http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040726_405.html

Afghan President Karzai Announces Candidacy for October Election, Drops Warlord From Ticket

KABUL, Afghanistan July 26, 2004 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced his candidacy Monday for landmark October elections after several days of heated political wrangling.
In a surprise move, he dropped Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, arguably the nation's most powerful warlord, from his ticket, replacing him with Ahmad Zia Massood, the brother of Afghanistan's greatest resistance hero.

.......

Probably a good move. But dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

Tours

I so want to thank you for keeping info here coming about Afghanistan. I know I shouldnt pay attention to the news but I just cant help myself. Not hearing from your loved one after hearing about all the bombings and fighting just gives ya a little scared feeling.

Any time.

They are pretty much FYIs, but nevertheless.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23467


KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Many Marines of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit will barely get a chance to clean off the dust from Afghanistan before they find themselves chewing on Iraqi sand.

Even with their six-month Afghanistan deployment extended by a month so they could continue their push through southern Afghanistan, many Marines said they have to prepare now for their next tour.

“It’s a sign of the times,” said Col. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., commander of the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 22nd MEU. “This has all happened since Iraq’s last flare-up,” McKenzie said. “Everything is in a state of flux.”

Each of the Marine Corps’ seven MEUs are task forces that bring together infantry, artillery, aviation, logistics and other units into one 2,300-strong package.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17797-2004Jul27.html


By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 27, 2004; 10:37 AM


KABUL, Afghanistan - The United States on Tuesday issued a veiled warning to Afghanistan's jilted defense minister not to undermine the country's fragile security.

The comments came a day after President Hamid Karzai dropped Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim from his election team, saying his running mate in Oct. 9 president elections would be a brother of late resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massood.

On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad restated Washington's support for Karzai. But he acknowledged that his surprise decision to ditch Fahim had sown mistrust among leaders whose armies helped America rout the Taliban 2 1/2 years ago.

Asked if the United States would intervene if the militias caused trouble, Khalilzad said the defense minister had a "direct responsibility" for preventing violence that has marred every change of Afghan president in living memory.

"We expect everyone to do everything they can not to undermine stability here," Khalilzad said. "Political competition is good, it's fine. That's the way of the future in Afghanistan. But the use of force to resolve political disputes is a thing of the past."

The U.S. military leads about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan and has total control of its skies.

This year, American warplanes have circled over cities, including Herat and Chagcharan, in an attempt to calm battles between militias who Karzai says are now a bigger threat than the militants that the U.S. forces came to combat.

But the U.S. military has never taken on a powerful faction such as the Tajik forces controlled largely by Fahim, who marched victoriously into Kabul in late 2001 in defiance of U.S. orders and has resisted attempts to disarm them.

Fahim was conspicuously absent from a news conference Monday in which Karzai presented his team, including his candidate for first vice president, Ahmad Zia Massood.

Fahim has made no public comment.

Massood, currently ambassador to Russia, is a brother of Ahmad Shah Massood, who led the resistance to the Taliban regime until he was killed by al-Qaida terrorists on Sept. 9, 2001. Karzai named Hazara leader Karim Khalili his choice for second vice president.

NATO troops have mounted extra patrols because of the rising political temperature, but both they and a U.S. military spokesman said there were no signs of unusual military activity.


© 2004 The Associated Press

....

Possible trouble.

Maybe they want more money?

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040727_1134.html

Afghan Firefight After Ambush Leaves Four Militants Dead, Wounds Two Troops From U.S.-Led Forces

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan July 27, 2004 — Insurgents mounted two attacks on coalition vehicles Tuesday in southeastern Afghanistan, leaving four militants dead and wounding two soldiers from American-led forces, the military said.
Suspected Taliban also killed two Afghans because they had registered to vote in upcoming elections, police said.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23468


By Jon R. Anderson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, July 27, 2004

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Top military leaders in Afghanistan are hailing a Marine offensive deep inside southern Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province as the most successful operation here since the 2001 invasion.

Tucked away in southern Afghanistan’s rugged mountains, the province has provided a sanctuary for Taliban holdouts and their al-Qaida supporters, say officials. But not anymore.

The Marine offensive, which began in March and is just now wrapping up, was the first incursion into the area by conventional forces.

The Marines are credited with killing more than 100 Taliban and al-Qaida fighters during weeks of running gunbattles in an area completely avoided by conventional U.S. forces until their arrival.

“You’re the best this place has ever seen,” Army Maj. Gen. Eric Olson, the top field commander in Afghanistan, told a gathering Marines at Kandahar Airfield this weekend.

The Marines' offensive, he said, put the Taliban on the run in their own back yard.

“Never again can they use that place as a sanctuary,” said Olson. “You proved to the world the United States of America is going to take this fight to the most dangerous part of Afghanistan unafraid and absolutely determined.”

