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/
Showing posts with label Friendly fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friendly fire. Show all posts
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
UN eases sanctions on five Taliban leaders
The UN said the five would no longer be subject to international travel bans and a freeze on their assets.
The men include Abdul Wakil Mutawakil, who was a foreign minister when the Taleban were in power in Afghanistan.
Earlier, President Hamid Karzai called for removal of Taleban names from the UN list in a bid to reach out to them.
And Nato's top commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal had also expressed hope for a negotiated peace with the Taliban.
The UN Security Council panel decision comes days before an international conference on Afghanistan to be held in London.
'Gesture of support'
The panel "approved the deletion (de-listing) of the five entries" from its blacklist of individuals subjected to a travel ban, assets freeze and arms embargo, the UN said in a statement.
The five men are former members of the Taliban government, and were put on the UN blacklist in 2001.
They were not active insurgents and there had already been debate within the UN sanctions committee on whether to remove them from the list.
Source:bbc.co.uk
London meeting seeks ways to win Afghan war after 8-year slog
LONDON — How can the hard war in Afghanistan finally be won?
That is the perplexing question facing Afghan leaders and 60 foreign ministers including Canada's Lawrence Cannon when they meet at a London conference on Thursday.
No one pretends the war is going well: casualties are up, public support in coalition countries is down, and ever-bolder Taliban rebels have successfully attacked the centre of Kabul, power base of the feeble central government led by President Hamid Karzai. Al-Qaida leaders, on the run for eight years, have regrouped, their tentacles grasping beyond their base near the Pakistan-Afghan border.
The conflict is at a crossroads, with the United States and its NATO allies sending 37,000 more troops in a bid to blunt the Taliban's momentum as the Afghan government seeks financial help with ambitious plans to "Afghanize" the conflict by taking over security duties in the next five years.
The conference will see the unveiling of an ambitious plan to sap the Taliban insurgency by convincing some of its lower-and mid-level fighters to lay down their weapons in exchange for money, job training and other financial incentives.
It is not clear if the plan to persuade Taliban fighters who are not linked to al-Qaida to give up their weapons and join the political process - a centrepiece of the conference agenda - will be successful. Taliban leaders say the plan is doomed.
The Afghan government plans to offer jobs, vocational training and other financial incentives to Taliban soldiers willing to switch sides. The goal is to reach out to 20,000 to 35,000 insurgents - but skeptics doubt whether large numbers would desert at a time when many insurgents believe they are winning.
Karzai's government has tried several times to entice the Taliban leadership to the peace table - initiatives that had met with a cool reception from Washington and Ottawa.
Afghan envoys met last year with representatives of insurgent commanders in Dubai in talks encouraged by the Saudi government, which played a large behind-the-scenes role in trying to forge a compromise.
The emissaries reportedly approached Mullah Omar, the elusive spiritual head of the Taliban movement, as well as notorious commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. They sent observers to the meeting and stuck with their demand that all foreign troops must withdraw from Afghanistan before peace talks could begin.
Canada currently has about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission supporting Karzai's government. The Canadian presence dates back to 2002.
Early in the mission, the Conservative government in Ottawa dismissed negotiations with the Taliban. More recently, Canadian officials have left the door open to negotiations provided insurgents lay down their weapons.
Canadian cabinet ministers have said peace overtures were the responsibility of the Afghan government. Behind the scenes, however, Afghan officials complained that the attempted negotiations received no international support.
Some militants believe they can outlast western forces, which may be called home due to budgetary restraints and ebbing public enthusiasm for the mission. President Barack Obama says he plans to start withdrawing some U.S. troops by July 2011. The Canadian military's combat mission in Afghanistan is also scheduled to end in 2011.
The London conference is expected to endorse a new timetable for expanding Afghan security forces and giving them control of various parts of the country as part of a plan to reduce western troop levels by the middle of next year if possible.
The reconstruction effort is getting a boost.
NATO named Mark Sedwill, who was Britain's ambassador to Kabul, to be its new civilian representative in Afghanistan on Tuesday. He will be charged with administering reconstruction projects and act as a civilian counterpart to the military commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans to boost its troop strength, in order to provide more training for Afghan forces, and to nearly double Germany's reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, increasing it to $605 million per year from $310 million.
Despite gloomy reports from the battlefield, there are glimmers of hope - with polls showing most Afghans now blame the Taliban, not western forces, for the bloodshed and instability, a reversal from just a year earlier.
