Afghan and NATO Officials: 4 Afghan Soldiers Killed in Joint Force Air Strike

Afghan and NATO officials say a coalition air strike has "likely killed" four Afghan soldiers.

U.S.Military officials say joint force of Afghan and coalition soldiers came under fire early Saturday morning and called in the air strike.

NATO and Afghan officials say their initial investigation after the air strike indicates the small arms fire originated from an Afghan National Army outpost.

Brigadier General Eric Tremblay, an coalition spokesman, called it a regrettable incident.

He said joint forces "work extremely hard" to synchronize their operations.

An Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesman says the International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan army will conduct a joint investigation into what he termed an "unfortunate accident."

Source:voanews.com/

Success in Afghanistan hindered by Pakistan's dangerous balancing act

Pakistan's complicated relationship with Islamic militant groups, its internal and external strategic aims and its need for Western aid and support is hindering progress in the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

More than eight years on from the US-led invasion of Afghanistan which forced the Taliban from power and sent its al Qaeda allies into hiding, the somewhat naïve objective of a democratic and stable Afghanistan free of fundamentalists and terrorists seems as far away as ever.



The Taliban is resurgent, al Qaeda has returned and the Western-backed Afghan government has even less credibility after the chaos of last year's fraudulent presidential elections continues to reverberate. Western military planners appear to be at a loss as to how to end an increasingly difficult war which looked to have been won in the early months of 2002.



Representatives of those nations involved with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) meet with officials from the Afghan government this week in London in an attempt to find a way out of this seemingly intractable conflict. One of the most important aspects of any discussion will be Pakistan's role in ending the counter-insurgency and its potential involvement in the stabilization of a post-war Afghanistan.



Pakistan has long been seen as the key to success against the Taliban insurgency. While the Taliban has returned in significant numbers to its heartlands in the southern provinces of Afghanistan, the tribal areas along the Afghan border inside Pakistan are accepted as being the main center of operations from which the insurgency is planned and executed.



Mixed messages from Pakistan's tribal region offensive



Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Pakistan's offensive has made gains in South Waziristan
In what appears to be a concerted effort to eliminate the Taliban in the restive tribal regions of North and South Waziristan, Pakistan launched an on-going military offensive last October. Pakistan has since claimed victories in South Waziristan where its army has dismantled Taliban bases and infrastructure while expelling thousands of their fighters from the region over which they once had complete control.



On the surface, it appears that Pakistan is making good on the promises it made to the Bush administration in the first years of the war when then President Pervez Musharraf agreed to help in the 'war on terror' in exchange for financial and military aid from the United States.



Pro-government Taliban in north remain free



However, while the operation in South Waziristan has seen some positive results, this is offset by Pakistan's apparent reluctance to target insurgents who infiltrate into Afghanistan from North Waziristan to attack the foreign forces across the border.



So far, the Pakistani Army has only hit militants which it holds responsible for attacks within Pakistan, leaving thousands of pro-government Taliban fighters in North Waziristan to freely cross the border to strike NATO troops on the other side.



The complicated involvement of Pakistan both in fighting and facilitating the insurgency is based on its long-term internal and external strategic policies as well as its concern over its economic interests.



History of cultivating militant groups for own ends



Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The Taliban operates freely from North Waziristan
Pakistan, a country which has been ruled by military dictatorships for most of its 62 years of existence, has long fostered a policy of using Islamic militant groups for its own ends, specifically in its proxy war with India over Kashmir. These militant groups, both trained and funded by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) - Pakistan's secret service, have in turn found their own battles to fight, namely the jihad against Western forces in Afghanistan.



"It's an open secret that the military and intelligence services still have a hand in supporting what they call their strategic assets," Dr. Farzana Shaikh, the director of the Pakistan Study Group at the Royal Institute of International Affairs Chatham House in London, told Deutsche Welle. "These are mainly groups attached to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and are groups which Pakistan could use in the event of a Western withdrawal from Afghanistan to ensure their interests there are not compromised.



The fear is that India will expand the influence its been gaining since 9/11 in Afghanistan, and Pakistan sees these Taliban-affiliated groups in North Waziristan as a handy bunch to have around and so they are very reluctant to take on these groups who could be assets in the future."

Source:dw-world.de/

Neighbor States Meet On Helping Foster Afghan Stability

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul (center) with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai (left) and Asif Ali Zardari in Istanbul.
January 26, 2010
(RFE/RL) --- Leaders and senior officials from Afghanistan and its neighboring countries met today in the Turkish city of Istanbul for talks on how to help Afghanistan achieve stability and security.

The meeting took place in the diplomatic run-up to a big conference on January 28 in London on the country's future.

The presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari, were present, together with officials from Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and China, all of which share common borders with Afghanistan.

Hosted by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, the meeting included observers representing the United States, Britain, and Russia.

Few details have been disclosed about the talks, but they were likely to range across issues of increased cooperation with Afghanistan, to help it toward stability. The key relationship is between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which now share a common threat from Taliban insurgencies.

Kabul remains suspicious of Islamabad's motives in apparently not wanting to dislodge the Afghan Taliban, who are believed to use the Pakistani northwest frontier as a haven from the fighting in Afghanistan. Diplomats see this ambivalence as stemming from the possibility that the Pakistanis may want to use the Afghan Taliban in future -- as in the past -- to counter Indian influence on Kabul.

Taliban Reconciliation

The neighborhood meeting follows the January 25 summit of Karzai, Zardari, and Turkey's Abdullah Gul. At that meeting, Karzai's plan to draw moderate Taliban elements into reconciliation with his government was discussed.

Karzai said after the summit that the plan has international and regional support, including "the backing of our partners, particularly the United States and Europe. It also has greater recognition within our neighborhood."

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs noted that reconciliation schemes had worked with various factions in Iraq. Gibbs said the United States is open to a similar path in Afghanistan to that in Iraq -- provided that the factions involved accept the Afghan Constitution, renounce violence, and publicly break with groups that advocate violence.

Speaking at the same news conference as Karzai, Zardari spoke in favor of reconciliation as opposed to open-ended military action.

"No democratic government or no democratic party can talk about only war. We have to talk about peace," Zardari said.

"And if there are any people who are reconcilable, or people who want to give up their way of life, democracy always welcomes them back."

An Afghan spokesman said Karzai welcomed the readiness of the United Nations to consider a proposal from his government to remove some Taliban names from its blacklist, making them available for negotiations.

Source:rferl.org/