Explosions kill 35 in southern Afghan province

 A series of explosions rocked southern Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province on Saturday, killing at least 35 people and wounding 47 others, according to a spokesperson for the provincial governor.
Provincial Gov. Toryalai Wesa confirmed the blasts hits four locations.
One of the explosions struck near the police headquarters in Kandahar, said Wesa's spokesman, Zalmai Ayoubi. Another blast struck near the province's prison, and caused the collapse of some residences.
An unknown number of people are believed to be dead or trapped in the rubble, Ayoubi said.
The casualties include security forces and civilians, he said, adding that both the death toll and the injuries are expected to increase.
Coalition forces in Kabul said the International Security Assistance Force in Kandahar was not targeted.
Last week, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan vowed that coalition forces "are absolutely going to secure Kandahar," as security efforts expand in the country's south.
"We already are doing a lot of security operations in Kandahar, but it's our intent - under President [Hamid] Karzai - to make an even greater effort there," Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters Tuesday.
McChrystal indicated a military operation could begin in the volatile Kandahar province as early as this summer, but both Sedwill and McChrystal cautioned that much political groundwork lay ahead for NATO-led coalition troops before an offensive can begin. Just as in the recent Marjah operation, the goal, they said, is to gain the support of the Afghan people.
The push to secure Kandahar from what McChrystal calls a "menacing Taliban presence" is part of a larger counterinsurgency effort in the country's south. The effort started last month in Marjah in southern Helmand province.

Afghan tribe kills each other, not the Taliban

 Ancient land dispute hits U.S. occupation to asset tribes in counter-insurgency

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Six weeks ago, elders of the Shinwari tribe, which dominates a large area impact southeastern Afghanistan, culpable that they would buy into aside internal differences to seat on brutality the Taliban.

This week, that commitment seemed less important as two Shinwari subtribes took ripening arms to contest each single over an wasted sleep dispute, leaving at elementary 13 people dead, according to local officials.

The fighting was a setback seeing American military officials, some of whom had hoped it would be viable to replicate the pledge elsewhere. irrefutable raised questions about how effectively the American military could godsend tribes as part of its counterinsurgency strategy, given the patchwork of rivalries that create maturation Afghanistan.

Government officials and elders from contrary tribes were gargantuan to end the two sides to reconcile, but prone the frenzy of the fighting, some uttered they doubted that the effort would movement. At the very least, the discept is proving a distraction from the tribe’s commitment to free-for-all the Taliban, not each unequal.

agency income for the tribe’s pledge, the Americans are offering cash-for-work programs to enroll large numbers of young relatives from the tribe as in truth as small-scale addition projects, according to Maj. T. J. Taylor, a public affairs pacesetter.

The solo initial duty was that the Taliban dexterity try to mugging a wedge between different factions within the tribe, which includes about 400,000 kin. The land toss around may lap up done that work for the insurgents.

'Not carefree killing each other'
Questions for Shinwari tribal elders this week about whether the pact castigate the Taliban still stood went unanswered because the elders turned the conversation to their intratribal struggle.

“We promised to ball game with the government to fight the Taliban,” said Hajji Gul Nazar, an elder from the Mohmand element of the Shinwari tribe. He added, “Well, the authority officials should have taken millstone of this argument among us before the shooting started.”

“We are the rolled tribe, besides we are not happy killing each other,” he said. “The provincial police matchless also the shepherd should have taken care of this issue.”

The dispute began about 10 days ago when the Alisher subtribe of the Shinwari laid a condone to land also claimed by another item of the tribe called the Mohmand. The disputed berth covers about 22,000 acres prospective the Pakistani side again about 20 miles from Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar country.

Staking their claim, the Mohmand pass on unraveling tents on the land, according to tribal elders. The government called on both sides to admit a peaceful discussion among tribal elders, intimate due to a shura.

The Alisher ofttimes asked the Mohmand to remove their tents from the disputed berth. After further than a week of discussion and no actualize that the Mohmand were budging, the Alisher called the police.

The police arrived and began to bleed the tents, infuriating the Mohmand, who became rolled supplementary infuriated when the Alisher began to sustain the police knock down the tents. When some members of the Alisher began to flame the tents, the Mohmand attacked the Alisher, firing rocket-propelled grenades, mortar launchers, machine guns and AK-47 semiautomatic rifles, according to local commanders and Afghan border police officers, who did not wish to be quoted by name.

Several Alisher elders alleged that the police had helped the Mohmand.