"The conference will be a major opportunity for Afghanistan to explain to the rest of the world our plans for reconciliation and reintegration," Karzai said in Turkey on Tuesday. "Afghanistan is in the frontline of the war on terror. The Afghan people are giving daily sacrifices in this struggle."
Cannon, who will represent Canada, said: "Holding this conference demonstrates the international community's will to work with the new Afghan government to deliver a co-ordinated political, civil and military effort to counter the insurgency and provide good governance and development for the people of Afghanistan."
The diplomats will discuss ways to channel more international aid directly through Afghan ministries while, at the same time, working to curb systematic graft and bribery inside the government.
Analysts believe the troop surge ordered by Obama and new tactics aimed at winning over ordinary Afghans pushed by McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, may blunt the Taliban's recent gains.
Michael Codner, director of the Military Sciences Department at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the additional troops may convince on-the-fence Afghans not to back the Taliban.
"It is quite likely the surge could bring a tipping point in the right direction rather than having it muddle along forever," he said. "The situation before looked pretty feeble and doomed."
Codner said the number of troops being added is adequate for the task they face.
He cautioned that public support for the war, at least in Britain, has dropped because there is little confidence in Brown's assertion that the fighting will help protect British towns and cities from al-Qaida attacks.
"There's a great deal of skepticism," Codner said. "That's because the mission is not clear. The government is saying it is direct security, that al-Qaida will set up there again if we don't do this, but unfortunately the public feels if we do these operations, we'll get an asymmetric attack at home, as in the July 7 bombings."
He was referring to the July 7, 2005, attacks on the London transit system that killed 52 people. The co-ordinated bombings by radicalized British Muslims were blamed by some on Britain's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The long-range goal is to transform Afghanistan into a relatively stable country with a functioning, credible government and no camps or canyons where al-Qaida's fugitive leaders can hide and plot.
The likelihood of immediate success: next to nil.
Even if things work out, it will take several years at least for poorly paid and loosely trained Afghan security forces and police to be ready to take control of their country, bled dry by on-and-off warfare for the past three decades.
-With files from The Canadian Press.
Source:AFP
That is the perplexing question facing Afghan leaders and 60 foreign ministers including Canada's Lawrence Cannon when they meet at a London conference on Thursday.
No one pretends the war is going well: casualties are up, public support in coalition countries is down, and ever-bolder Taliban rebels have successfully attacked the centre of Kabul, power base of the feeble central government led by President Hamid Karzai. Al-Qaida leaders, on the run for eight years, have regrouped, their tentacles grasping beyond their base near the Pakistan-Afghan border.
The conflict is at a crossroads, with the United States and its NATO allies sending 37,000 more troops in a bid to blunt the Taliban's momentum as the Afghan government seeks financial help with ambitious plans to "Afghanize" the conflict by taking over security duties in the next five years.
The conference will see the unveiling of an ambitious plan to sap the Taliban insurgency by convincing some of its lower-and mid-level fighters to lay down their weapons in exchange for money, job training and other financial incentives.
It is not clear if the plan to persuade Taliban fighters who are not linked to al-Qaida to give up their weapons and join the political process - a centrepiece of the conference agenda - will be successful. Taliban leaders say the plan is doomed.
The Afghan government plans to offer jobs, vocational training and other financial incentives to Taliban soldiers willing to switch sides. The goal is to reach out to 20,000 to 35,000 insurgents - but skeptics doubt whether large numbers would desert at a time when many insurgents believe they are winning.
Karzai's government has tried several times to entice the Taliban leadership to the peace table - initiatives that had met with a cool reception from Washington and Ottawa.
Afghan envoys met last year with representatives of insurgent commanders in Dubai in talks encouraged by the Saudi government, which played a large behind-the-scenes role in trying to forge a compromise.
The emissaries reportedly approached Mullah Omar, the elusive spiritual head of the Taliban movement, as well as notorious commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. They sent observers to the meeting and stuck with their demand that all foreign troops must withdraw from Afghanistan before peace talks could begin.
Canada currently has about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission supporting Karzai's government. The Canadian presence dates back to 2002.
Early in the mission, the Conservative government in Ottawa dismissed negotiations with the Taliban. More recently, Canadian officials have left the door open to negotiations provided insurgents lay down their weapons.
Canadian cabinet ministers have said peace overtures were the responsibility of the Afghan government. Behind the scenes, however, Afghan officials complained that the attempted negotiations received no international support.