Olson said the Marine offensive also caught the Taliban off guard.

“You rocked him back on his heels. You knocked him on his ***.

“You went places that has never seen an American.

“You went to find him on his turf, on his terms, on his ground and kicked him in the ***.

“And that surprised him.”

Olson said the MEU’s performance had also “made an impression on the most senior leaders.”

Quoting Lt. Gen. David Barno, the overall commander of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, Olson said,

“Never in the history of Operation Enduring Freedom has there been an offensive operation like the one the 22nd MEU conducted. Never have we been this successful. You have made history here.”

......

Outstanding, Marines!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20312-2004Jul28.html


Reuters
Wednesday, July 28, 2004; 5:33 AM

KABUL (Reuters) - An ammunition depot blew up near the Afghan capital after it was hit by a rocket, a spokesman for foreign peacekeepers said Wednesday.

The rocket attack, the third in less than two weeks in or around Kabul, happened hours before a missile landed just outside the Chinese embassy and not far from the presidential palace.

No one was hurt in Tuesday night's strikes, said commander Chris Henderson from the 6,500-strong International Security Assistance Force led by NATO.

Rocket attacks on Kabul appear to be becoming more frequent as Afghanistan approaches a presidential election in October that Islamic militants have vowed to disrupt.

Afghan officials usually blame remnants of the ousted Taliban and guerrilla allies for such attacks.

But Tuesday's strikes also coincided with political tension in President Hamid Karzai's government heightened by his decision to drop powerful Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim Qasim as his running mate in the October 9 poll.

Henderson said he saw no definite link between the attacks and the tensions.

Separately, two soldiers from the 20,000-strong U.S.-led force hunting remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda were wounded Tuesday when their convoy was attacked by small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades in the southern province of Zabul, a U.S. military statement said.

The soldiers were flown for treatment to Kandahar airfield, a key U.S. base in southern Afghanistan, it said, adding that they were in a stable condition.

The Zabul ambush came a day after three American soldiers and their Afghan translator were wounded in a blast in another part of the restive province where militants are active.

Another U.S. soldier was wounded Friday outside Kandahar city when his car was hit in explosion from a parked car triggered by a remote controlled device.

The attacks are part of a surge of violence ahead of a landmark presidential election and parliamentary polls due in April. More than 900 people have been killed in the violence, mostly across southern and eastern Afghanistan, in the last year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21883-2004Jul28.html


By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 28, 2004; 8:57 PM


KABUL, Afghanistan - Medecins Sans Frontieres became the first major aid agency to quit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, saying Wednesday that the government failed to act on evidence that local warlords were behind the murder of five of its staff.

The Nobel prize-winning medical relief group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, denounced the U.S. military's use of aid to persuade Afghans to snitch on insurgents, saying it risked turning all relief workers into targets. It was also dismayed that Taliban rebels tried to claim responsibility for the June 2 attack on its staff.

"We feel that the framework for independent humanitarian action in Afghanistan at present has simply evaporated," said Kenny Gluck, MSF's director of operations. There is a "lack of respect for the safety of aid workers."

The withdrawal of Medecins Sans Frontieres, which had 80 international volunteers and 1,400 Afghan staff in the country before the June attack, is the most dramatic example yet of how poor security more than two years after the fall of the Taliban is hampering the delivery of badly needed aid.

More than 30 aid workers have been killed here since March 2003, rendering much of the south and east off-limits.

On Wednesday, a bomb exploded in a mosque where Afghans were registering for coming elections, killing at least two people, officials said. Three rockets fired into Kabul overnight blew up an arms dump at an Afghan military base and narrowly missed the Chinese Embassy. No one was hurt.

President Hamid Karzai said he regretted MSF's decision and insisted authorities were investigating the June attack.

The government is "fully committed to bringing to justice those responsible for murdering the MSF employees" and making the country safe for aid workers, a statement from his office said.

The assault on the MSF workers in northwestern Badghis, the deadliest yet on an international relief agency, raised fears that the north was also becoming too dangerous.

Badghis police say two men on a motorcycle stopped an MSF vehicle as it returned to the provincial capital Qala-e-Naw from a rural clinic. The three Europeans and two Afghans inside were shot dead.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, and accused the victims of working for American interests - a shock to MSF, which relies on neutrality to protect staff who venture into war zones.

But MSF officials said Wednesday that the Afghan interior minister had told them there was "credible evidence" that a former local security chief in Badghis had ordered the killing to protest his ouster.

That the official, who wasn't identified, has been neither arrested nor denounced "sends a message that it is acceptable to kill aid workers," Gluck told reporters. A spokesman for Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali had no comment.

The aid group also called on the U.S. military to halt its expanding use of humanitarian work to win over skeptical Afghans.

U.S. and NATO troops are running a string of so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams across the country, setting up clinics, digging wells and doing other work normally carried out by civilians.

