By RICHARD TOMKINS (Middle East Times) November 7, 2008 2:39 EST

SAMARA, Iraq -- Tens of thousands of Iraqis who joined U.S.-backed citizen guard groups and helped quell insurgent and terrorist violence could be left high and dry and to their own devices for earning a living come Jan. 1 if the United States and Iraq fail to reach agreement on a Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA.

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November 9

CTV - During 28 days in captivity, journalist Mellissa Fung was blindfolded and chained to a wall inside a tiny, darkened cave somewhere in Afghanistan's isolated mountains.

As part of her daily routine, the CBC reporter was handed packaged biscuits to eat and a juice box to quench her thirst.

She had no drinking water, no sunlight, and little sign of hope.

In a videotaped interview with Afghan officials released Sunday, Fung opened up about her harrowing experience, which began when she was kidnapped by gunmen on Oct. 12.

snip

Fung's kidnapping kept secret

Fung's capture was kept secret by international media so as not to compromise the negotiations for her release. CBC publisher John Cruickshank said that the network had requested the media blackout so negotiators could work for her release without mounting public pressure.

Harper said the media blackout may have been crucial to Fung's survival.

On Sunday, Globe and Mail reporter Graeme Smith told Question Period that the timing of Fung's kidnapping was another reason why the blackout was important -- the Canadian election.

He said that if the Taliban had been responsible for Fung's kidnapping "it would have been very easy" for them to make a political statement by killing her.

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[Comment: And this is an object lesson in why secrecy is frequently a good idea in these situations - or at least in this particular dynamic. FWIW, with regards to the election issue (i.e., before someone levels accusations of partisanship), I was told back when this happened (Thanksgiving weekend) that PMO had to be yanked back from telling all at a press conference (conference was called, but got killed at media request before it leaked - thank goodness). There were a whole lot of folks keeping this one quiet. ~ JPD]

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Los Angeles Times

The Sons of Iraq are now employed by the Iraqi army. Ruling Shiites still view the fighters with suspicion, and the feeling is mutual. In Baghdad, a bombing kills 31.

By Ned Parker and Tina Susman
November 11, 2008

Reporting from Baghdad — The young man stamped his foot, the customary salute to higher officers, handed over his torn identification card and signed his name in a ledger. He pressed a thumbprint in blue ink next to it, and an Iraqi military officer handed him a fat roll of pink-and-green dinar notes.

He counted the money and handed back the change.

So began the final step Monday in an important transition for the Sunni paramilitary fighters known as the Sons of Iraq, who previously had been paid by the U.S. military.

As they lined up outside Baghdad military bases, a triple bombing in the eastern part of the capital killed 31 people and wounded 72, police said. A female suicide bomber also killed two civilians and two Sunni paramilitary fighters in the eastern city of Baqubah, police said. The bloodshed was a reminder of the suicide attacks that plagued Iraq before many Sunni fighters chose to forsake radical militant groups for an alliance with the Americans in 2007.

Iraq's ruling Shiites still view the fighters with suspicion. The hostility reflects the deep mistrust between the country's newly assertive Shiite majority and the onetime Sunni elite, who are angry about their fall from power. If the government alienates the Sunni paramilitary fighters, who number nearly 100,000 countrywide, the fighters could restart their insurgency.

But as the U.S. military prepares to start pulling out of the country, responsibility for the Sons of Iraq was transferred to the Iraqi army. The payments Monday marked the last step in the transition.

"Today's a tremendous day," said Brig. Gen. William Grimsley, deputy commander of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, whose area encompasses Baghdad. He and other U.S. military officials played down concerns expressed by many of the Sunni paramilitary members that the Iraqi government might renege on vows to find them jobs in the future. "We're not worried, necessarily, but it's something we all need to watch long-term," Grimsley said.

The first of the paydays is taking place at 36 stations in west Baghdad. All 21,000 of the paramilitary members in the area controlled by the Iraqi army's 6th Division are to be paid by next Monday.

In coming weeks, the rest of the fighters in Baghdad will be paid, followed by those in Diyala, Anbar and Babil provinces.

Rank-and-file Sunni fighters and their leaders are deeply suspicious of the intentions of the Iraqi army and government. Since the summer, prominent Sons of Iraq leaders have been arrested, gone into exile or been threatened publicly by Shiite government leaders. In the west Baghdad district of Khadra, senior members have walked off the job in protest over the transition.

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Patrick Cockburn: The US can quit Iraq, or it can stay. But it can't do both

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

If it ever comes to court it should be one of the more interesting libel cases of the decade. The Iraqi National Intelligence Service is threatening to sue Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician, for asking who pays for it.

"It is somewhat curious," says Mr Chalabi, "that the intelligence service of a country which is sovereign – that no one really knows who is funding it."

In fact there are very few Iraqis who do not believe they have a very clear idea of who funds Iraq's secret police. Its director is General Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, who once led a failed coup against Saddam Hussein, and was handpicked by the CIA to run the new security organisation soon after the invasion of 2003. He is believed to have been answering to them ever since.

The history of the Iraqi intelligence service is important because it shows the real distribution of power in Iraq rather than the spurious picture presented by President Bush. It explains why so many Iraqis are suspicious of the security accord, or Status of Forces Agreement, that the White House has been pushing the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Malki to sign. It reveals the real political landscape where President-elect Barack Obama will soon have to find his bearings.

For all Mr Bush's pious declarations about respecting Iraqi sovereignty, General Shahwani is reported to work primarily for American intelligence. The intelligence service is "not working for the Iraqi government – it's working for the CIA," Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful Shia lawmaker, was quoted as saying three years ago. "I prefer to call it the American Intelligence of Iraq, not the Iraqi Intelligence Service."

It seems that not much has changed since then. The intelligence service does now appear in the Iraqi budget as being in receipt of $150 million, though this seems somewhat measly given the extent of its operations, which includes running paramilitary units. One of its main missions is to spy on Iranians on behalf of the US, employing much the same cadre of intelligence officers who carried out this task for Saddam Hussein.

Fear of covert US control is one of the reasons why the Iraqi government has been so intent on insisting that all US forces be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. The latest draft of the security accord has dropped mention of US troops staying behind for training, or making the US withdrawal conditional on improved security in Iraq being maintained.

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The map tells a war story of its own. Sketched by a Taleban commander, it is of a stretch of territory fought over in Bajaur between the Pakistani Army and the insurgents. The ground has been neatly divided into specific areas of responsibility for different Taleban units.

Weapons caches, assembly areas and rendezvous points have been carefully marked and coded. This is not the work of a renegade gunman resistant to central authority; it is the assessment of a skilled and experienced fighter, and begins to explain how more than 400 Pakistani soldiers have been killed or wounded since August in Bajaur, the tribal district agency that is said to be the haunt of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Discovered along with the map in a series of recently captured tunnel complexes are other documents - radio frequency lists, guerrilla warfare manuals, students' notes, jihadist propaganda and bombmaking instructions - that provide further evidence of the Taleban's organisation and training. They prove that the Taleban in Bajaur, one of Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), were planning not only to fight, but also to disseminate their fighting knowledge.
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_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

oh, so now they can kill the whole wedding party ;)

Droid choppers can also carry passengers

By Lewis Page • 11th November 2008 13:51 GMT

The US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) secret military forces are receiving their first robotic whisper-mode helicopters, according to reports. The plan is for the you-never-saw-us-we-aren't-even-here brigade to receive a ten-strong fleet of Boeing A160T "Hummingbird" droid kill-choppers, under an extended demonstration programme.
The A160T armed variant

Black ops.

News of the A160T shipments came recently courtesy of Janes, who quoted Boeing's John Groenenboom as saying that "deliveries are already underway", and should be complete by the end of this month.

The A160T is unmanned, but that's in many ways the least interesting thing about it. The new robo-chopper stands out more for its variable-speed rotor technology, which allows it to do things that other helicopters can't.

An A160T can stay up without refuelling for 20 hours, for instance, and is able to hover without ground effect at much higher altitudes than other helicopters - up to 20,000 feet according to Boeing. Company execs also claim that it is "four times quieter" than an ordinary Bell 407 small copter.

Stealthy A160Ts could carry out a variety of different missions for the secret supertroopers of SOCOM. It can carry the "FORESTER" foliage-penetrating radar, to sniff out enemies of democracy lurking deep in the woods. It is also slated to lift the ARGUS-IS multiplex spyeye system, able to watch many suspect buildings, cars, people etc at once; rather than just one.

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Hamza Hendawi & Qassim Abdul-Zahra | Baghdad | November 11

AP - The fate of an agreement that would keep U.S. troops here for three more years rests with Iraq's largest Shiite party, which must choose between its two main partners: the United States and Iran.

Most lawmakers are waiting for that party, the Supreme Islamic Iraq Council, to take a position on the agreement, which parliament must approve by the end of the year. Only then will smaller groups, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's own Shiite party, commit to the deal or oppose it.

For the moment, all the parties are off the hook. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Monday that the government is still not satisfied and wants more talks on specifics.

But once both the Iraqi and American governments declare a draft final, it will be the moment of truth for the Supreme Council.

It will have to choose between the Shiite-dominated neighbor that nurtured it during Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime and a superpower that helped it spearhead the Shiite rise to power after ousting the dictator in 2003.

Iran bitterly opposes the agreement, fearing it would pave the way to a long-term U.S. presence on its Western border and threaten its national interests.

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“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Shahan Mufti | Islamabad | November 12

CSM - Pakistani Taliban militants hijacked a convoy carrying wheat and military vehicles headed for Afghanistan Monday, underscoring for NATO forces the vulnerability of their only practical supply route into landlocked Afghanistan.

In a brazen attack in Jamrud, near the capital of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, 60 masked militants held up a convoy of 13 trucks, according to official reports. The trucks, 12 of which were carrying wheat and one carrying two Humvees for Western forces in Afghanistan, were hijacked without the militants having to fire a single shot.

The highway on which the incident took place connects Peshawar, the largest city in northwestern Pakistan, to Jalalabad and Kabul in Afghanistan. Coalition forces receive their food and weapons from the nearest warm-water port in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, over 1,000 miles away, through this route.

"This is the most traditional, most used land route to connect Afghanistan and Pakistan," says Talat Masood, a security expert and retired general of the Pakistani Army. The same supply route was used to support the mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet Union, he says.

At least two other routes connect the two countries. One in the south connects Quetta to the Afghan city of Kandahar, but it makes little sense for supplying NATO forces in and around Kabul, the capital. This route would be an extra few hundred miles, and it passes through even less secure territory. Another route, which passes through the Pakistani town of Parachinar, is ill-suited to large trucks and convoys.

The hijacking was claimed by fighters for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, who posed for photographs with black-and-white banners of the umbrella Taliban organization draped over the Humvees.

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“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Violent province's 27 female suicide bombers who set out to destroy Iraqi hopes of peace

• Women believed to be indoctrinated by clerics
• Security searches likely to become more intrusive

* Martin Chulov in Baghdad
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 12 2008 00.01 GMT
* The Guardian, Wednesday November 12 2008

Young women have been trained in their dozens to become suicide bombers in one Iraqi province in an attempt to reverse an improving security climate and derail talks about an upcoming security pact, Iraqi officials believe.

The assessment follows the latest lethal blast on Sunday at a checkpoint outside a hospital in Baquba, which is believed to have been carried out by a girl as young as 13. Pathologists and police are still trying to determine her exact age and identity.

The girl's death has taken to 27 the number of female bombers from the province of Diyala, 37 miles (60 km) north of Baghdad, in the past 18 months and has led to an urgent Iraq-wide security review, which is likely to involve more intrusive searches of women at checkpoints.

The latest attack killed four former insurgents who had since become anti-al-Qaida guards from the so-called Sons of Iraq, who are increasingly being targeted by the remnants of global jihadis networks, comprised of foreign Arabs and Iraqis.

While much of Iraq has enjoyed improved security and stability in recent months, Diyala has defied a nationwide trend of a sharp drop in deaths and attacks. Iraqi government officials and representatives from Diyala met yesterday for a two day conference in Baghdad aimed at determining why so many female bombers have emerged from the province.

A total of 21 attackers - all from Diyala - have managed to bypass heightened security since mid-2007 - most of them since January this year. Five have been caught and one has surrendered. Officials, guided by human rights and women's issues workers have determined that the female bombers are being indoctrinated by at least three clerics operating from an entrenched al-Qaida stronghold in Diyala - a former Ba'athist heartland.

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12 Nov 2008 15:27:03 GMT

BAGHDAD, Nov 12 (Reuters) - An Iraqi soldier shot dead at least two U.S. troops on Wednesday at a joint U.S.-Iraqi security station in Nineveh province, Iraqi police and a mortuary official said.

The U.S. military confirmed that some U.S. troops had been "casualties" of a fire fight in Nineveh, northern Iraq.

"Unfortunately, we took casualties ... Given that these are U.S. soldiers we don't want to give too many details until the families have been notified," said U.S. military spokesman Staff Sergeant Sam Smith.

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The Department of Defense hopes the video-sharing site for troops and their families will reduce the risk of security breaches

* Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 12 2008 15.14 GMT

Eighteen months after American troops were banned from using a number of social networking websites, the Pentagon has unveiled its latest scheme to prevent classified material leaking onto the internet: TroopTube.

The US military yesterday pulled back the curtains on its own version of YouTube, which it hopes will satisfy both the demand from troops for communication with friends and family, and the Department of Defense's requirements for secrecy.

TroopTube.tv says it is "designed to help military families connect and keep in touch while miles apart".

Users have to sign up by identifying themselves as military personnel – or a family member – before they can upload videos and share them.

All videos placed on the system are screened by the Pentagon to make sure there is nothing that could threaten national security or that uses copyright-protected material.

The system is being overseen by Military OneSource, a branch of the Department of Defense that specialises in supporting troops and their families.

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which seemed to coincide with the public/private to-ing and fro-ing over the SOFA, where al-Maliki is posturing as a "nationalist" trying to run ahead of public opinion, which is preponderantly against ANY "residual" US occupation - save the Kurds, of course. The current bombing "campaign" seems to be - relatively speaking, of course - much less of a critical component to some renewed intercommunal or anti-occupation strategy than it is a low-level terror tactic launched by...? You may well ask, and Moon of Alabama has indeed raised this question:

The New Baghdad Bombing Campaign
Last week I highlighted a string of bombing in Baghdad. The series continued and today:
In Baghdad, the first car bomb ripped through a bustling section of downtown Baghdad during the Wednesday morning rush hour, killing four people and injuring 15. The blast occurred off Nasir Square in the heart of the city — a busy neighborhood of shops, pharmacies and photography stores.
A second car bomb exploded near a secondary school in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Shaab in north Baghdad. Iraqi police said five people were killed and 12 wounded.
Two bombs blew up within moments of each other in the Shiite district of New Baghdad, with the second explosion occurring just after police arrived to investigate the first.

One wonders why this surge in bombings occurs now.

The Bush administration is continuing to press for a Status of Force Agreement with Iraq, while all available polls and accounts say most Iraqis and most Iraqi politicians want the U.S. to leave.

One argument for the need to keep U.S. forces in Iraq to provide security for Iraqis. The recent bombings by whomever may reinforce that argument.
(more...)

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2008/11/the-new-baghdad.html#more

The visit to Baghdad in October by Negroponte is noted, as well as a memorable quote of Bush on the Joint Special Operations Command from Woodward's latest book:
"JSOC is awesome."
No doubt, as has been the US military's absolute reliance on continued sectarian warfare/schism (backing/arming one faction, then another, and a third, etc.) in order to keep key Iraqi actors from forming a united, nationalist front leading inevitably to demand US withdrawal unconditionally..."enduring bases" not negotiable nor tolerated by the people.

Ex-employees Tell ABC News the Firm Used Dog Food Sacks to Smuggle Unauthorized Weapons to Iraq
By BRIAN ROSS and JASON RYAN

November 14, 2008—

A federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating allegations the controversial private security firm Blackwater illegally shipped assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in large sacks of dog food, ABCNews.com has learned.

Under State Department rules, Blackwater is prohibited from using certain assault weapons and silencers in Iraq because they are considered "offensive" weapons inappropriate for Blackwater's role as a private security firm protecting US diplomatic missions.

"The only reason you need a silencer is if you want to assassinate someone," said former CIA intelligence officer John Kiriakou, an ABC News consultant.

Six Blackwater employees are under investigation by another federal grand jury, in Washington, D.C., in connection with the shooting deaths of at least 17 civilians in September, 2007 at a Baghdad traffic circle. Prosecutors are expected to return indictments in the next few weeks, according to people familiar with the case.

The investigation of the alleged dog food smuggling scheme began last year after two Blackwater employees were caught trying to sell stolen weapons in North Carolina. The two, Kenneth Cashwell and William "Max" Grumiaux pleaded guilty in February and became government witnesses, according to court documents.

Two other former employees tell ABCNews.com they also witnessed the dog food smuggling operation. They say the weapons were actually hidden inside large sacks of dog food, packaged at company headquarters in North Carolina and sent to Iraq for the company's 20 bomb-sniffing dogs.

Larger items, including M-4 assault weapons, were secreted on shipping pallets surrounded by stacks of dog food bags, the former employees said. The entire pallet would be wrapped in cellophane shrink wrap, the former employees said, making it less likely US Customs inspectors would look too closely.

Last year, a US Department of Commerce inspector at JFK airport in New York discovered an unlicensed two-way radio hidden in a dog food sack being shipped by Blackwater to Iraq, according to people familiar with the incident.

A Blackwater spokesperson, Anne Tyrrell, said certain arms shipmens were sent to Iraq surrounded by dog food "to secure them on the airplane and not to smuggle them." Tyrrell said she could not comment on specifics because of "the ongoing investigation" but she denied the company had done anything wrong.

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Militant Shiite Cleric Calls for Armed Resistance to U. S. Presence in Iraq

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and SUADAD AL-SALHY
Published: November 14, 2008

BAGHDAD — As the Iraqi cabinet prepares to vote on a security agreement for American troops, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called Friday for armed resistance against any agreement that allowed a continued United States presence in Iraq.

“I repeat my demand to the occupier to leave our land without keeping bases or signing agreements,” Mr. Sadr said in a statement read to thousands of supporters at Friday Prayer. “If they keep bases, then I would support honorable resistance.”

Tension is rising here over the agreement as the vote nears, even if few oppose it to the extremes of Mr. Sadr and his followers. An aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq, also indicated that he would intervene in some way if the draft did not enjoy the full support of the Iraqi people. But Ayatollah Sistani, who far outranks Mr. Sadr, has consistently advocated nonviolence.

Iraqi officials expect the coalition cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to vote Sunday on whether to send the current draft to Parliament for approval. It is unclear whether it will pass through either body, though some officials are optimistic. “Most of the blocs agree, and there is no bloc that entirely refuses the pact except for the Sadrists,” said Sami al-Askari, a Shiite lawmaker and member of Mr. Maliki’s Dawa Party.

Others are wavering. The Kurds, one of the groups supporting the agreement, have recently expressed hesitation about the current draft, worrying that the semiautonomous Kurdish region could lose power to the central government.

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15 Nov 2008 01:54:24 GMT
Source: Reuters

SYDNEY, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Australia's former military chief has said there was no evidence to justify going to war in Iraq in 2003, a report said on Saturday.

Admiral Chris Barrie, who headed the Australian Defence Force at the time, made the comments during an interview for a new television series about former prime minister John Howard's decade in power.

"I have to say, even up until the day I retired, I never saw any evidence that said suddenly we had to go off and do a job in Iraq," Barrie said, as quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on its website. bit more

November 16, 2008
Dean Nelson and Daud Khattak in Peshawar

A Taliban “Robin Hood”, who distributes cut-price food from Nato convoys to the poor, is disrupting supply lines to British and US troops in Afghanistan.

In an audacious raid in Pakistan’s border region last week, two American Humvee armoured personnel carriers and 10 lorries laden with food were seized by Taliban fighters.

In the past year the Taliban have increased attacks on convoys carrying hardware, food and oil as they make their way from Karachi to Peshawar and through the Khyber Pass.

Lorry-loads of hijacked grain have been sold off cheaply in local markets and the Humvees paraded as war “booty”, giving the rebels a propaganda boost. More than 30 tankers with fuel bound for allied forces have been destroyed in bomb attacks on the road this year.

The Taliban commander who led the raids, Mustafa Kamran Hijrat, told The Sunday Times last week that he planned to sever the allied supply lines. “We will continue to seize convoys carrying goods for Nato and American troops. We are waging holy war and we shall continue the struggle by every means,” he said.

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TIME Magazine Article

By Rania Abouzeid / Baghdad Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008

Eighteen months after the U.S. troop surge aimed at creating the security necessary for Iraqis to resolve their political conflicts, those political conflicts are threatening to become even more complicated. Besides the Arab-Kurd and Sunni-Shi'ite divides, there has long been a struggle among rival political parties for supremacy among the Shi'ites. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki recently called for amendments to Iraq's constitution to strengthen the central government's power at the expense of the country's 18 provinces. This week, Maliki's rivals in the southern Shi'ite bastion of Basra submitted a petition demanding a referendum in the oil-soaked province aimed to turning it into a semi-autonomous federal region akin to Kurdistan.

Federalism is a deeply divisive issue among Iraqis. The Constitution adopted under U.S. occupation stipulates that any of the 18 provinces, except Baghdad, can combine to form regions similar to the northern Kurdish-run zone, which has been semi-autonomous since 1991. While the Kurds insist upon the principle, the Sunnis have traditionally been strongly opposed. Among the Shi'ites, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) has favored the idea a super region in the south, but the movement of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has insisted on a strong central state. But the proposal to turn Basra into an autonomous region is comes not from the Supreme Council, but rather from a coalition of Shi'ite independents and the small Fadila Party, which dominates in the province. (See TIME's pictures of the week)

While the Supreme Council — whose idea of a super-region is far more expansive than just Basra, and whose concern would obviously be to create a political entity in which it could rule — is sitting on the fence in response to the Basra autonomy proposal, the Sadrists are furious. "It's playing with fire that could engulf all of Iraq," says Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for Sadr's movement in the southern Shi'ite holy city of Najaf. "The result might be the division of Iraq if it's forced now, during this period."

Jonathan S. Landay | Washington D.C. | November 16

McClatchy - For seven years, the Bush administration has pursued al Qaida but done almost nothing to hunt down the Afghan Taliban leadership in its sanctuaries in Pakistan, and that's left Mullah Mohammad Omar and his deputies free to direct an escalating war against the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

The administration's decision, U.S. and NATO officials said, has allowed the Taliban to regroup, rearm and recruit at bases in southwestern Pakistan. Since the puritanical Islamic movement's resurgence began in early 2005, it's killed at least 626 U.S.-led NATO troops, 301 of them Americans, along with thousands of Afghans, and handed President-elect Barack Obama a growing guerrilla war with no end in sight.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest levels since 2001; the Taliban and other al Qaida-allied groups control large swaths of the south and east; NATO governments are reluctant to send more troops; and Afghan President Hamid Karzai faces an uncertain future amid fears that elections set for next year may have to be postponed.

Nevertheless, a U.S. defense official told McClatchy: "We have not seen any pressure on the Pakistanis" to crack down on Omar and his deputies and close their arms and recruiting networks. Like seven other U.S. and NATO officials who discussed the issue, he requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

"There has never been convergence on a campaign plan against Mullah Omar," said a U.S. military official. The Bush administration, he said, miscalculated by hoping that Omar and his deputies would embrace an Afghan government-run reconciliation effort or "wither away" as their insurgency was destroyed.

Many U.S. and NATO officials, in fact, are convinced that while Pakistan is officially a U.S. ally in the war against Islamic extremism, sympathetic Pakistani army and intelligence officers bent on returning a pro-Pakistan Islamic regime to Kabul are protecting and aiding the Taliban leadership, dubbed the Quetta shura, or council, after its sanctuary in the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta.

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“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Aqeel Hussein & Damien McElroy | Baquba | November 16

The Telegraph - Itisam Adwan, who is accused of grooming young and vulnerable women for bomb attacks, has told police in Baquba that so many others are following her lead that they will not be able to stop them.

Last week a suicide bomber who blew herself killing five Iraqi guards at a checkpoint was revealed by police to have been just 13 years old - making her the youngest such attacker so far in a spate of such bombings in the city, capital of the troubled Diyala province.

Baquba, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, has suffered an onslaught of women, some barely out of their teens, willing to inflict mass casualties as they target the security forces and public venues like markets. Although female suicide bombers had been seen in other wars, such as Chechnya's Black Widows or the Tamil Tigers' Death Maidens, the phenomenon was rare in Iraq until early this year.

The attack on Monday brought to 27 the number of women who had dressed up in explosives to kill themselves and others in Diyala alone. Across Iraq since the beginning of the year in Iraq more than 30 women have died in suicide attacks, compared with only eight in 2007.

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“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

Riaz Khan & Fisnik Abrashi | Peshawar | November 16

AP - A Pakistani decision to temporarily bar some trucks from a key passageway to Afghanistan threatened a critical supply route for U.S. and NATO troops on Sunday and raised more fears about deteriorating security in the militant-plagued border region.

The suspension of oil tankers and trucks carrying sealed containers came as U.S.-led coalition troops in eastern Afghanistan reported killing five al-Qaida-linked fighters and detaining eight others, including a militant leader.

Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are behind much of the escalating violence along the lengthy, porous Afghan-Pakistan border, and both nations have traded accusations that the other was not doing enough to keep militants out from its side.

The tensions come as violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 and as a surge in U.S. missile strikes on the Pakistani side of the border has prompted protests from Pakistan government leaders.

Last Monday, a band of militants hijacked around a dozen trucks whose load included Humvees headed to the foreign forces in Afghanistan. Renewed security concerns prompted officials to impose the temporary ban late Saturday, government official Bakhtiar Khan said. He said it could be lifted as early as Monday.

Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, acknowledged only that "the appropriate authorities are coordinating security procedures."

"The convoys will continue flowing. We will not discuss when, or where, or what," he said.

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“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

17 Nov 2008 10:57:54 GMT
Source: Reuters

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, Nov 17 (Reuters) - A Taliban militant leader rejected on Monday an offer from Afghan President Hamid Karzai of safe passage for insurgent leaders who wanted to talk peace.

"We are safe in Afghanistan and we have no need for Hamid Karzai's offer of safety," said Mullah Brother, deputy leader of the Taliban.

"We will continue jihad (holy war) against foreign troops and their Afghan slaves," he told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. The Taliban refer to Karzai as a U.S. "slave".

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL401352.htm

what a bonehead move

By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 17, 2008; A01

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military has barred Iraqi interpreters working with American troops in Baghdad from wearing ski masks to disguise themselves, prompting some to resign and others to bare their faces even though they fear it could get them killed.

Many interpreters employed by the U.S. government and Western companies in Iraq do everything they can to avoid being recognized on the job because extremists have tortured and killed Iraqis accused of collaborating with the enemy.

"The terps are the number one wanted here," said A.J., a 36-year-old military interpreter, using the shorthand for his profession. "More than the Americans. More than anyone."

The interpreters have come to symbolize the bravery of Iraqis who have aided the American project in Iraq. About 300 U.S. military interpreters have been killed since 2003, said Kirk W. Johnson, a former official in Iraq with the U.S. Agency for International Development who has fought to make it easier for interpreters and other Iraqis to come to the United States.

With security having improved in recent months, the U.S. military has begun to close neighborhood outposts and take down a few blast walls, slowly disassembling the capital's wartime architecture to restore a sense of normalcy.

Many Iraqis, however, fear the relative calm won't last long. To them, ordering interpreters to work without masks suggests that some top U.S. officials are taking an unrealistically rosy view of the security situation in Baghdad, which remains a dangerous city.

U.S. military officials said they began to enforce the mask ban in September because security in Baghdad has improved dramatically.

"We are a professional Army and professional units don't conceal their identity by wearing masks," Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for the U.S. military, wrote in an e-mail. He expressed appreciation for the service and sacrifice of the interpreters but said those dissatisfied with the new policy "can seek alternative employment."

During years of active combat and widespread violence, interpreters have helped U.S. soldiers make sense of Iraq's streets, politics and history. These guides have been killed by snipers on foot patrols, blasted to shreds in roadside bombings and vilified by extremists as traitors.

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban militants rejected an offer of peace talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, saying Monday there would be no negotiations until foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

Karzai offered Sunday to provide security for reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar if he enters negotiations and said the U.S. and other Western nations could leave Afghanistan or oust him if they disagree.

But Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said there could be no talks while foreign troops are in the country.
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_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

By Sayed Salahuddin
Reuters
Tuesday, November 18, 2008; 4:02 AM

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan government representatives will meet former members of the Taliban behind closed doors in Saudi Arabia soon for a second round of talks on how to end the insurgency.

The Taliban derided a first round in September and have repeatedly said they will not enter negotiations as long as foreign troops remained in Afghanistan, but the meeting was welcomed by some officials as offering a glimmer of hope.

An Afghan government official would give few details of the talks other than to say they would likely be held in Saudi Arabia again.

"Talks will not bear fruit when held in an open manner. This is an ongoing process and we will announce the results when there is a breakthrough," he said.

He said the government had not given up hope of attracting current representatives of the Taliban, adding: "It is not clear (if they will attend), but when peace is the aim, then all should be present."

With the Taliban insurgency growing in strength more than seven years since their overthrow, the possibility of talks with the insurgents is being openly considered by Karzai's government and his Western allies.

About 70,000 foreign troops, 32,000 of them American, are struggling against the Taliban, whose influence and attacks are spreading in the south, east and west.

UNACCEPTABLE DEMAND

Karzai says the Taliban demand for foreign troops to leave is unacceptable, but on Sunday he repeated an offer to talk to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who carries a $10 million bounty on his head and is seen as close to Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban rejected the offer.

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Former senior law lord condemns 'serious violation of international law'Comments

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday November 18
The Guardian

One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".

Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general's defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.

Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith's advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: "It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had." Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions "passes belief".

Governments were bound by international law as much as by their domestic laws, he said. "The current ministerial code," he added "binding on British ministers, requires them as an overarching duty to 'comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations'."

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continue to press for an independent inquiry into the circumstances around the invasion. The government says an inquiry would be harmful while British troops are in Iraq. Ministers say most of the remaining 4,000 will leave by mid-2009.

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19 Nov 2008 22:37:15 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. government is refusing to make public the security pact it has signed with Iraq, even though it has already been published in full in an Iraqi newspaper, a congressional hearing was told on Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were holding a closed briefing for U.S. House of Representatives members on the pact signed on Monday that sets a 2011 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq.

Rep. Bill Delahunt, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations and Human Rights, before the closed briefing called it "insulting and an after-thought," after the Bush administration earlier rebuffed calls for Congress to be consulted during year-long negotiations on the agreement.

The administration has said it will not seek congressional approval for the deal. It has been in a hurry to finalize the pact, which Iraqi lawmakers still must approve, before the U.N. mandate under which U.S. troops operate expires on Dec. 31.

Delahunt, who has urged President George W. Bush to renew the U.N. mandate rather than sign a bilateral agreement with Iraq, held the eighth in a series of hearings on the Status of Forces Agreement.

He said the Bush administration had turned down an invitation to attend the open hearing, saying it was a "sensitive time." Experts testifying before his subcommittee were forced to rely on an unofficial English translation of the security deal.

"Even now the National Security Council has requested that we do not show this document to our witnesses or release it to the public. Now that's incredible -- meantime the Iraqi government has posted this document on its media website," Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, said.

He was referring to the Iraqi government-funded al-Sabah newspaper, whose Arabic version of the deal is also the source of the only known unofficial English translation, by the anti-war American Friends Service Committee.

"There is something bizarre about the text being disseminated to the Iraqi people and we are being told we cannot distribute the English-language version of the agreement," said Rep. Howard Berman, a California Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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The Duke of Wellington: "[In Afghanistan] a small army would be annihilated and a large one starved."

Too right, mate, and here is an excellent overview of repeated Western (and Russian) attempts to exert mastery upon Afghanistan:

The killing fields
John Sweeney
What are we doing in Afghanistan? A superb new history shows how successive invaders have tried, and failed, to bring order to the country through force
Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Engagement in Afghanistan

David Loyn

Hutchinson, 351pp, £18.99

The Duke of Wellington was a cantankerous reactionary but he knew a thing or two about Afghanistan: "a small army would be annihilated and a large one starved". On 13 January 1842, a sharp-eyed sentry in Jalalabad saw the more-dead-than-alive figure of the British army surgeon Dr William Brydon crossing the plain, struggling to stay on his pony. He had a bad head wound and was bleeding from the hand. When eventually the pony was taken into a stable, it lay down and died.

Roughly 16,000 British troops and camp followers hadn't made it from Kabul - one of the most terrible defeats of British military might in the 19th century, commemorated in Lady Elizabeth Butler's painting Remnants of an Army. Brydon was the sole survivor. The massacre of Lord Elphinstone's army prompted a series of revenge attacks by the British, which developed into wars. In 1849, 1850 and 1851, huge numbers of British troops swarmed into Afghanistan, butchered and then bolted. And still the Afghans fought back.

In 1860 the British took Peking but a few years later they were back in Afghanistan's borderlands with 12,500 troops - more than the army needed in order to subdue the Chinese capital - and still the Afghans fought back.
(much more...).

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/10/afghanistan-british-taliban

Honestly, how there can be people STILL calling for military escalation in the face of what is currently being reported boggles the mind. Put all that COIN rubbish aside and read your history, for god's sake.
Or does American exceptionalism not provide for that?
_{“les Etats-unis, c’est le seul pays à être passé de la préhistoire à la décadence sans jamais connaitre la civilisation…”...Georges Clemenceau}

21 Nov 2008 00:22:29 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Private contractors working for the U.S. government in Iraq will lose their immunity from Iraqi law under a new pact with Baghdad, senior American officials said on Thursday.

The contractors, who provide everything from personal security to meals for U.S. forces and officials in Iraq, were told they should expect to lose their immunity starting Jan. 1, the State and Defense department officials said.

The agreement, which has yet to be approved by Iraq's parliament, allows U.S. forces to stay in Iraq three more years. A vote is expected next week on the pact, which replaces a United Nations mandate that expires at the end of this year

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Says they were unlawfully held nearly 7 years

New York Times, By William Glaberson, November 21

NEW YORK - In the first hearing on the government's justification for holding detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a federal judge ruled yesterday that five Algerian men were held unlawfully for nearly seven years and ordered their release.

The judge, Richard J. Leon of US District Court in Washington, also ruled that a sixth Algerian man was being lawfully detained because he had provided support to the terrorist group Al Qaeda.

The case was an important test of the Bush administration's detention policies, which critics have long argued swept up innocent men along with high-level and hardened terrorists.

21 Nov 2008 21:29:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds comments from Gates, paragraphs 7-9)

By David Morgan

CORNWALLIS, Nova Scotia, Nov 21 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday he expected to move five combat brigades into Afghanistan next year and wanted at least some of them in place before the country's election next fall, stressing this was a top priority.

Washington had initially said it would send one brigade in January and three later in the year.

Violence in Afghanistan has surged to levels not seen since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion toppled the country's former Taliban rulers, prompting commanders to call for more troops.

"We will deploy an additional brigade combat team in January," Gates said after a meeting of defense ministers from eight countries that have forces in southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold.

"Beyond that we've had some very preliminary discussions. We don't have a timetable at this point for the additional four brigade combat teams that (top NATO commander) Gen. (David) McKiernan has asked for," he told a news conference in the eastern Canadian town of Cornwallis.

