Police chaplaincy lets Khalid Latif embody both Islam and American culture.
By Harry Bruinius | Correspondent / March 19, 2009 edition

Around five in the morning one day in the summer of 2007, just as Imam Khalid Latif was preparing for the salatul-fajr, the obligatory prayer between dawn and sunrise, the phone in his small Manhattan apartment began to ring.

He had been up late the night before, having just conducted a nikkah, a Muslim wedding ceremony, for a South Asian couple he knew from New York University, where he served as chaplain. Afterward, he offered to drive a few students back into the city, so he had not gotten home as early as he might have expected.

On the phone was an operations dispatcher from the New York Police Department (NYPD), where Imam Latif also served as a chaplain, having been named only three months earlier to the post. This was his first emergency call: Two cops had been shot, one fatally. He was to go to the hospital to minister to the families and fellow officers of the fallen.

He has had a number of emergency calls since then, but none has been for a Muslim officer or family. The eight members of the NYPD Chaplains Unit – a group of part-timers that includes Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews – take turns being on call. But even when the relevant denominational chaplain arrives, the first responder often stays. For six hours, Latif remained with the mother of the slain officer, an Orthodox Christian. She wept the entire time.

Latif recognizes the jarring cultural tableau he often presents to those he ministers. He is young, a 2004 graduate of New York University. Bearded, he wears a topi skullcap with his NYPD blue; his gold police badge bears his Pakistani name prominently. Indeed, part of his ministry, he says, is to help develop a particularly American form of Islam – one fully integrated into the social fabric of the United States.

“Day to day on the job, there’s the sensitivity trainings, culture immersion trainings – but it’s really about being there for Muslims and non-Muslims alike,” Latif says. “It’s a stressful job [for officers], and they need someone to talk to and someone who they feel will have their back, and stand up for them.

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Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:29pm EDT

By Tim Cocks

BAGHDAD, March 21 (Reuters) - Almost 90 percent of the tens of thousands of U.S.-backed fighters who helped purge much of Iraq of al Qaeda have been transferred to Iraqi control, the U.S. commander in charge of their programme said on Saturday.

Major General Mike Ferriter told journalists around 84,000 members of predominantly Sunni Arab "Awakening Councils" -- neighbourhood guard units that were paid by the U.S. military to fight militants -- were handed to Iraqi government authority and thousands of those had since left the programme for other work.

Only about 10,000, all in the northern province of Salahuddin, remained to be handed over in the coming months.

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Asia Times

United States Central Command chief General David Petraeus has quietly shifted the "tactical control" of US special operations forces in Afghanistan to his subordinate, General David McKiernan. Petraeus apparently prefers to have McKiernan bear the responsibility for raids and airstrikes that are likely to generate even greater Afghan and international outrage over the continued killing of civilians. - Gareth Porter (Ma

Mar 24, 2009

Pakistan's peace deals offer US a pointer
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD - Now eight years on, the United States-led occupation of Afghanistan and Washington's contentious relationship with Pakistan have both reached critical junctures.

Despite the President Barack Obama administration's much-hyped strategic review of the war against the Taliban and the escalating militancy in Pakistan, the US still does not have a clear picture of the Afghan war theater.

In tandem with the initiative to talk to "moderate" Taliban, the US is expected to experiment with a new policy in Afghanistan under
which the focus will be to secure Kabul only. The capital's surrounding provinces are under Taliban influence.

Top American experts believe the results of any increase in troop numbers will be difficult to assess before the summer of 2010. In the event of failure, the US will have few options left, because sending another 30,000 troops would present a political challenge. The US already has 65,000 troops in the country following a recent injection of 17,000.

The US wants to focus these troops on areas where they can make a real difference, that is, around Kabul, and not in southwest Helmand province. This will allow the allies to build sustainable Afghan institutions and eventually withdraw their military forces.

On Sunday night, Obama told the CBS program 60 Minutes that "what we're looking for is a comprehensive strategy" for Afghanistan. "There's got to be an exit strategy. There's got to be a sense that this is not a perpetual drift."

However, there is no timeframe for this, according to Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the chairman of the Pakistan Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations, who spoke to Asia Times Online in Islamabad.

"No basic decision has been made so far. There is an ambiguity on the objectives in Afghanistan on the part of Western troops and in what time frame they will end this war," said Mushahid.

