TASEK PAUH blogspot

Labels: Afghanistan, Australia, Luar Negeri

AlJazeera, Sept 01 - The capture of 23 South Korean Christian aid workers by the Taliban in Afghanistan marked the start of a nightmarish period of waiting for their families back in Seoul.

Now that the crisis has blown over with the release of 19 hostages - two had been freed earlier and two had been killed by their captors - the families have heaved a collective sigh of relief.

In a series of exclusive interviews with Al Jazeera, the relatives have narrated how they lived through the ordeal, anxiously waiting for news of their loved ones and described how they dealt with the killings of two of the hostages.

Kwak Ok-kang told of the moment she discovered one of her daughters, Liu Jung-Hwa, had been captured.

She said she had been driving in her car when she heard the news.

"I called my youngest daughter to check the name list, and she said, 'Yes: she's being named and appears on the list,'

"I felt my blood upside down and the colour of the sky seemed to change into yellow.

"It was a true shock and I was terrified."

Noble mission

The 23 South Koreans were all members of the Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Seoul, who had travelled to Afghanistan to undertake a 10-day aid mission in the war-torn country.

Seong In-sook told how her husband, You Kyong-sik, fed up with the drudge of his daily life in Seoul, had joined the group hoping to "make a difference" in the world.

"My husband was an engineer at a computer company for 30 years, and he left his job three years ago because he wanted to change his life."

She said he had "realised that life is very important ... that is the reason he was planning to go to Afghanistan, to find some way of helping".

A photograph, taken before the group left, showed You and the others all smiling.

But, while travelling through Afghanistan's Ghazni province, they were taken hostage by Taliban fighters.

Afghanistan’s government made it clear it would not agree to Taliban demands to free prisoners in exchange for the hostages.

Each time a deadline set by the Taliban passed without these demands being met, the families feared the worst. But, though negotiations broke down on several occasions, the deadlines seemed to pass without any consequences.

Lee Seong-hyun was married only for seven months when his wife decided to go to Afghanistan.

He said he felt "helpless" and in "pain" knowing his wife was being held captive.

"Without her sleeping, waking and eating [life] is not only meaningless but painful," he said.

Traumatic times

In South Korea, protesters demanded the release of the hostages and called for their government to intervene. Some of the protesters gathered outside a mosque in Seoul and there were fears of a backlash against South Korea's Muslim community.

Then the Taliban killed one of the hostages.

"All the family members burst into tears and even screamed with deep sorrow," Lee Hyun-ja told Al Jazeera.

The bullet-riddled body of Bae Hyung-kyu, a Christian pastor and the group's leader, was left close to the road where the group had been kidnapped.

A Taliban spokesman announced it was "because the government did not listen to our demands".

One of the hostages was allowed to call the media. It was Jung-wa, Kwak Ok-kang's daughter.

She said the group was scared. "Sometimes they threaten us," she said in the phone call. "They are going to kill us one by one."

After another deadline passed, the Taliban killed Shim Seong-min, another male hostage.

For Nam Song-soon, whose 36-year-old daughter Ji-young was among the hostages, the news was almost too much to bear.

"The hardest thing was when I saw the news on the TV that Shin-Song-Min was killed," she said.

"I saw his body was covered by a blanket, and I could see part of his feet and that was terrifying – a very terrible thing for me to watch.

Really I could hardly watch the TV because I was so shocked."

Renewed hope

The South Korean group was made up of seven men and sixteen women and there was speculation that the Taliban might be coming under criticism on a local level for holding female hostages.

On August 11, the Taliban announced they would release two hostages, but it took a further two days for Kim Kyung-ja and Kim Jee-na to be set free.

Another hostage, Lee Ji-young, who spoke some of the local Afghan dialect and had been working as a translator for the group, had been offered the chance to be one of the two released.

She chose to stay behind so that her friends would be released instead.

The Taliban allowed her to write a letter to her parents, saying she was "healthy and well fed".

The letter finished: "Please look after yourselves".

"I'm really proud of my daughter," Nam Song-soon, Lee's mother, said.

The release of Kim Kyung-ja and Kim Jee-na offered renewed hope to the families that the situation might be resolved.

South Korea had sent a delegation to Afghanistan for direct talks with the Taliban, but the discussions continually broke down over the issue of the prisoner release.

Then on August 29, the Taliban began to release the others, after South Korean authorities reiterated their plans to withdraw their troops and agreed to clamp-down on missionary groups travelling from their country to Afghanistan.

Both sides have denied rumours that a ransom was paid to secure the release of the remaining hostages, but for those back in Seoul that hardly mattered.

A deal had been reached and the agonising wait for the families was finally over. alJazeera

Labels: Afghanistan, Kristianasasi, Luar Negeri

South Koreans Apologize for Hostage Ordeal in Afghanistan

VOA, August 31 - Two of 19 South Koreans released by Taleban kidnappers in Afghanistan have apologized to the South Korean people and government for the ordeal.

At a news conference in Kabul Friday, one of the hostages, Yu Kyeong-sik, described losing sleep over the agony they caused to the country.

Yu described their July 19 abduction, saying the group of 23 church volunteers was on a chartered bus in southern Afghanistan when their driver picked up two locals. He said about 20 minutes later, the men began shooting and stopped the bus.

Yu said the Taleban split the hostages into groups. He said his own group changed locations 12 times throughout the six weeks of captivity, moved by motorbike or on foot.

The Taleban began releasing the 19 hostages on Wednesday, after striking a deal with South Korean negotiators. Two male hostages were executed last month and, then, two female hostages were released during talks with the Taleban.

Officials say the South Koreans are now on their way to Dubai.

As part of the deal to free the hostages, South Korea agreed to withdraw 200 of its non-combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end - which it had already planned to do - and to suspend missionary work in the country.

Some reports say South Korea paid a substantial ransom to the Taleban, but both sides deny any money was exchanged.

The deal has been criticized by some Afghan officials who say it will only encourage more abductions. VOA. Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Labels: Afghanistan, Kristianasasi, Luar Negeri

Australian Taliban returns home

Adelaide, May 20 - David Hicks, an Australian man who joined the Taliban, has been flown back to Australia after being transferred from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Hicks was flown in a private jet to his hometown of Adelaide on Sunday morning to serve the remaining nine months of his seven-year prison sentence, Australian government officials said.

Hicks was taken directly from the airport to Yatala prison by a police convoy.

David McLeod, his lawyer, said Hicks was "elated" to be returning to Australia but that there were fears for his mental health after spending years in Guantanamo Bay.

"In the western world's most notorious prison, he's become institutionalised," Mcleod said.

McLeod said security at Guantanamo was at "fever pitch" on Hicks's departure and the former kangaroo skinner was restrained in his seat during the 24-hour flight via Tahiti. more..

Labels: Afghanistan, Australia, Luar Negeri, U.S.

Atal told Ahmad Zaidan, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, that the Taliban's spring attacks would not be affected by Dadullah's death.

He said that operations were continuing as planned, led by Mansour.

Mansour was freed in March as part of a prisoner swap for the release of Daniele Mastrogiacomo, an Italian journalist kidnapped while working in Afghanistsan.

Atal also said that the Taliban had arrested a close aide to Dadullah for treachery that had led to his killing.

He said: "We have captured the spy who helped US forces kill Mullah Dadullah. Each time there was a [coalition] strike, the man would disappear and then reappear after the bombing was over."

The Taliban have previously executed members accused of spying. Atal said the man had confessed to being a spy for the US.

In a separate development, the Taliban have claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt against Assaullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar province.

Security sources in the city said that a suicide bomber drove a car laden with explosives into a column of cars that usually accompany Khalid.

The governor has said that his car was not within the column at the moment of the attack.

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri, video

May13 - Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's chief military commander, has been killed in southern Afghanistan according to government officials.

James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent, was shown a body the authorities said was Dadullah's on Sunday morning.

The body was shown to media in the governor's compound in Kandahar.

A sheet was removed from the body up to the knee to show that part of one of the legs was missing. Dadullah lost a leg fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s.

An Interior Ministry statement said Dadullah was killed in fighting with security forces in Helmand's Girishk district on Saturday night.

Officials from Nato and the US-led coalition could not confirm it and Bays says a Nato source had told him privately that there was still some confusion over the reports but that they did believe the body was Dadullah.

Bays said the Taliban was still confused over whether Dadullah had been killed. Some sources had confirmed the body was his while some others said it was another military commander who also happened to only have one leg.

A Taliban spokesman had earlier rejected the government's claim labelling it "propaganda".