The military apologized in May for distributing leaflets telling Afghans that they had to provide information on militants if they wanted assistance to continue.

Blurring the distinction "puts all aid workers in danger," MSF secretary-general Marine Buissonniere said.

The U.S. military said the protests were misguided.

"We don't put anyone in danger," spokesman Maj. Jon Siepmann said. Many aid groups were working effectively alongside American troops, he said. Others "need to direct their concern towards the Taliban, towards al-Qaida. We do nothing here but help."

MSF, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, has been working in Afghanistan for 24 years - through a decade of Soviet occupation, a brutal civil war and the rise and fall of the repressive Taliban. A French staffer was killed in 1990, but they have never withdrawn until now.

Gluck said staff providing health care and support to hospitals in 13 of the country's 34 provinces wept and begged them not to pull out this time either. He said action by the government, the U.S. military - and even assurances from the Taliban - could help them to come back.

"There are still massive unmet medical needs," he said. "We would be very anxious to return."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/29/uk.afghan.iraq/index.html

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A British parliamentary committee has warned that Afghanistan is likely to "implode, with terrible consequences" unless more troops and resources are sent to calm the country.

The all-party Foreign Affairs Select Committee, in a report released Thursday, said warlord violence and the struggle between U.S.-led troops and insurgents continues to be a threat to security in Afghanistan.

The wide-ranging report on the war against terrorism also said raised concerns over the failure of the UK government and its allies to limit the production of opium in Afghanistan.

"There is a real danger if these resources are not provided soon that Afghanistan -- a fragile state in one of the most sensitive and volatile regions of the world -- could implode, with terrible consequences," the committee says in its report.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0729/p06s01-wosc.html



Since taking command of US forces here, Lt. Gen. David Barno has focused US forces on nation building.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – When President Hamid Karzai chose to stand up this week to Afghanistan's most powerful warlord, Defense Minister Marshal Mohammed Fahim, he did so with the confidence that the US-led coalition here would keep the general's sizable militia in check.
As NATO forces stepped up patrols in Kabul, the peaceful announcement of Mr. Karzai's bold decision to bypass the defense chief as a vice presidential candidate was welcomed by one man in particular: top American officer Lt. Gen. David Barno.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/p11s01-usmi.html


GI Joe dolls, heavy-metal music, and jokes help soldiers at a remote US Army base in Afghanistan cope with the strange bedfellows of war - danger and boredom. This is what day-to-day life was like for the 10th Mountain Division, which just now is returning home.

ORGUN, AFGHANISTAN – "Incoming!" a soldier shouts when the first rocket explodes outside a dusty US military outpost near the Pakistan border.
It's dusk - the guerrillas' favorite time to strike and then slip away.

Moments later, the shrill, descending whistle of another rocket ends with a boom and dark cloud several hundred yards to our right.

Soldiers pull on their helmets and flak vests and bound toward a concrete bunker reinforced with sandbags. After they're crammed inside, nervous energy fuels black humor. "You're a lousy aim!" one GI yells toward the adjacent mountainside.

That British "report" on Afghanistan was so politically motivated and propagandistic as to be criminal. Forget Afghanistan, which is doing fine, here's what they said about Iraq:

quote:

---

On Iraq, the committee concluded that Al Qaeda had turned Iraq into a "battleground" with appalling consequences for the country's people.

The committee said the coalition's failure to establish law and order in parts of the country had, in addition, created a "vacuum" into which criminals and militias had poured.

---

Do we see in this report mention of the fact that 50% of polled Iraqis said they had a family member that was either murdered or tortured by Hussein's forces or knew of someone who did? No. Did they mention the mass graves, the tens of thousands of Kurds slaughtered, their women raped, their never having rights, etc? No. Did they mention that 25 million people are humming along democratically despite a car bombing here, a car bombing there? No.

Spare me.

Which article was that?

Well, they have a profound need to turn all our successes into "failures". Apparently that makes them feel better somehow.

Ameirca has done a damn fine job in Afghaninstan and Iraq and in such a short time.

Well, "they" are the anti-American Left, and there are plenty to be found here but unfortunately "they" are more prevalent than not in England. The Brits I've met and worked with in New York City over the last ten years are woefully anti-American and overwhelmingly socialist.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-07-29-afghan-clashes_x.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Three U.S. and two Afghan soldiers were wounded Thursday when a regional militia attacked their convoy in a remote province wracked by factional tension, the American military said.
U.S. and Afghan National Army soldiers in the convoy called in warplanes to help ward of attackers who rained fire on them on Thursday afternoon in central Ghor province, spokesman Maj. Rick Peat said. It was unclear if the planes inflicted any casualties.

"Attacks like this will not be tolerated," Peat said.

The wounded Americans were trainers embedded in a unit of the new U.S.-trained national army which is supposed to eventually replace the unruly warlord militias who still control much of the country.