"If you go through their statements you will find that there is no mention of any plan for [al-Qaeda leader] Osama bin Laden's capture, which was the prime reason for their presence in Afghanistan in the first place. Instead, the whole new plan is for the security of Kabul," Mushahid said.

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also see: Holbrooke: western Pakistan key to resolving Afghanistan war

REUTERS
Reuters North American News Service

Mar 23, 2009 08:44 EST

* Holbrooke briefs allies, vows more troops, more resources
* Says Afghan problem inseparable from Pakistan
(Adds Holbrooke quotes)
By David Brunnstrom

BRUSSELS, March 23 (Reuters) - The United States met NATO allies on Monday to outline its strategy review for Afghanistan after President Barack Obama said it would contain an exit strategy and greater emphasis on economic development.

U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke met NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer before briefing the 26 alliance ambassadors.

"It is to give the broad lines of the U.S. strategy review as it now stands," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

"I don't know that they've arrived at any final conclusions on which President Obama has signed off on, but their thinking is now very close to the conclusion of the process."

Appathurai said he was not aware of a plan, reported in Britain's Guardian newspaper, for Washington and its allies to create an Afghan chief executive or prime minister to bypass President Hamid Karzai, widely seen as ineffective by the West.

Obama has admitted the United States and its allies are not winning in Afghanistan, where insurgent violence at its worst level since the U.S.-led intervention there began in late 2001.

He has ordered deployment of 17,000 more troops on top of nearly 70,000 foreign troops already there.

Holbrooke told the BBC in an interview that the priority would be dealing with the situation in tribal regions along the border with Pakistan, which have been a haven for militants.

"That is the main message we want to get across. You cannot separate Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.

He criticised the previous Bush administration for negecting Afghanistan and vowed "more troops, more resources, more high-level attention".

more at The Seminal

2008-9 Bajaur military operation background

Starting from 1979 when the PDPA communist government of Afghanistan launched a military operation in Afghanistan’s Kunar province which ended up displacing over 2/3 of its population into Bajaur, Bajaur’s porous border with Afghanistan has been an important point of infiltration into Afghanistan, first against the Afghan army, then against the Soviets and since 2002, against the NATO forces. The Taliban are fully aware of the strategic importance of Bajaur in the fight against NATO in Afghanistan. Their commander for Kunar, Nuristan and Bajaur, Qari Zia ur Rahman, said, in an interview with Syed Saleem Shehzad, that “whoever has been defeated in Afghanistan, his defeat began from Bajaur”.

more at Grand Trunk Road via Registan

ignore the self admitted(in comments lol) rant on ketchup, but he is right in saying McNabb is full of crap ~ Registan

McNabb at WaPo:

General Urges Confidence in Ability to Supply Troops in Afghanistan

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 22, 2009; Page A12

Thanks to billions of dollars spent in road and air base construction, troops in landlocked Afghanistan will never have to worry about getting enough supplies, the Pentagon's chief of military transportation told senators last week.

It reads like it was written to incite. The Afghans have a spectacular history of not allowing foreign puppet governments to
stay long. And after the "legal" elections, to change the form of gvt? No, not likely an overt American action.

Not that I necessarily believe Appathuri:

"Appathurai said he was not aware of a plan, reported in Britain's Guardian newspaper, for Washington and its allies to create an Afghan chief executive or prime minister to bypass President Hamid Karzai, widely seen as ineffective by the West."

Or else it was leaked by someone opposed to "the plan"
Be interested especially in what JPD also thinks about it

_{I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader}

getting rid of the PKK is going to need Iran's help

23 Mar 2009 20:15:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Gul is first Turkish president to visit Iraq in decades
* Ties between Ankara and Baghdad strengthening
* Gul accepts Iraq Kurdish region is largely autonomous
(Adds Gul acknowledging Kurdistan status, paragraphs 9-10)

By Paul de Bendern

BAGHDAD, March 23 (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, said on Monday the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Turkish separatist guerrilla group, must lay down its arms or quit Iraq.

Talabani's remarks were some of the toughest made recently by any Iraqi leader against the PKK, whose guerrillas have used northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks in Turkey, straining ties between Baghdad and Ankara.

"Either it lays down its arms or it leaves our territory," Talabani told a news conference alongside Turkey's visiting president, Abdullah Gul. He was speaking through an interpreter.

Gul, making the first visit to Iraq by a Turkish head of state in more than three decades, said the time had come "to end all these problems which hinder relations between Turkey and Iraq."

"A thorough operation must be carried out (against the PKK) and this is the responsibility of all of us," he said.

Turkey has accused Iraq in the past of not doing enough to crack down on the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by Washington and the European Union.

Turkey regularly shells PKK targets in Iraq. This month it killed at least four PKK guerrillas, who have been fighting for an independent Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey since 1984.

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Boer War with Roberts, before Kitchener, lost.
Who's the new Kitchener?

And when I went to ZA 70 years after the Boer War, the Afrikaans were still bitter about Kitchener.

The parallels between the Boer (South African War) and Afghanistan are eerily similar...

Two former high-ranking Taliban officials offer insight on how to progress.

By Jean MacKenzie - GlobalPost
Published: March 23, 2009 19:34 ET

KABUL — Talking to the Taliban is all the rage.

Whether for or against, upbeat or down, everyone seems to be weighing in on the wisdom or folly of negotiating with the black-turbaned crowd.

President Barack Obama has even suggested that his administration may reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban.

GlobalPost has gained unique access here in Kabul to two former high-ranking officials of the now-deposed Taliban government to hear their view of the possibility of an opening for dialogue.

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan, and Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, who served as foreign minister during the Taliban regime, confirmed in separate interviews that such talks were feasible, but that they would need to begin with a fundamental understanding that the view of this conflict looks very different from an Afghan-Taliban perspective.

Both emphasized they do not represent Mullah Omar and the Taliban’s active militant insurgency, but offered valuable insight into the likely debate within the Taliban’s inner circle about the various overtures from Washington to open talks.

Before any serious discussions can take place, they say, the warring parties at least have to agree on what they are fighting about. To date, that fairly obvious goal has been shrouded by rhetoric and misunderstanding.

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a**hole is spelled the same on both sides of the border

Fox news host makes farce of his apology (original headline)

Jessica Leeder | March 23

Globe and Mail - He mocked our military and our Mounties, and incited outrage among our highest-ranking politicians, but Greg Gutfeld couldn't muster the guts on Monday to tell us himself that he's sorry.

Sure, he apologized in a roundabout way: He issued a rueful statement through Fox News's corporate channels, saying “It was not my intent to disrespect the brave men, women and families of the Canadian military, and for that I apologize.”

But the late-night talk show host and blogger, who recently ridiculed Canada's military effort in Afghanistan, opted not to respond to a Globe and Mail e-mail Monday offering him an opportunity to personally explain himself (and engage in a short game of Canadian trivia).

Instead, he forwarded the message to a Fox publicist, who responded. “He's not doing interviews,” she said, noting that the offending segment of Mr. Gutfeld's chat show was broadcast March 17, one week ago.

Then, Mr. Gutfeld and four panelists on the talk show Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld, ridiculed the suggestion by Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, Canada's Chief of the Land Staff, that the Canadian Forces may need to take a year-long break in operations due to personnel and equipment shortages. Time has not lessened the sting of Mr. Gutfeld's suggestion that the U.S. ought to invade Canada while the military “wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white capri pants.”

_{I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader}

Thu Mar 26, 2009 4:21am EDT

By Kamran Haider

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - An expansion of America's secret war in Pakistan to Baluchistan province would justify jihad and see many more young men rally to fight foreign forces in Afghanistan, a radical cleric said.

The New York Times reported last week that the United States is considering expanding its covert war to Baluchistan, a sprawling province of deserts and jagged mountains on the border of violence-plagued southern Afghanistan.

So far, missile strikes by pilotless Central Intelligence Agency-operated drones, which Pakistan objects to, have been limited to ethnic Pashtun tribal areas to the north of Baluchistan, mostly in the North and South Waziristan regions.

"America is trying to scare us but it won't work. Rather it will be a justification," Noor Muhammad, a well-known radical cleric who runs a madrasa, or religious school, in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, said of possible U.S. strikes.

"America is foolish because it will only force more people here to stand up against it," he said.

Sitting in a room his madrasa complex, the 60-year-old grey-bearded Muhammad denied any policy of sending young men from his school to fight Western forces in Afghanistan.

But he said it was the duty of every Muslim to do that.

"If infidels occupy a Muslim land then it's obligatory for all Muslims to do jihad ... Preaching jihad is my duty," he said.

President Barack Obama has said the United States is not winning in Afghanistan, more than seven years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban, and he is due to announce the result of a review of policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan in coming days.

U.S. officials say success in Afghanistan is impossible without tackling the problem of militant safe havens in Pakistan.

In the Pashtunabad area on the outskirts of Quetta, support for militancy appears strong. Walls on a street leading to Muhammad's madrasa are daubed with slogans such as "Long Live Mullah Omar."

Afghan and foreign officials in Kabul have long said they believe Taliban leaders, including supreme leader Mullah Omar, are hiding in Baluchistan. Pakistan denies that.

LOVE FOR JIHAD

Officials in Kabul also say young men are pouring out of radical religious schools in Pakistan into Afghanistan to join the Taliban and become suicide bombers.

If the lessons that students get at Muhammad's seminary are anything to go by, it's not hard to understand why.

"We spread the message that the Taliban and Osama (bin Laden) have adopted the right path and that's the solution of all problems," Muhammad said.

"The protection of Koranic teachings is only possible through arms .... those who make weapons, make them available and use them will go to heaven," said Muhammad as four of his teenaged students with black turbans and wispy beards sat at his feet.

Pakistan has for years been saying it wants to reform madrasas but little has been done. Muhammad said there was nothing the government could do to quell zeal for jihad.

"The love and affection for jihad have developed among the youth to the extent that neither their relatives nor the government can control them," he said.

Unlike northwest Pakistan, Baluchistan has been relatively free of Islamist violence but militants have recently stepped up attacks, including an attack on a moderate cleric.

Major General Salim Nawaz, chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Baluchistan, also said drone strikes in Baluchistan would merely stir up militancy.

"That would be music to the Taliban, music to their ears," said Nawaz at his headquarters in the city center.

United States President Barack Obama's decision to go along with the military proposal for a "transition force" of 35,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq represents a complete abandonment of his own original policy of combat troop withdrawal and an acceptance of what the military wanted all along - the continued presence of several combat brigades well beyond mid-2010. - Gareth Porter

Gaining local knowledge is the only chance of survival for United States troops fighting a guerilla war in rural Afghanistan that is "new in its intensity, ancient in its origin", reports Philip Smucker, embedded with the motley 10th Mountain Division near the Pakistan border. But it is local knowledge that the US is sorely lacking in this war against subversives, insurgents and assassins. (Mar 26,'09) Asia Times

this is going to be a deadly spring

A leading jihadi theologian – and adviser to the late leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq – is under fire for ‘moderating’ his views.

By Caryle Murphy | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 27, 2009 edition

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - In yet another fissure within radical Islamist networks, one of the world's most influential jihadi theologians is coming under fire from some former followers for allegedly moderating his views – a claim he denies.

The attacks on Jordanian cleric Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, who was spiritual adviser for the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, are significant because of Mr. Maqdisi's longtime stature as a revered spiritual mentor who legitimizes violence with his religious interpretations of Islamic sacred texts.

For some outside experts, the bitter verbal dispute in jihadi online forums is alarming because it heralds the emergence of an even more radicalized younger generation of violent extremists.

"There's a new radical generation growing today" and it "is a product of the American occupation of Iraq," says Murad Batal al-Shishani, a London-based analyst of Islamic groups.

This generation, which Mr. Shishani calls "neo-Zarqawists," includes veterans of Mr. Zarqawi's jihad in Iraq. Inspired by Maqdisi, the analyst adds, they now are "coming and saying that he is too soft."

Other analysts regard the back-and-forth between Maqdisi and his critics as an indication of disarray in a jihadi movement that is past its prime.

"Maqdisi is often forgotten by the Western media, but he's actually very important," says Thomas Hegghammer, a fellow in Harvard Kennedy School's international security program and moderator of jihadica.com, a blog that monitors jihadi Internet activity.

The attacks on his credibility come on top of other disputes that have already caused "fragmentation" within the jihadi community, Mr. Hegghammer says, adding: "I think we're seeing some kind of decline. We're past the peak.... We're at just the beginning of the decline."

more wishful thinking here

4,000 Additional Troops to Deploy

Karen DeYoung | March 27

WaPo - President Obama's new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy will require significantly higher levels of U.S. funding for both countries, with U.S. military expenses in Afghanistan alone, currently about $2 billion a month, increasing by about 60 percent this year.