Some militants believe they can outlast western forces, which may be called home due to budgetary restraints and ebbing public enthusiasm for the mission. President Barack Obama says he plans to start withdrawing some U.S. troops by July 2011. The Canadian military's combat mission in Afghanistan is also scheduled to end in 2011.
The London conference is expected to endorse a new timetable for expanding Afghan security forces and giving them control of various parts of the country as part of a plan to reduce western troop levels by the middle of next year if possible.
The reconstruction effort is getting a boost.
NATO named Mark Sedwill, who was Britain's ambassador to Kabul, to be its new civilian representative in Afghanistan on Tuesday. He will be charged with administering reconstruction projects and act as a civilian counterpart to the military commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans to boost its troop strength, in order to provide more training for Afghan forces, and to nearly double Germany's reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, increasing it to $605 million per year from $310 million.
Despite gloomy reports from the battlefield, there are glimmers of hope - with polls showing most Afghans now blame the Taliban, not western forces, for the bloodshed and instability, a reversal from just a year earlier.
"The conference will be a major opportunity for Afghanistan to explain to the rest of the world our plans for reconciliation and reintegration," Karzai said in Turkey on Tuesday. "Afghanistan is in the frontline of the war on terror. The Afghan people are giving daily sacrifices in this struggle."
Cannon, who will represent Canada, said: "Holding this conference demonstrates the international community's will to work with the new Afghan government to deliver a co-ordinated political, civil and military effort to counter the insurgency and provide good governance and development for the people of Afghanistan."
The diplomats will discuss ways to channel more international aid directly through Afghan ministries while, at the same time, working to curb systematic graft and bribery inside the government.
Analysts believe the troop surge ordered by Obama and new tactics aimed at winning over ordinary Afghans pushed by McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, may blunt the Taliban's recent gains.
Michael Codner, director of the Military Sciences Department at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the additional troops may convince on-the-fence Afghans not to back the Taliban.
"It is quite likely the surge could bring a tipping point in the right direction rather than having it muddle along forever," he said. "The situation before looked pretty feeble and doomed."
Codner said the number of troops being added is adequate for the task they face.
He cautioned that public support for the war, at least in Britain, has dropped because there is little confidence in Brown's assertion that the fighting will help protect British towns and cities from al-Qaida attacks.
"There's a great deal of skepticism," Codner said. "That's because the mission is not clear. The government is saying it is direct security, that al-Qaida will set up there again if we don't do this, but unfortunately the public feels if we do these operations, we'll get an asymmetric attack at home, as in the July 7 bombings."
He was referring to the July 7, 2005, attacks on the London transit system that killed 52 people. The co-ordinated bombings by radicalized British Muslims were blamed by some on Britain's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The long-range goal is to transform Afghanistan into a relatively stable country with a functioning, credible government and no camps or canyons where al-Qaida's fugitive leaders can hide and plot.
The likelihood of immediate success: next to nil.
Even if things work out, it will take several years at least for poorly paid and loosely trained Afghan security forces and police to be ready to take control of their country, bled dry by on-and-off warfare for the past three decades.
-With files from The Canadian Press.
Source:AFP
Afghan battlefield mystery plays out in court
In a nondescript courtroom in a sprawling government complex, that image was in sharp focus as the 36-year-old and his pregnant wife, Amelie Lapierre-Semrau, appeared Monday on Day 1 of his second-degree murder trial in the death of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan on Oct. 19, 2008.
The high-profile case marks the first time a criminal charge has been laid against a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan involving the death of an alleged enemy fighter.
Semrau is charged with shooting a severely injured, unarmed combatant following a prolonged clash in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province.
"The problem with Semrau is if he had just let the person die he would have been fine, but if, as it is alleged, that he did shoot him, then it does become murder," said Chris Madsen, a professor at Canadian Forces College in Toronto who is an historian and military law expert.
It might be as long as two weeks before the details of the case become public because Semrau's lawyer, Maj. Steven Turner, has filed six applications challenging the constitutionality of the court martial.
The case has been dogged by controversy because Semrau, a member of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, was not charged until almost two months after the alleged shooting, leaving critics scratching their heads as to why it took so long.
A predominant factor was that no body was recovered, court documents suggest.
Semrau, who holds a BA in psychology from the University of Saskatchewan, completed three years of service in the British army and was deployed to Macedonia and Afghanistan before he enrolled in the Canadian Forces in August 2005.