Standing next to the body Bays said that although he had never met Dadullah face to face, the corpse was either him or someone bearing a striking resemblance to him.

Television stations interrupted routine broadcasting to give breaking news of the killing.

'Commander of commanders'

Dadullah is the most important rebel commander to be killed since the Taliban was driven from government by a US-led coalition in late 2001, the Afghan intelligence department said.

Asadullah Khalid, the Kandahar provincial governor, said Dadullah was killed "in an operation carried out based on very accurate information."

Sayed Ansari, the Intelligence agency spokesman, described him as the "biggest Taliban commander ever killed."

"He was the commander of commanders," he said.

Dadullah was known as the key military strategist in Taliban and was said to be close to Mullah Mohammad Omar, the fugitive Taliban supreme commander.

He has bragged to the media about having thousands of men at his command, including hundreds of suicide bombers. Al Jazeera & Agencies

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri

Kabul, March 20 - A car bomber has ended months of relative calm in Kabul by exploding his car next to a US embassy convoy, killing an Afghan teenager and wounding five US security personnel.

Monday's suicide blast, the first in Kabul since December, hurled one of the armoured 4WDs across Jalalabad Road and left two other US vehicles damaged.

A 15-year-old Afghan on the side of the road was killed, said Hasib Arian, the district police chief.

Five US embassy security personnel were injured, one seriously, said Colonel Tom Collins, the spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force.

Ambassador unhurt

Ronald Neumann, the US ambassador, was not in the convoy, Joe Mellott, an embassy spokesman, said.

Later, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in a phone call to AP that a Taliban activist from Khost province carried out the attack.

US embassy security teams sealed off the road, and initially prevented Afghan police, Nato soldiers and photographers, including those of Al Jazeera, from getting close to the vehicles.

The route is often used by American soldiers travelling to the main US coalition base at Bagram outside the capital and also to various military bases on the outskirts of Kabul.

Reporting from the blast site, John Cookson, Al Jazeera's correspondent, said: "The Jalalabad Road is notorious for suicide bombers; it is used frequently by US convoys. Today's target was a line of US embassy vehicles heading for Kabul.

"The bomber struck in a white car with devastating consequences." One Afghan witness said: "I heard a loud explosion, I went outside - there was a lot of fire and smoke."

Cookson said: "The bombing comes as US and Nato forces increase the pressure on the Taliban in an ongoing guerrilla war and the Taliban responding with suicide bombers - this is the first in Kabul in three months." alJazeera & Agencies

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri

Osama bin Laden turns 50

AlJazeera, March 10 - Osama Bin Laden is turning 50 a free man.

Despite the biggest manhunt ever launched, it is thought he is holed-up somewhere in the tribal lands straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mullah Hayatullah Khan, a Taliban spokesman, told Reuters: "He is alive. I am 100 per cent sure." He said senior leaders were in touch with bin Laden.

The spokesman said special prayers were offered by Taliban fighters in camps in Afghanistan.

Khan said: "We prayed that Allah may give him 200 years to live. When we woke up today, we offered collective and long prayers for him."

The most recent videotape of bin Laden was released in late 2004 - subsequent tapes released were identified as old footage - and around half a dozen audio tapes surfaced in the first half of 2006.

But a long silence since afterwards has fuelled rumours that bin Laden is unwell, or dead, though the US fears that the al-Qaeda network he founded is rebuilding its base in Pakistani tribal lands, and has forged ties with affiliates in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

And the world's most wanted "terrorist" comes with a $25m price on his head. more..

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri, Osama

US justifies erasing attack footage

March 10 - The US military has said that a soldier was justified in erasing journalists' footage of the aftermath of a suicide bombing and shooting in which at least eight Afghans were killed.

In a letter to the Associated Press news agency a military spokesman said publication could have compromised an investigation and led to false public conclusions.

"Investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil and military authorities will reluctantly exercise the right to control what a journalist is permitted to document," Colonel Victor Petrenko, chief of staff to the US commander in eastern Afghanistan, said on Friday.

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri, U.S.

March 6 - US forces in Afghanistan tried to confiscate video and destroy photographic evidence taken after a shooting incident that left at least 10 civilians dead, witnesses have told Al Jazeera.

Footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows the scene in Nangarhar province immediately after US forces opened fire following a car bomb attack on their convoy.