"The president has decided he is going to resource this war properly," said a senior administration official of the plan Obama is set to announce this morning. Along with the 17,000 additional combat troops authorized last month, he said, Obama will send 4,000 more this fall to serve as trainers and advisers to an Afghan army expected to double in size over the next two years.

In outlining his plan after a two-month review that began the week of his inauguration, Obama will describe it as a sharp break with what officials called a directionless and under-resourced conflict inherited from the Bush administration. Far from al-Qaeda being vanquished and the threat to the United States diminished, the official said, "seven and a half years after 9/11, al-Qaeda's core leadership has moved from Kandahar, in Afghanistan, to a location unknown in Pakistan . . . where we know they're plotting new attacks" against this country and its allies.

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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

Peter Baker & Thom Shanker | Washington D.C. | March 26

NYT - President Obama plans to further bolster American forces in Afghanistan and for the first time set benchmarks for progress in fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban there and in Pakistan, officials said Thursday.

In imposing conditions on the Afghans and Pakistanis, Mr. Obama is replicating a strategy used in Iraq two years ago both to justify a deeper American commitment and prod governments in the region to take more responsibility for quelling the insurgency and building lasting political institutions.

“The era of the blank check is over,” Mr. Obama told Congressional leaders at the White House, according to an account of the meeting provided on the condition of anonymity because it was a private session.

The new strategy, which Mr. Obama will formally announce Friday, will send 4,000 more troops to train Afghan security forces on top of the 17,000 extra combat troops that he already ordered to Afghanistan shortly after taking office, administration and Congressional officials said. But for now, Mr. Obama has decided not to send additional combat forces, they said, although military commanders at one point had requested a total of 30,000 more American troops.

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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

Troops Arrest an Awakening Council Leader in Iraq, Setting Off Fighting

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ROD NORDLAND
Published: March 28, 2009

BAGHDAD — American and Iraqi troops arrested the leader of a crucial Awakening Council in Baghdad on Saturday, setting off a rare spasm of street fighting and raising fresh concerns about the troubled Awakening program, which has brought many Sunni extremists over to the government’s side.

A combined force of American and Iraqi Army troops and National Police descended on Fadhil, a Sunni neighborhood and former insurgent stronghold in central Baghdad, and arrested the head of Fadhil’s Awakening Council, Adil al-Mashhadani, on terrorism charges, according to Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Iraqi security forces in Baghdad. He said firefights broke out afterward.

The Awakening Councils, the Iraqi name for what the Americans call the Sons of Iraq, are neighborhood-based groups of Sunnis, many of them former insurgents, who are now paid by the Iraqi government. They are credited, along with the increase in American troops, with helping to diminish violence in Iraq.

Many of the Awakening groups recently have complained about mistreatment and warned that some of their followers might switch back to supporting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group believed by American intelligence to have foreign leadership. Mr. Mashhadani has been a strong critic of the failure of the Iraqi authorities to incorporate Awakening Council fighters into Iraqi security agencies, as had been promised.

“There’s a 50-50 chance that Awakening guys who are not very loyal to Iraq or who need to support their families may decide to join Al Qaeda again,” Mr. Mashhadani said in an interview a week ago.

Abu Mirna, the media coordinator for the Fadhil Awakening Council, said: “American forces have broken the alliance with us by arresting our leader. Now there are clashes in the area between the Americans and Awakening fighters and you can hear shooting. It’s chaos.” Heavy gunfire could be heard over the telephone while he was speaking.

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washingtonpost.com

Iraq Plans to Relocate Iran Opposition Group
U.S. Guarded Embattled Movement's Camp

By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 28, 2009; A08

BAGHDAD, March 27 -- Iraq's national security adviser said Friday that the government intends to move an Iranian opposition group from its sanctuary near the Iranian border to a location where leaders and "brainwashed cult members" will be separated and the latter "detoxified."

Mowaffak al-Rubaie's remarks about the future of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, were his most detailed to date on how his government intends to deal with an issue that has been an irritant in relations between Iraq's government, which has built close ties with Iran, and the U.S. government. The group received support from Saddam Hussein's government and has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, but U.S. officials credit the MEK with providing information about Iran's nuclear program.

