion dollars to rebuild Afghanistan but also called on Karzai to do more to fight corruption and strengthen the rule of law.
But the conference was followed a day later by the Kandahar jail break, in which a Taliban suicide bomber blew up the main gates of the building to free more than 1,000 prisoners, causing widespread alarm.
"The Taliban are making use of the summer to assert themselves, which is being taken by the Americans with great alarm," Hasan Askari, a political analyst at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, told AFP.
Behzad, the MP, said the consensus among donors and also in the US election campaign on the need to focus on Afghanistan was a positive sign, despite the fears of a Taliban resurgence.
But the focus until now on Iraq had made international forces in Afghanistan more vulnerable, he said, adding: "It gave time for Taliban to regroup, plan better and attack softer targets, and hurt the troops."
Prominent historian and analyst Habibullah Rafi said international forces in Afghanistan had to review their tactics in the wake of the scores of civilian deaths in military operations since 2001, leading to resentment.
"Unless the government changes its tactics, unless the international forces change the way they conduct operations, I would say the violence would increase even more," Rafi told AFP.
Analysts said that quitting Afghanistan was not an option for the US-led coalition and the separate NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, but that they were in a "very difficult position."
"If they abandon this place they are going to get hurt back home," said analyst Waheed Mujda, suggesting failing to wipe out the threat in Afghanistan could increase the likelihood of terror attacks in coalition countries.
"But if they fight for it they need more money and resources than at the beginning when it was easy," added Mujda, a former anti-Soviet fighter who served in the ministry of foreign affairs under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.
A Pentagon spokesman yesterday criticized the report, saying its authors had drawn "sweeping conclusions based upon dubious allegations" of former detainees who had been out of U.S. custody for years.
By Joby Warrick
The first extensive medical examinations of former detainees in U.S. military jails offer corroboration for prisoners' claims of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of their American captors, a Boston-based human rights group said in a report released yesterday.
The assessments of 11 men formerly held in U.S. detention camps overseas revealed scars and other injuries consistent with their accounts of beatings, electric shocks, shackling and, in at least one case, sodomy, according to the report by Physicians for Human Rights. Most also had symptoms of long-term psychological damage, including post-traumatic stress disorder, the group said.
The physicians' group, which in recent years has been critical of the administration's detention policies, arranged for a battery of exams for 11 former detainees who had spent an average of three years in detention at U.S. facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Teams of medical specialists conducted physical and psychological tests, including exams intended to assess if the subjects were lying.
The evaluations backed up the men's stories of physical and sexual assault and documented psychological damage that had left many of them severely impaired, the report said. For example, exams and X-rays of one of the former detainees showed scars and joint injuries that supported his description of being suspended for hours by his arms at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
All 11 men were eventually released from custody without being charged with crimes.
In a statement accompanying the report, retired Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who led the Army's first official investigation on Abu Ghraib, said the new evidence suggested a "systematic regime of torture" inside U.S.-run detention camps.
A Pentagon spokesman yesterday criticized the report, saying its authors had drawn "sweeping conclusions based upon dubious allegations" of former detainees who had been out of U.S. custody for years.
"The quality of medical care we provide detainees is similar to that which our troops serving in the same locations receive," said the spokesman, Navy Cmdr. J.D. Gordon. "We have robust psychological and mental health care available to detainees."
By Brent Kallestad (AP)
Florida said it intends to sue the Army Corps of Engineers for violating the Endangered Species Act, a move which could further complicate already strained regional relations over shared water resources.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole said in a letter that the Corps plans to reduce water flow in the Apalachicola River would jeopardize threatened and endangered wildlife in the area.
The seven-page letter, dated Thursday, noted concerns by biologists and environmentalists about the impact that low water levels could have on the Gulf sturgeon fish, and three mussels: the fat threeridge mussel, the purple bankclimber and the Chipola slabshell.
The expanded suit throws another wrench in the complicated tug-of-war over water between Georgia, Florida and Alabama that has been waged since the early 1990s in court and in state legislatures. Caught in the middle is the Corps, the federal agency charged with managing the resources.
Georgia, which seeks to keep more of the water stored in its reservoirs, points to the epic drought gripping the state as evidence that federal authorities should change the way the reservoirs are managed. Alabama and Florida, meanwhile, say increased flow is needed not only to support the threatened species but also downstream power plants and fisheries.
Florida's notice of a lawsuit comes weeks after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that a federal plan to keep more water in Georgia won't irreversibly doom wildlife.
Florida's announcement prompted an immediate backlash from Georgia politicians and business leaders. Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle called the news of the possible lawsuit "extraordinarily disappointing."
"I find it unconscionable that the state of Florida would choose to elevate the water needs of the bankclimber and fat threeridge mussel over the needs of millions of human beings in Georgia," he said.
Pat Stevens of the Atlanta Regional Commission accused Florida of political posturing, and suggested that Florida should spend more time boosting its own water supply and efficiency.
"There's lots of things they claim are due to water use in Georgia, but they really ought to be looking to solve the problem in Florida itself instead of pointing at other folks," she said Friday.
Kelly Layman, an official with the environmental agency that filed the lawsuit, said Florida has regulated water consumption and "required water use permits for 30 years Georgia has not."
"It's that literal 'free flow' of water that causes us enormous concern and has been a long-standing crux of this battle," Layman said.
A press secretary for Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said the governor agreed with the lawsuit.
Pat Robbins, a spokesman for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said the agency doesn't comment on active litigation.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division, which oversees the state's water policy, also declined to comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment