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[Bulsajo]

It looks like the Spring offensive that the Taliban has been threatening has begun.


Afghanistan Rocked As 105 Die in Violence
Toll Is Among Worst Since 2001 Invasion

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 19, 2006; Page A01

ASADABAD, Afghanistan, May 18 -- Afghanistan has been rocked over the past two days by some of the deadliest violence since the Taliban was driven from power in late 2001. As many as 105 people were reported killed in four provinces as insurgents torched a district government compound, set off suicide bombs and clashed fiercely with Afghan and foreign troops.

Between 80 and 90 Taliban fighters were killed in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, according to Afghan, U.S. and NATO officials. Two sites in Kandahar were struck by U.S. warplanes, including a long-range B-1 bomber, which U.S. military officials said destroyed a compound that Taliban guerrillas were using to stage an attack.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrives in a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter in Konar province on a day violence surged in his country.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrives in a U.S. military Black Hawk helicopter in Konar province on a day violence surged in his country. (By Pamela Constable -- The Washington Post)
Afghanistan

Among the dead were an American police trainer killed by a car bomb in Herat province, a female Canadian army captain and at least 12 Afghan national policemen, officials said.

Afghanistan experienced several years of relative calm after a pro-Western government took over in Kabul in 2001. But in recent months, the pace and scope of insurgent attacks have been increasing steadily, and now include suicide bombings, a tactic long foreign to Afghanistan. The violence has surged as NATO forces prepare to assume the lead military role in Afghanistan from U.S. troops this summer, a transition that some observers believe the Taliban and other insurgent groups are seeking to test.

President Hamid Karzai, visiting the capital of eastern Konar province under heavy security, angrily denounced the new violence as the work of religious extremists and intelligence services in neighboring Pakistan, saying they had sent young men across the border to stage attacks in the name of holy war.

"In Pakistan they train people to go to Afghanistan, conduct jihad, burn schools and clinics," he told a gathering of provincial elders in a long, emotional speech. "What kind of Islam is this?"

Karzai did not blame Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, calling him a "dear brother" and saying that "terrorism is a fire that will extend to your country, too." But he directly taunted Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Afghan Taliban leader, challenging him to "show yourself" and "come fight with me" instead of hiding.

The president expressed particular anguish over the death of the Canadian soldier, Capt. Nichola Goddard, who died Wednesday in a battle with Taliban attackers in Kandahar. "Our land is being protected by a lady from Canada, when we should be protecting her as a guest," he said.

The police trainer killed by a suicide blast in Herat was serving on a contract from the U.S. State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul did not identify him, but said that several other Americans and Afghans were wounded by the bomb and that U.S. forces fearing another attack later shot dead the Afghan driver of a truck who failed to stop at a checkpoint and drove directly at the Americans.

The escalating violence has led to a deepening rift between Karzai and Musharraf, who are both important U.S. allies in the region. The Afghan government has long asserted that Islamic fighters are being supported and sheltered by groups within Pakistan. In February, Karzai presented Musharraf with a list of alleged armed extremists living in Pakistan.

The Pakistani leader bristled at the accusations and dismissed them as outdated or fabricated. He has asserted repeatedly that he is doing his best to combat terrorism within Pakistan, and he has sent large numbers of soldiers into the desolate tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda members are widely believed to have taken refuge.

"They talk about people crossing from Pakistan, but we have 78,000 troops and 800 check posts," said Aftab Khan Sherpao, Pakistan's interior minister, in a recent interview. "The militants used to feel safer in the tribal areas because of the culture and the religious bent of mind there, but now we are really exerting pressure and tightening the loop. We get flak from the local people but we have to do it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/18/AR2006051800162.html

[bucheon bum]

Let me be the first to jump in and state the obvious: we (the usa) should have more troops there.

Yet another consequence of invading Iraq.

[Gopher]

[deleted]

[igotthisguitar]

[Bulsajo]