Each brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.

Gates said the meeting had discussed trying to put as many troops as possible into the country before the presidential election there, saying a successful vote was the international community's most important objective for Afghanistan in 2009.

"The notion that things are out of control in Afghanistan or that we're sliding toward a disaster I think is far too pessimistic," he said.

"We are clearly going to be putting more troops in and I think that the prospects for being able to have these elections successfully are good."

Gates called on Afghan authorities to play their part too.

"We all recognize the need for the Afghan government -- with our help -- to demonstrate some progress over the course of 2009," he said.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama says he wants to focus more on the Afghan war and plans to persuade other nations to send more soldiers.

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some things never it changes it seems

By Lizette Alvarez Published: November 23, 2008

On Christmas Day two years ago, Sergeant Carlos Renteria, recently back from his first tour in Iraq, got drunk and, during an argument, began to choke his wife, Adriana. He body-slammed her. He threw her onto the couch, grabbed a cushion and smothered her, again and again — until, finally, he stopped, she told the police in San Angelo, Texas.

He was arrested and charged with assault, and she went to the hospital for her injuries, which included bruises and a severely swollen knee. It was his second domestic violence arrest. Assured by an U.S. Army officer that the military would pursue the case, the Texas prosecutor bowed out.

Yet Renteria has faced no consequences. Instead, since his arrest, he has been redeployed to Iraq and promoted to staff sergeant.

"I was told it would be taken care of, in more than one instance, by the Army," said Renteria, 30, referring to the assault charges. "That they would help me. And I believed them."

For nearly two years, she has prodded Renteria's chain of command, the inspector general at Fort Riley in Kansas (where he was transferred), the base's military lawyers and its domestic violence office, e-mail messages and letters show. But Renteria has not received any counseling, and the military justice system has said it will not prosecute him. The couple divorced last month.

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An excellent op-ed piece by the author, traveler, and former (Brit.) Foreign Service officer, Rory Stewart, in the NYT:

The ‘Good War’ Isn’t Worth Fighting
By RORY STEWART

London

AFGHANISTAN does not matter as much as Barack Obama thinks.

Terrorism is not the key strategic threat facing the United States. America, Britain and our allies have not created a positive stable environment in the Middle East. We have no clear strategy for dealing with China. The financial crisis is a more immediate threat to United States power and to other states; environmental catastrophe is more dangerous for the world. And even from the perspective of terrorism, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are more lethal.

President-elect Obama’s emphasis on Afghanistan and his desire to send more troops and money there is misguided. Overestimating its importance distracts us from higher priorities, creates an unhealthy dynamic with the government of Afghanistan and endangers the one thing it needs — the stability that might come from a patient, limited, long-term relationship with the international community.
...
More troops have brought military victories but they have not been able to eliminate the Taliban. They have also had a negative political impact in the conservative and nationalistic communities of the Pashtun south and allowed Taliban propaganda to portray us as a foreign military occupation. In Helmand Province, troop numbers have increased to nearly 10,000 today from just 2,000 in 2004. But no inhabitant of Helmand would say things have improved in the last four years. Mr. Obama believes that sending even more troops and money will now bring “victory” in Afghanistan. Some of this may be politically driven: a pretense of future benefits appears better than admitting a loss; and because lives are involved, no one wants to write off sunk costs.

Nevertheless, these increases are not just wasteful, they are counterproductive. The more costly we make this campaign, the more likely we are to withdraw when another crisis emerges or our attention wanders. Grand investment precipitating a sudden withdrawal repeats the “Charlie Wilson’s War” effect of 1990, when Afghanistan fell in a moment from spoiled godson to orphan, leaving bankruptcy and chaos behind..
(much more...)

http://tinyurl.com/6cvp2f

Stewart thus joins Nir Rosen, Anand Gopal, Tariq Ali and other on-the-scene observers in pointing out the folly of military escalation (and its likely consequences) in Afghanistan. For a broad-strokes assessment of the results of years of Western (and principally US) political and military interference in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, one is directed to the superb work by author and keen student of South and Central Asian affairs, Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.
Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and Chalmer Johnson's Blowback are also valuable in documenting the contemporary history (and consequences therefrom) of US involvement in what led ultimately to the rise of the Taliban. History still counts, people.

Rauf did not die in US attack, say fugitive's family

* Saeed Shah in Islamabad
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 25 2008 00.01 GMT

The family of Rashid Rauf, the British terror suspect who reportedly died last week in a US missile strike in Pakistan, have claimed he was not killed in the attack.

Speaking through Rauf's lawyer, Hashmat Malik, the family of Rauf's wife in Pakistan said that the body had not been handed over to them and the authorities were not responding to their questions.

Rauf's death had been revealed by unnamed Pakistani intelligence agents, the usual source of information on the casualties of American strikes in the country's wild tribal area.

"It's all a concocted story," said Malik. "We're sure that it is not Rashid Rauf."

Rauf escaped from Pakistani custody in December last year in mysterious circumstances, on his way back from a court appearance in the city of Rawalpindi.

Many suspect that he bribed the police to let him go, but the family maintains that it was a ruse, so that he could be "disappeared" into the hands of Pakistani intelligence. Nothing was subsequently heard of him, until the news that he had died in North Waziristan

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