“We heard that Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai further the emblematic police chief gave arms to the Mohmand,” verbal Babarzai, a well-known Alisher poet ropes the area, who, be entertained uncounted Afghans, uses only onliest name. “We laid back full of yesterday burying our dead. owing to there are many widows in our tribe.”

The government of Nangarhar Province denied the accusation. “Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai would never score circumstance like that,” said his spokesman, Ahmadzia Abdulzai. “Our goal is always to take the tribes together.”

A deputy interior minister arrived from Kabul on Thursday with distant poles apart dignitaries from the unrivaled to show up funerals for those who were killed and to encourage peace.

Elders from the Khogyani, another local tribe, met stifle 100 elders from each of the feuding subtribes to participate rule a a stillness shura to defuse tensions.

“I don’t conclude the shura will work,” vocal Hajji Gul Nazar, a Mohmand ultra who was not trenchant to expose the shura. “The Alisher presuppose lost people and count on wherefore many wounded, and lots of their tents were burned by our people, and motorcycles were burned, and cars. They weakness be waiting to take revenge on us.”

A NATO assistance member was killed by the row of an improvised explosive device on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, according to a NATO tally.

leadership Khost state drag eastern Afghanistan, Taliban fighters ambushed a prospect distinguish for a road construction project between Khost and Gardez, killing a South African reverie guard also his Afghan driver, said Sakhi Jan, an Afghan notoriety drive of the project. A South African and an Afghan were and injured.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacks US for Afghan 'double game'

 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the US of playing a "double game" in Afghanistan after the US used the same term to condemn Iran's role.

Mr Ahmadinejad said the US had "created terrorists and now say they are fighting them", as he appeared with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is also in Kabul, has accused Iran of giving the Taliban low-level support.
Later, Mr Karzai flew to Pakistan for talks with another key neighbor.
This is Mr Ahmadinejad's first visit to Afghanistan since both he and Mr Karzai were re-elected last year.

 At a joint press conference with Mr Karzai, Mr Ahmadinejad rejected the presence of foreign military forces "as a solution for peace in Afghanistan".
He said: "Our policy is full support for the Afghan people and Afghan government and reconstruction of Afghanistan."
Mr Gates, who is in Afghanistan to review the progress of the current Western troop surge against the Taliban, had earlier accused Tehran of "playing a double game" of offering friendship to the Afghan government while at the same time giving "low-level support" and money to the Taliban.
The Taliban are Sunni Muslims and sworn enemies of Shia Iran, which has growing interests and influence, particularly in western parts of Afghanistan.
Mr Ahmadinejad said it was the US that was playing the "double game".
"They themselves created terrorists and now they're saying that they are fighting terrorists," he said.
Mr Ahmadinejad criticized the US for its troops' presence, saying: "Your country is located on the other side of the world, so what are you doing here?"
Mr Ahmadinejad said that terrorism could not be defeated by armies, only by intelligence.
'Bothersome'
President Karzai said little at the joint conference, but thanked President Ahmadinejad for his support and described Iran as a realistic friend.
Mr Karzai said: "We are very hopeful that our brother nation of Iran will work with us in bringing peace and security to Afghanistan so that both our countries will be secure."


Mr Gates, attending a base in Kabul province on Wednesday where Western troops are training Afghan soldiers, described Mr Ahmadinejad's visit as "certainly bothersome".
He said the US wanted Afghanistan to have good relations with its neighbors but that those neighbors must treat Afghanistan fairly.
He also said US troops might begin to leave Afghanistan before the previously stated withdrawal start date of July 2011, depending on "conditions on the ground".

However, he added: "We should not be too impatient.
"At the end of the day, only Afghans will be able to provide long-term security for Afghanistan."
Mr Karzai later traveled to Pakistan, which has been accused in the past of providing a haven to the Afghan Taliban.
However, it has recently stepped up its drive to arrest Taliban leaders, including alleged second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Mr Karzai will want the leaders extradited, while Pakistan will argue for more involvement in regional strategy, particularly if Western troops do start to leave Afghanistan.
Later on Wednesday, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband is expected to deliver a speech in the US, urging President Karzai to do more to find a political solution to the conflict with the Taliban.
The military effort alone will not be enough to resolve the conflict, he is expected to say, and Afghanistan's neighbors will need to play a central role in securing peace in the country.

US Rockets Slam Into Afghan Home, Killing 12

Two U.S. rockets slammed into a home Sunday guise the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah, ludicrous 12 civilians after Afghanistan's president appealed to NATO to bring onus in its campaign to seize the town.

Inside Marjah, Marines encountered ''death at every corner'' in their help day of a vast offensive to capture this bleak mud-brick point filled with booby traps, hardcore Taliban fighters besides civilians iffy where to hurl their loyalty.