When he left the British army he was given an exemplary discharge.
Even so, one witness told investigators that he saw Semrau fire his rifle in the direction of the injured insurgent, who had been cut down in an American gunship attack.
On Oct. 19, 2008, Semrau was commanding a small team of Canadian soldiers of the Operational Mentor and Liaison Team, which was mentoring a company of soldiers from the Afghan National Army in a British area of operation.
A joint defence-prosecution "synopsis" of the incident filed in court last year states that a U.S. Apache helicopter was called in for support, after which the group discovered one dead insurgent and another with wounds "too severe for any type of treatment" in the field.
An assault rifle was taken from the injured man and he was photographed "in accordance with standard procedures." Semrau was allegedly seen firing his rifle at the man, and witnesses will say two shots were heard.
"Immediately afterward, all forces resumed the mission and the body of the severely wounded insurgent was left behind. That body has not been recovered," said the synopsis.
Despite the gravity of the case, Semrau, wearing his dress green army uniform, appeared to be in good spirits, periodically turning around to make eye contact with and smile at his wife, Amelie, who is a kindergarten teacher. The couple, who live in Petawawa with their 19-month-old daughter, Camea, have been married for about 10 years
Legal arguments, on issues ranging from holding the trial in Kandahar to scrapping the trial altogether, are to be dealt with before selection begins of a five-officer panel that will act as a jury.
Chief Military Judge Col. Mario Dutil began sorting through the arguments Monday by dismissing a defence application to have the panel members wearcivilian clothing instead of uniforms, and the lawyers – both defence and prosecution – wear gowns instead of uniforms.
"I am trying to remove a powerful visual symbol," said Turner.
Tuesday, Turner is to argue that since the alleged shooting happened in Afghanistan, the case should be heard on the military base in Kandahar. He is expected to take most of the day arguing his position.
Source:thestar.com/
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
New British 'friendly fire' death in Afghanistan probed
A second British soldier has died after being wounded in a suspected "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.
The soldier, from 3rd Battalion The Rifles, has not been named but his family has been told.
He died on Tuesday, having been wounded in a fire fight near Sangin, central Helmand Province, on Monday.
A soldier killed in a separate suspected friendly fire incident has been named as L/Cpl Michael Pritchard.
L/Cpl Pritchard, 22, a Kent-born Royal Military Policeman who lived in Eastbourne, Sussex, died as a result of "small arms fire" - also near Sangin - on Sunday.
Both deaths are under investigation and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says no firm conclusions will be drawn until after the men's inquests.
Some 105 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year, bringing the total killed since operations began in 2001 to 242.
The MoD said "initial reports" suggested the latest death "may have resulted from a friendly fire incident".
Task Force Helmand spokesman, Lt Col David Wakefield, said the soldier's "courage and his sacrifice will not be forgotten".
The BBC's Adam Mynott said that to have two friendly fire deaths on consecutive nights was unusual.
However, he said Sangin was one of the "hottest" areas of conflict between British forces and the Taliban.
"In these shooting incidents where there's a lot of gunfire, it's very hard to tell what's happening," he added.
L/Cpl Pritchard was born in Maidstone, Kent, and joined the Royal Military Police (RMP) in 2007. He had been in Afghanistan since October.
His family said: "With great sadness we say goodbye to our beloved son, a lover of life who has lived life to the full and has brought great joy to all those who are lucky enough to know him.
"A light that shines brightly, our precious son, brother, grandson, boyfriend and special friend to all, we are very proud of you in all that you have done and achieved and you will always be in our hearts now and ever more."
'Unbearable grief'
The soldier's commanding officer, Lt Col Debbie Poneskis, described him as "everything you would want in a military policeman".
"He was a professional and robust soldier and one who was both physically and morally courageous," she said, adding that he was "a cheeky chap, whose laughter was infectious".
"L/Cpl Pritchard's death has hit us as a regiment very hard, at a time when we thought we had already suffered unbearable pain and grief."
Several Royal Military Policemen have been killed in recent months.
They include Acting Cpl Steven Boote and Cpl Nicholas Webster-Smith, who were shot dead by a rogue Afghan policeman in November, and Sgt Robert Loughram-Dickson, who died in a gun battle in the same month.
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said he was "deeply saddened" at L/Cpl Pritchard's death.
"He was hard-working and dependable and was showing great promise as a junior non-commissioned officer," he added.
Source:bbc.co.uk
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)