The footage shows local people in shock, treating the wounded and pulling bodies from the debris left by the shooting.

After the Nargarhar incident, a separate Nato air raid in northern Afghanistan left nine civilians dead, according to a local official.

'Complete lie'

Witnesses say the suicide bomber had acted alone, that there were no accomplices and that US troops had panicked, firing at anything that moved immediately after the attack.

One told Al Jazeera: "There were no gunmen, this is a complete lie. This is a peaceful area, we don't have guns."

The dead included an 80-year-old man, whose grandson said: "A bomb exploded, my grandfather sat in a car and at that time American soldiers were shooting into my grandfather's car."

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, condemned the killings earlier on Monday and ordered an investigation into Sunday's attack.

His office and the Afghan interior ministry on Monday put the death toll at 10 civilians while the coalition late on Sunday said eight Afghans were killed and 35 wounded.

Response

Responding to Al Jazeera's discovery of the footage, a spokesman for the US contingent within the international force insisted US troops acted in self-defence.

"We regret the loss of life of the Afghan civilians, but coalition forces were attacked by both a suicide bomb vehicle and small arms fire.

"Our forces returned fire in self-defence against numerous enemy positions," said Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta, coalition forces spokesman.

"We don't train or order our troops to fire on unarmed civilians, and it's uncertain at this time what caused the casualties.

"But it's important to note that the extremists conducted this attack in an area that they knew would cause civilian casualties," he said. alJazeera

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri, U.S.

March 5 - US soldiers opened fire on innocent bystanders after a suicide bomber struck an American convoy in eastern Afghanistan and then deleted footage of the incident taken by reporters to destroy evidence of the atrocity.

Associated Press reported that US soldiers at the scene deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News.

US military authorities are investigating the event that took place Nangarhar province in which no American soldiers were injured.

Stone throwing protesters shouted "Death to America, Death to Karzai" as they clashed with the local police.

US military officials asked media personnel not to report that it was the American soldiers who shot and killed the innocent civilians citing such news reporting could cause rioting in other towns and cities across Afghanistan exacerbating an already deteriorating security situation there.

See also US troops kill Afghan civilians - Agencies

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri, U.S.

March 4 - At least eight Afghan civilians have been killed after forces opened fire following a car bomb attack on a military convoy.

The explosion on Sunday was in eastern Afghanistan on the road to Pakistan.

Officials said the deaths sparked a large protest, but it remained unclear whether the Afghans had died in the blast or the shooting.

Noor Agha Zawok, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, said a bomber hit an American convoy with a minivan.

Zawok said US soldiers opened fire after the attack, killing or wounding some civilians. Neither US nor Nato officials had any immediate information about the incident.

Protests

Ghafoor Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief, said hundreds of Afghans gathered in a large protest after the violence, throwing stones at police.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force also announced on Sunday that two soldiers had died in fighting in southern Afghanistan on Saturday. It did not give their nationalities. Agencies

Lihat U.S. military says 16 Afghans killed after attack - theStarOnline

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri, U.S.

March 3 - The leader of the Taliban's military operations has criticised Pakistan and Arab nations for helping the US and its allies.

Speaking in interview with Al Jazeera aired on Friday, Mullah Dadullah (picture left) said that the Taliban's acitivities had suffered more from Pakistan's operations than from American and coalition activities.

"The Pakistani government has a strange policy that no-one can understand," Dadullah said.

"We have not suffered as much from America, Britain or any Islamic or Arab country as from the oppression and aggression we suffered from Pakistan."

"The targets which were firstly bombed were by the help of Pakistani intelligence and the first batches of invading forces entered from Pakistan."

He also said that Iran's Shia had not given any assistance to the Taliban, a Sunni movement: "Iran has never adopted any Jihadi agenda while the leaders of Arab countries are just followers of America and Britain." more..

Labels: Afghanistan, Luar Negeri, U.S.

Kabul, February 27 - A Shaheed attack has killed around 20 karzai militants and american soldier, at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where Dick Cheney, the US vice president, is visiting, international mass-media reported.

The attack occurred inside one of the security gates surrounding the heavily guarded occupation base 60km north of Kabul.

Kabir Ahmad, Bagram district puppet "governor", said: "It was a suicide bombing. It took place between the main gate and the gate guarded by american soldiers.

Zemarai Bashary, an karzai regime spokesman, said: "Reports are stating that 18 people were killed and three of them are foreign soldiers.

"The 15 others are civilian Afghan workers who wanted to enter Bagram air base for their work. On injuries we do not have exact reports." Other source informed that 18 karzai militants eliminated and at least 3 american solder have been killed.

US military officials confirmed what they called a "direct attack" on the base.

A spokeswoman for Cheney said the vice president was safe.

Senior Master Sergeant Richard Simonsen in the Bagram media office told Agence France-Presse: "We have reports of one US soldier having been killed."

Cheney stayed at the base overnight after planned talks with Hamid Karzai, were delayed by weather.

Later on Tuesday, the US vice president arrived in Kabul to meet Karzai. KC

See also Cheney targeted in Taliban attack - AlJazeera & Agencies

Labels: Afghanistan, Berita, Luar Negeri, U.S.

February 22 - Australia is considering plans to double its forces in Afghanistan to about 1,000 to head off an expected spring resurgence of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, the country's defence minister has said.

"We are very concerned about the activities of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan," Brendan Nelson told Australian television on Thursday.

"What I have decided to do is to send a small scoping group over to Afghanistan to have a very close look at it."

Earlier this week the Taliban's military commander, told Al Jazeera that he has deployed more than 6,000 of his fighters in preparation for an "imminent" spring offensive.

"The number of Taliban mujahidin who are ready to launch the spring battle has reached 6000," Mullah Dadullah told the Kabul bureau chief of Al Jazeera's Arabic channel.

Dadullah said that the fighters were concealed in tunnels and elsewhere in preparation for launching their attack.

He said he might even be able to deploy even more volunteers if Nato troop increases continued to prompt more Afghans to take up arms. "It may rise to 10,000," he said.

Special forces

Australia currently has about 500 in Afghanistan working with Dutch Nato forces in Uruzgan province.

Australian special forces commandos were withdrawn from Afghanistan last September, but The Australian newspaper said Australia would send about 250 special forces troops back to the country, as well as extra helicopter support.

Nelson said while Australia had not yet made a formal decision to deploy extra troops to Afghanistan, he had discussed the issue with the Netherlands, British and US governments and Australians should not be surprised if extra troops were sent.

Before they were withdrawn, Australia's special forces spent 12 months in Afghanistan, where they were involved in long-range missions to hunt down Taliban fighters.

At the time, Australia's defence force commander left open the option of sending the special forces back to Afghanistan but said they first needed a rest. alJazeera

Labels: Afghanistan, Berita, Luar Negeri

February 21 - Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's military commander, has told Al Jazeera that he has deployed more than 6,000 of his fighters in preparation for a spring offensive against the Afghan government and its allies.

"The attack is imminent," he told Al Jazeera's Arabic channel in an interview aired on Wednesday.

"The number of Taliban mujahidin who are ready to launch the spring battle has reached 6000," he told Ahmed Zeidan, the Kabul bureau chief of Al Jazeera's Arabic channel.

Dadullah said that the fighters were concealed in tunnels and elsewhere in preparation for launching their attack.

He said he might even be able to deploy even more volunteers if Nato troop increases continued to prompt more Afghans to take up arms. "It may rise to 10.000," he said.

"The more the number of Jewish and Christian soldiers who fight us increases, the more the Afghan people will be encouraged to join us."

Dadullah, a Pashtun, is believed to be one of the closest advisers to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. He is believed to have joined the movement in 1994 soon after it was formed by Omar.

'New anti-aircraft weapons'

Taliban commanders also told Al Jazeera that they had obtained new weapons suitable for use against helicopters.

Although they provided no further details, the Taliban provided footage of the burning wreckage of an aircraft which they said was a US helicopter which they had shot down near Kandahar two months ago.

Eight US soldiers were killed and 14 were wounded when their Chinook helicopter crashed in Kabul province on Sunday.

The US military blamed engine failure for the crash. In recent months, the US has also lost an unusually high number of helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan to enemy fire, prompting speculation that al-Qaeda and its allies have acquired new anti-aircraft weaponry.

Warning from Pakistan

Dadullah's warnings came as Ali Jan Orkazi, the governor of the North West Frontier province of neighbouring Pakistan, said that the Taliban was growing stronger.

"As time passes, Taliban becomes more powerful," he told Al Jazeera.