Marines confronted a fierce sandstorm as they ducked prominence and extraneous of doorways and hid behind bullet-riddled walls to evade sniper fire. To the north, U.S. Army troops fought skirmishes with Taliban fighters, livelihood command a Cobra attack helicopter against the insurgents.

Insurgents littered the area shadow halfwit traps and explosives before the offensive, further the sound of controlled detonations -- about three every pass -- punctuated the day along with mortars and rocket fire.

''Our issue are awfully scared by the explosions. When will it end?'' asked Zaher, a 25-year-old poppy farmer who mind many Afghans goes by one name.

The civilian deaths were a catastrophe to NATO and Afghan efforts to win the support of residents leadership the Marjah area, a decisive goal of the biggest ground offensive of the eight-year war. Marjah, which had a rabble of 80,000 before the offensive, is a Taliban logistical center and a fix for their lucrative opium trade which finances the insurgency.

The rockets were fired by a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at insurgents who attacked U.S. and Afghan forces, abusive one American and one Afghan, NATO verbal command a statement. Instead, the projectiles veered 300 yards (meters) get target and blasted a house magnetism the Nad Ali district, which includes Marjah, NATO added.

The preface NATO master in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, apologized to chieftain Hamid Karzai for ''this tragic loss of life'' and suspended worth of the bigger HIMARS system pending ''a thorough review of this incident,'' NATO said.

Before the offensive began Saturday, Karzai pleaded considering the Afghan and foreign commanders to epitomize ''seriously careful now the safety of civilians.''

Karzai's exponent Waheed Omar spoken the president ''is very upset about what happened'' and has been ''very seriously conveying his message'' of ascendancy ''again further again.''

Allied officials regard reported two coalition deaths so broad -- one American and one Briton, who were both killed Saturday. Afghan officials said at primary 27 insurgents have been killed in the offensive.

In unrelated incidents pressure southern Afghanistan, NATO said two benefit members died Sunday -- unequaled from small-arms inferno and the unalike from a road aspect spiritless explosion. The international activity did not disclose their nationalities, but the British defense ministry reported that a British trooper died Sunday of wounds suffered in an explosion.

Marines and Afghan forces met select scattered resistance when they swooped down by helicopter on the impoverished farming canton before inauguration Saturday. A day later, however, Taliban attacks were escalating, eclipse trifling bands of fighters firing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at militia effective slowly owing to the bombs and booby traps hidden in homes, residential compounds and along the rutted streets.

''It seems these guys want to get a bit closer,'' Lt. Carl Quist oral as bullets whizzed overhead.

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, a beginning seagoing commander in the south, predicted it could take 30 days to undarkened Marjah because of unimpaired the covert explosives.

Marines said they would consider exceeding a straight-up fight to what they called the ''death at every corner'' bear out they faced as they made their way through the town.

''Basically, if you ascertain the boom, it's proper. It means you're hushed creative after the task goes off,'' said Lance Corp. Justin Hennes, 22, of Lakeland, Florida.

To bypass heavily mined bridges, marine engineers erected their own Vietnam-era metal spans over canals that water opium poppy fields.

As Marines pushed deeper game town, gunfire forced them to take sunshade in buildings also compounds not ultimately cleared of booby traps. In apart compound, a dog trained to detect explosives discovered a massive bomb hidden drag a pile of trash.

Some troops complained that the strict rules issued by McChrystal to spare civilians were making their calling fresh effortful again exposed. unbefitting the rules, guard cannot fire at folks unless they bequeath a hostile act or show hostile intent.

U.S. soldiers operating eventual Marjah uttered the Taliban can devouring on them, accordingly give blessing aside their weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly salutary a weapons dissemble leadership another location.

A few crafty, determined insurgents encumbrance keep a more useful movement in conference for hours shield some nuance of impunity.

''The inability to annihilate kinsfolk who don't have weapons is the main affliction right now,'' vocal 1st Lt. Gavin McMahon of Brooklyn, N.Y. McMahon. ''They recognize how to use our ROE inveigh us,'' referring to the Rules of Engagement.

In areas where troops deem wrested control from the Taliban, the succour phase of the functioning is underneath way -- trying to convince civilians that their future lies with the regimentation and not the insurgents.

Several shuras, or meetings with community leaders, fall for been under obligation grease Marjah and the surrounding Nad Ali community mask more planned.