All five wounded were listed as stable, including one American who was seriously injured, Peat said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25105-2004Jul29.html

Reuters
Thursday, July 29, 2004; 3:30 PM

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A U.S. military adviser to Afghanistan's fledgling army and two Afghan soldiers were killed Thursday in clashes with renegade factions in the central province of Ghor, a senior local official said.

The U.S. military in Kabul could not immediately confirm the report of the U.S. fatality.

In the latest sign of tensions between the U.S.-backed central government and factional commanders who oppose its drive to disarm them, fighting erupted in Ghalmin, near the provincial capital of Chaghcharan, Ghor police chief Amar Khuda said.

According to Khuda, the fighting erupted when Afghan National Army forces went to Ghalmin to convince General Zaman Khan and General Ahmad Khan to hand over their weapons.

Both generals had been involved in clashes in June when another commander forced them to flee Chaghcharan. They were then removed from their positions by the central government to appease local opposition, but have yet to lay down their arms.

Khuda said his forces there were now under "siege."

"We have informed the authorities in Kabul to come and rescue us from this siege," he told Reuters from Chaghcharan, adding that generals Ahmad and Zaman had around 3,000 fighters.

President Hamid Karzai sent ANA forces to Chaghcharan in June to defuse tensions after a renegade commander briefly took over control of the town.

The U.S. military has appointed advisers to the ANA to help train the fledgling force which now numbers around 12,000 troops.

Karzai has said factional commanders running private armies pose a greater threat to Afghan security than Islamic militants fighting an insurgency to disrupt preparations for landmark elections in October and April.

A nationwide disarmament drive has largely failed to disband these forces, many of which are led by senior government officials including the defense minister and the governor of the Western province of Herat.

The international community is concerned that factions opposed to Karzai and his reforms will seek to coerce voters or resort to violence in the runup to the polls.

More than 900 people have been killed in attacks in the last year, most of them related to remnants of the ousted Taliban and their militant allies.

According to the 20,000-strong U.S.-led force, a suspected militant was shot and wounded by Afghan police Thursday while attempting to lay explosives northwest of Qalat, capital of the southern Zabul province where Taliban are active.

The militant was flown to the U.S. airbase near the southern city of Kandahar. His condition is unknown, a statement said.

Separately, an Afghan was wounded by an explosive device in the central province of Uruzgan. He was evacuated to Kandahar.

(Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White in Kabul)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-08-01-afghan-vote_x.htm


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — About 90% of the Afghan electorate has registered to vote in October's landmark presidential election, the United Nations said Sunday, as it began winding down a registration effort marred by bloody attacks on election staff and voters.
According to the latest U.N. figures, 8.7 million of an estimated 9.8 million eligible voters have collected ID cards that will allow them to cast a ballot when polling begins Oct. 9 in Afghanistan's first-ever direct national vote.

The enthusiastic turnout is a relief for the world body, which has overcome misgivings about Afghanistan's readiness for elections under strong pressure from the United States. The vote had been delayed from June because of slow progress disarming warlords. A vote for Parliament was put off until next spring.

It is also a welcome surprise for President Hamid Karzai, who is widely expected to defeat 22 rivals to secure a new five-year term. The U.S.-backed interim leader was still saying in June that registering 6 million people would have been sufficient.

"The participation is amazing," U.N. spokesman David Singh said. "There was a lot of skepticism about this process at the beginning, but the targets have been fulfilled."

.......

This is great.

What pisses me off, though, is how the damn UN isw trying to take credit for it all. I expected it, but nevertheless, it is disgusting.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-08-02-afghan-fighting_x.htm


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — More than 100 Afghan and American troops supported by U.S. warplanes clashed with 50 militants near the Pakistani frontier Monday, inflicting "heavy losses" on the rebels in the fiercest border skirmish in months, the U.S. military said.
One Afghan soldier was reported killed and at least five injured in the fighting in Khost province, a former al-Qaeda stronghold in southeastern Afghanistan where the U.S. military maintains an important air base.

An Afghan commander said the fight began when the militants attacked a border post near Zhawara, 40 miles south of Khost city, early on Monday morning.

Maj. Rick Peat, an American spokesman, said U.S.-led troops and more than 100 Afghan militia soldiers engaged the militants at about 2 a.m. A B1 bomber, two A-10 ground-attack aircraft and four Cobra helicopter gunships provided support.

"The militants retreated in panic and were pursued by the attack aircraft," Peat said.

Gen. Khial Baz, the provincial military commander, said four Afghan soldiers were wounded. However, Peat said only two were hurt and that they were evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

Four hours later, U.S. and Afghan forces, supported A-10s, fought about 20 of the militants in a renewed battle.

"Again, the militants retreated after incurring heavy losses," Peat said.

.......

Outstanding!

Get some!