"Today, they have reached a stage where many local residents support them. This makes it [the movement] evolve into a kind of a national and resistance movement; a kind of a liberation war against the coalition forces." alJazeera

Labels: Afghanistan, Berita, Luar Negeri

Al Jazeera, February 13 - Nato has confirmed to Al Jazeera that the Taliban has seized a second district in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

Qari Yousef, a Taliban spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Taliban fighters were holding captive 33 police officers after taking over Washir - a remote desert area in the northwest of Helmand - the day before.

A spokeswoman for the Nato-led ISAF force told Al Jazeera: "I can confirm that Washir district centre is in the hands of the Taliban."

She said the town would be brought back under government control but declined to comment on any plans to do that.

Qari said the officers' police vehicles had been seized and distributed among Taliban fighters.

Afghan government forces had made an effort to retake the district centre but the attack was repulsed, he said.

Mullah Abdel Rahim, the Taliban commander in Helmand province, said: "It's not just Musa Qala and Washeer, we are in control of much of Helmand province. The people are with us. They give us food, they give us shelter."

Dada Mohammed Khan, the district's MP and former chief of intelligence, said: "The Taliban will now increase its force here and take over the rest of the province."

Exodus

In recent days, thousands of residents have fled from Musa Qala, a town in southern Afghanistan, while Taliban fighters who moved in last week consolidated their positions.

Haji Assadullah Wafa, the governor of Helmand province, told Reuters that a military operation to recapture Musa Qala would be launched soon.

"The Taliban are only in the town to create problems for the people," the governor said. "They do not have the ability to seize an area and maintain their control over it."

British-led Nato troops withdrew from the town after striking a deal with local authorities and tribal elders in October.

The agreement meant that Nato troops and Taliban fighters were not supposed to come within 5km of the town centre, but a group of 200 Taliban disarmed the local police force, destroyed the district centre and temporarily held local elders hostage.

The Taliban made their move after accusing Nato of violating the deal during an air strike that killed the brother of Mullah Ghafour, a local Taliban leader.

Nato commanders and tribal elders have said that the attack was outside the area covered by the truce. al Jazeera and Agencies

Baca juga : Successful operations by Taliban reported in Afghanistan for last two days

Labels: Afghanistan, Berita, Luar Negeri

Rawalpindi, February 12 - Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, met Pervez Musharraf to discuss operations this spring against the Taliban on the mountainous 2,500km frontier with Afghanistan.

Gates said in a news conference the US had been wrong to neglect Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal in the late 198Os and to let it become a sanctuary for al-Qaeda which launched the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

"We will not make that mistake again. We are in it for the long term."

The Taliban rose to power after the Soviet withdrawal, but were ousted by US-led forces for sheltering al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, blamed for the attacks on New York and Washington which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Pakistan has come under pressure from its allies to crack down on fighters crossing the border into Afghanistan amid a renewed Taliban campaign that claimed 4,000 lives last year, mostly those of rebels.

The defence secretary, accompanied by senior military officials, met Musharraf at his presidential office in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, outside Islamabad.

Gates said after the talks that Pakistan and the US had a "mutual interest in improving our effectiveness and improving our co-operation and understanding so that we have a real opportunity this spring".

Spring offensive

He said Musharraf had been meeting Pakistani army commanders to see how they could improve their operations on the porous Afghan border.

"We discussed the coming spring military activity on the border and the measures that the Afghans and the Nato alliance and the US and Pakistan are working on together," he said.

Gates said he had thanked Musharraf "for Pakistan's help in the war on terror". He said: "Pakistan is clearly a very strong ally of the United States on this."

The US defence secretary said the US was also grateful to Musharraf for cracking down on extremism in his own country, which has been rocked by a recent wave of attacks blamed on pro-Taliban elements.

Gates arrived in Pakistan from Europe, where he appealed to Washington's allies to contribute more troops, equipment, and support personnel for the 35,000-strong Nato-led force in Afghanistan.

US military officials have claimed bitterly that Pakistani border forces were turning a blind eye to the cross-border movements of fighters, fuelling the resurgence of violence in Afghanistan.

But Musharraf recently said security along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was the joint responsibility of all the forces nearby, and Pakistan could not win the fight against militancy on its own. Agencies

Labels: Afghanistan, Berita, Luar Negeri, Musharraf, U.S.