The Iraqi government's resolution of the conundrum is likely to shed light on how an increasingly sovereign Iraq will handle such vexing problems, and is likely to speak volumes about the extent to which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is influenced by Iran.

Members of the group "should understand that their days in Iraq are numbered," Rubaie told Western journalists at a briefing in the Green Zone. "We are literally counting them."

Iraqi officials, including Maliki, have in recent months publicly lambasted the group, generally during or after official visits to Iran.

The U.S. military has protected the group's camp in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. It handed over nominal control of the outer perimeter to Iraqi security forces in February but said it is keeping a contingent there to ensure that group members are treated humanely.

At one point in his remarks, Rubaie said Iraq would not forcibly deport MEK members because "we are a civilized country." But later, he said the Iraqi government would have a "thick skin" when it came to any negative press or international outcry generated by the eventual repatriation of members.

"The party is over for them. The party is over for coalition protection for them," he said, referring to the U.S. military.

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AP

Kurdish rebel leader in Iraq vows not to disarm without political settlement with Turkey
YAHYA BARZANJI
Associated Press Writer

1:56 PM PDT, March 28, 2009

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — The military chief of Kurdish rebels launching attacks into Turkey from hideouts in Iraq said his group will not lay down its arms until there is a political settlement between the Turkish government and the militants, according to an audio tape released Saturday.

Murat Karayilan's audio recording, sent to Iraqi Kurdish journalists, came less than a week after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called on the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, stop fighting or leave Iraq.

"Our weapons are necessary because we are not dealing with a state that believes in democracy," Karayilan said in the tape. "We are dealing with a state ruled by military generals. To abandon our arms without a political solution to our issues means suicide."

Karayilan spoke in response to written questions submitted by the journalists, who are familiar with the Kurdish rebel leader's voice.

He urged the Turkish government to begin a dialogue with the PKK to resolve Kurdish issues.

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The Guardian - At an international conference on Afghanistan at The Hague, in the Netherlands, the Iranian delegate, Mohammad Mehdi Akhundzadeh, responded positively to Barack Obama's new strategy for winning the war against the Taliban.

"Welcoming the proposals for joint cooperation offered by the countries contributing to Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran is fully prepared to participate in the projects aimed at combating drug trafficking and plans in line with developing and reconstructing Afghanistan," Akhundzadeh, one of Iran's deputy foreign ministers, said, according to an early text of his remarks provided by Iranian officials.

_{I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader}

Mar 30, 2009 Speigel Online

A "high-ranking" member of al-Qaida was seized during a recent US mission in Afghanistan which left five people dead. But the Americans were set up: The tip-off as to his location came from a drug clan who wanted to get rid of a rival.

A secret mission by elite American Delta Force commandos in northern Afghanistan has triggered resentment among German forces, SPIEGEL has learned.

The American forces were tricked by a drug clan into taking out a rival as part of an operation to seize an al-Qaida member. Now German soldiers are paying the price for the operation's civilian casualties.

The raid took place on March 21 in Kunduz province, where German forces are helping with security and reconstruction. A US liaison officer asked the German reconstruction team to keep the Kunduz airport clear but said nothing about the impending mission. Around half an hour later, a Hercules transport aircraft landed at the airfield, together with a whole fleet of combat and transport helicopters, which then took off for the nearby town of Imam Sahib.

There, the Americans stormed a guesthouse belonging to the local mayor, who had previously been friendly towards German forces, killing his driver, cook and bodyguard, as well as two of his guests. The US commandos also seized four people. According to the US military, one of those captured was the "target" of the operation, a "high-ranking" member of the terrorist organization al-Qaida.

However, sources in the intelligence community have told SPIEGEL that the US forces were apparently used by a drug clan to take out one of its rivals, who was reportedly one of the men who was killed or detained. The tip-off regarding the location of the al-Qaida terrorist had come from a source close to a member of the Afghan government in Kabul who is reputed to be deeply involved with the illegal drugs trade in Afghanistan.

Politicians and members of the German military in Berlin have been sharply critical of the incident. The resentment of the local population regarding the civilian victims of the US attack is now directed against the previously popular German ISAF troops, they say. A further criticism is that the unilateral mission could also have posed a threat to Bundeswehr patrols in the area.

Germany currently has around 3,500 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), based in the relatively safe north of the country.

dgs/spiegel