Watches Afghanistan: Suicide blast kills top police commander

We are understand this Afghanistan: Suicide blast kills top police commande



General Daud was attending a meeting with other officials when the bomber struck, reports say

The police commander for northern Afghanistan has been killed in a suicide bomb attack on the provincial governor's compound in Takhar.

Gen Mohammad Daud Daud is one of at least six people killed in the attack, claimed by the Taliban.

Two German soldiers were killed and Gen Markus Kneip, commander of foreign troops in north Afghanistan, wounded.

Afghanistan has seen a series of attacks in recent months by militants on police and military targets.

Takhar provincial Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa is among those wounded, officials said.

Gen Daud was former military commander of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan forces who fought the Taliban.

Police uniform
The latest attack will be seen as significant because it has struck an area of the country's north which has been seen as relatively secure.

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Analysis


Lyse Doucet
BBC News
Powerful, charismatic, controversial - General Daud played a critical role as Afghan forces prepare to take over from Isaf in key cities this year.

When I last saw him in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in March, he was calm and confident as he organised a major security operation during Nawroz (New Year) celebrations.

Despite reports of suicide bombers in the city, there were no attacks. But he came under criticism weeks later when the UN compound was stormed by a violent mob.

There were persistent allegations he played a key role in the drugs trade he was meant to stop. But his charm and capabilities won him allies among foreign forces - although some expressed suspicion there was an "agenda" of greater autonomy for the North.

The attack will heighten concerns over the Taliban's campaign to assassinate key Afghan figures.

One intelligence official who survived the attack in Taloqan told the BBC's Bilal Sarwary that Gen Daud had left a meeting and was heading to the second floor of the building when there was a huge explosion.

"There was fire. Daud and the police chief of Takhar province were laying on the ground. There were shouts and crying. There was chaos all over the place," the official said.

Intelligence officials said Gen Daud had been warned about a threat to his life and that security was extremely tight.

However, the attacker was wearing a police uniform and passed several security checks.

Gen Daud was in charge of all interior ministry forces in northern Afghanistan and is the most senior figure to be killed so far in a Taliban "spring offensive".

coppied by http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13585242

Enjoy Top Marine Dislikes Afghan Deadline

Top Marine Dislikes Afghan Deadline


WASHINGTON — The commandant of the Marine Corps said Tuesday that President Obama’s July 2011 deadline to begin American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan was “probably giving our enemy sustenance.”

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It was by far the most sharply worded public remark from a senior military commander about the White House’s timetable for starting to wind down the war.

The commandant, Gen. James T. Conway, also said that “if you follow it closely, and of course we all do, we know the president was talking to several audiences at the same time when he made his comments on July 2011.” The general apparently meant that Mr. Obama’s deadline was set for a domestic political audience as well as for the Afghans.

But the general, who is retiring this fall, said he thought the deadline might not ultimately comfort the insurgents, who could find that only a small number of United States forces leave Afghanistan next July, a possibility increasingly set forth by Pentagon officials and senior commanders. He predicted that Taliban fighters, who he said have been told repeatedly by their commanders that the Americans would leave en masse, would be demoralized when they realized that the United States was staying.

“What is he going to say to his foot troops,” he said of a Taliban commander, when, “come the fall, we’re still there hammering them like we have been? I think it could be very good for us in that context, in terms of the enemy’s psyche and what he has been, you know, posturing now for, really, the better part of a year.”

General Conway, who spoke to reporters at a Pentagon briefing, also made clear, as he has in the past, that he remained personally opposed to overturning the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that requires gay men and lesbians in the military to keep their sexual orientation secret or leave the service. Mr. Obama and senior Pentagon leaders, including Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said that the law should be changed to allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military. The Senate is scheduled to consider legislation next month.

“We will follow the law, whatever the law prescribes,” General Conway said, adding that the Marines “cannot be seen as dragging our feet or some way delaying implementation.”

Based on his information from Marines, he said, “I can tell you that an overwhelming majority would like not to be roomed with a person who is openly homosexual.” But because some Marines do not object, he said, perhaps having those Marines share rooms voluntarily with openly gay service members “might be the best way to start, without violating anybody’s sense of moral concern or perception on the part of their mates.”

Asked what he meant by moral concern, General Conway said, “We have some people that are very religious.” He added: “I couldn’t begin to give you a percentage, but I think in some instances we will have people that say that homosexuality is wrong, and they simply do not want to room with a person of that persuasion because it would go against their religious beliefs.”

Gay rights groups counter that most active-duty service members, who are decades younger than many senior commanders, do not passionately care one way or another about overturning the ban or serving with openly gay men and women.

General Conway, echoing other senior American commanders, said that it “will be a few years” before the Marines can turn over their operations in Afghanistan entirely to Afghan forces. About 20,000 Marines are based in the southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan’s breadbasket and the Taliban heartland, where they continue to battle insurgents in Marja, the site of a major Marine offensive this past winter.

“They’re sniping at us, they’re throwing a few odd rounds here and there, they’re shooting at our helicopters, but mainly they’re intimidating the people, O.K., so as to maintain a presence there and keep Marja from being, again, this strategic victory on the part of the Marines in the south of Helmand,” he said.
Coppied by http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/world/asia/25military.html?_r=1

June was the bloodist month NEWS CENTRAL/S. ASIA Troop deaths top 2000 in Afghan war

Watches this NEWS CENTRAL/S. ASIA Troop deaths top 2000 in Afghan war

More than 2,000 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan since the war began in late 2001, according to the independent icasualties.org website.

In all, 2,002 soldiers have been killed since the US-led invasion, including 1,226 Americans and 331 British.

In contrast to these deaths over a span of almost nine years, 1,271 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2010.

Last week, a UN mid-year report showed civilian casualties had risen by 31 per cent this year compared with the same period last year.

So far this year, 434 foreign troops have been killed, compared with a peak of 521 in 2009, icasualties.org reported on Sunday.

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June 2010 was the bloodiest month of the war with 102 killed as foreign forces pushed ahead with operations in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Another 88 were killed in July.

There are currently more than 140,000 US and Nato-led troops in Afghanistan aiming to to flush out remnants of Taliban fighters, who went on the offensive after being toppled from government in the 2001 invasion.

Disputes over the Afghan war have already brought down a Dutch government in February and a German president in May.

The losses in Afghanistan are less than half of those in the Iraq war, where at least 4,723 foreign troops have been killed since 2003 - 4,405 of them Americans.

Civilian casualties

But, with the US government cutting troop numbers in Iraq before the formal end of combat operations on August 31, attention is certain to be focused back on the Afghan conflict.

Civilian casualties caused by US and other foreign forces have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and its Western allies and led to a major falling-out between the two sides last year.

The UN report added that Taliban and armed groups were responsible for 76 per cent of casualties.

Deaths caused by "pro-government forces" fell to 12 per cent of the total from 30 per cent last year, due mainly to a 64 per cent fall in deaths caused by aerial attacks.
Coppied by http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/08/20108161532562124.html