How to tame the Taliban
By Amir Taheri, Special to Gulf News

GulfNews, February 7 - We met and had an interview with Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar Sepanta when he visited London recently.

Sepanta admits that the Taliban are preparing for a spring offensive. However, he insists that the security situation is better than last year and improving. "We may have to face terrorism for many years," Sepanta says." But, that is not going to slow down, let alone stop, Afghanistan's strategy for democratisation and modernisation."

Do the Taliban still enjoy a popular base?

Sepanta admits that they do. The Taliban appeal to some Pushtun clans in the southeast and reflect the views of some of the most conservative segments of the clergy. All in all, however, without the support of a foreign power, they would not be able to pursue a military campaign for any length of time.

But, which foreign power?

Sepanta says he does not wish to provoke a diplomatic row with Afghanistan's neighbours by naming names.

"Those who know the region know the identity of those who keep the Taliban alive," he says. "Which regional country fears a democratic and pro-West Afghanistan? And which has always harboured the ambition of turning Afghanistan into a client state?"

It is clear that Sepanta is referring to Iran and Pakistan which, though rivals in Afghanistan in the past, now indirectly cooperate to undermine the democratically elected government of President Hamid Karzai.

Sepanta says Iran has created "a vast and solid network of influence" in Afghanistan. "No one knows what harvest Tehran hopes to reap from what it has sown," he says.

Political feuds

Both Iran and Pakistan have shaped their different strategies in Afghanistan on the assumption that the US, plagued by its internecine political feuds, will lack the staying power needed to reshape the Middle East. Tehran and Islamabad are preparing for the day the Americans run away from Kabul before the new Afghan regime is strong enough to ward off predatory neighbours. Once the Americans have fled, Iran will activate its network of influence, including the Hazara Shiites, some heavily armed, along with elements of the former Northern Alliance that fought the Taliban in the 1990s.

For its part, Pakistan, which had put all its chips on Taliban in the 1990s, lost everything when Mullah Omar ran away riding his Suzuki motorcycle. Since then, Pakistan has acted tough against the so-called "Arab Afghans" and members of Al Qaida while treating the Taliban with kid gloves. The reason is that Islamabad sees the Taliban as its Trojan horse in Afghanistan, when and if the Americans run away.

Pakistan has more than half a century of experience in low intensity warfare against neighbours. Until recently, it did so against India in Kashmir and seems to be doing the same in southeastern Afghanistan.

Discussing Kashmir with the then Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee a few years ago, I was told what he presented as "the secret of Kashmir".

"The war in Kashmir could go on for ever," Vajpayee said. "The reason is that the Pakistanis always have some 2,000 fighters ready to come to kill and die. We kill the 2,000, the Pakistanis send another 2,000. The supply is endless."

Having ended the war in Kashmir, Pakistan can divert its mischief-making energies to Afghanistan where the numbers required may not be as large. Pakistan can always find a few hundred Puhstuns who, if adequately brainwashed and paid, are ready to become "holy warriors" under the Taliban banner.

As is the case with Iraq, the root cause of the continued conflict in Afghanistan is the perception that the Americans will run away, allowing the "holy warriors" to claim divine victory while rival neighbouring powers activate their pawns in Kabul.

If the various protagonists in Afghanistan, just as in Iraq, were persuaded that the "Great Satan" was not going to run away, few would have the incentive to keep fighting a war they know they cannot win.

Sepanta says any sign that the US and its allies may be losing interest in the democratisation project is certain to fan the flames of war.

So, what does he think of the recommendation by the now discredited Baker-Hamilton report that the US withdraw from Iraq and send more troops to Afghanistan?

The foreign minister becomes diplomatic. He does not want to intervene in a domestic American debate. But he admits that the jihadis fighting in Iraq will, if the US runs away from Baghdad, move to Afghanistan to fight the Americans that the Baker-Hamilton "Realists" want to send there.

"This is a war between two visions of the world," he says. "If one side abandons one battlefield, he will have to fight harder in another."

The Afghans are determined to fight the "obscurantist, inhumane" vision of the Taliban and their counterparts in Iraq and elsewhere for as long as it takes, Sepanta says. His hope is that the Western democracies would continue to share the same determination. This is a sh0rtened version, go to GulfNews for full version.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian author and journalist based in Europe.

Labels: Afghanistan, Berita, Luar Negeri