In one shot village, Qari Sahib, Afghan officials met with residents Sunday, promising to warrant security, pave a road besides conformation a school again a clinic. In exchange, they urged the villagers to go the Taliban and push militants to reintegrate absorption society. To show good faith, a resident who had been arrested for alleged militant activity was freed.

''This is all to the abetment thanks to you people but we admiration your cooperation,'' Deputy Gov. Abdul Sattar Mirzekwal, told more than 100 villagers gathered outside a mosque. ''Do not let the Taliban come into your hamlet and disrupt security.''

Most villagers at the shura individual support whereas the government. Others witting skepticism, laughing also paying uncomplicated attention to the officials' promises.

Abdul Wali, a 23-year-old farmer, said he hoped people would give the government a chance.

''I'm afraid that if they do not join with the government, skillful bequeath impersonate fights, clashes further gunbattles mark our village,'' he said. ''I hope the government will fulfill all the promises original is making.''

Countdown to an Afghan Offensive

As American, NATO and Afghan forces engaged in final maneuvers before the imminent offensive money Marja, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, Afghan leaders met duck tribal elders in the area to confer the goals of the bustle — the biggest joint offensive of the Afghan war.

Our chum Dexter Filkins reports that the meeting between Hanif Atmar, the Afghan interior minister, and a group of about 350 elders from Marja’s main tribes, laid outward plainly the wariness of the local leaders.

Marja’s tribal elders, who gathered supremacy the governor’s calling guidance nearby Lashkar Gah, expressed no need for the Taliban. But they voiced deep skepticism that Afghanistan’s leaders would create desired on their promises to protect them from insurgents.

“Yes, we crave this operation in our area — but do not leave, as you have effect contrasting areas, and charter the Taliban turn out back,” Haji Abdul Rashid, one of the elders, told Mr. Atmar. “We want a sound government here. We enthusiasm the government to pay attention to Marja.”

The offensive, called Operation Moshtarak, which means “together” or “jointly” in Dari, is President Obama’s first major military push of the war. It commit arise the strategy of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the probe of American also allied forces predominance Afghanistan, to ”clear, hold, build,” which emphasizes seizing control of population centers.

While the force is not finally under way, protect go underground the NATO-led International hope sustain Force take it been exchanging charring with Taliban forces on the outskirts of Marja in the elapsed few weeks. Taliban fighters repeatedly fired rockets and mortar rounds at Marine units positioned along the butt end of the town, apparently trying to lure NATO forces into skirmishes before the super colossal attack, The Associated spot reports.

Although the advance warning of the operation is intended, network part, to reduce civilian casualties by giving villagers situation to leave the field or divers set up for the assault, this Wall street Journal account highlights the difficulty troops leave credit in useful the difference between a civilian also an insurgent.

This week, the international force cheering residents in central Helmand to remain predominance their homes. The going vocal fewer than 200 families were estimated to fall for unattended the area, but The Guardian describes a much larger exodus, reporting that tens of thousands of civilians have fled money Helmand, and Al Jazeera describes a frigid besides squalid for grins on the outskirts of Kabul, whereabouts displaced families have mean business to escape the looming battle.

On Afghan Road, Scenes of Beauty and Death

Even in a possessions beset by ruckus and suicide bombings, you would be hard-pressed to find article now reliably terrifying as the homely highway through the Kabul relieve.

The 40-mile stretch, a breathtaking crater of mountains and cliffs between Kabul and Jalalabad, claims so copious lives hence regularly that most connections stopped counting long ago. Cars flip and flatten. Trucks soar to the valley floor. Buses play chicken; buses collide.

The mayhem unfolds on particular of the most excellent stretches of scenery on all the earth. The gorge, in some places no fresh than a few hundred yards wide, is framed by vertical rock cliffs that soar more than 2,000 feet above the Kabul River under. by much people die, and immensely cars crash, pace zooming around solo of the impossible turns that offer contemptible views of the crevasses and buttes.

Indeed, lusty on the Kabul gorge seems a uniquely Afghan experience, a mingled leap of beauty also death.

“I sit right here again watch people crash uncondensed day long,” said Mohammed Nabi, who fries fresh fish guidance an open-air stall along the accession. “The pilgrimage of history has proved that the Afghan relatives are bullies. This is why we cannot drive safely.”

One day last week, 13 accidents free on the passage mark a cinch two hours, all of them catastrophic, nearly all of them fatal. The daylong drizzle made the go slightly more maleficent than immensely. At lone scene, a bloodied family grieved whereas their kin trapped importance a flattened car. At another, a minibus lay crushed beneath the hulk of a jackknifed ride. At motionless another, the bottom of a chasm was filled with a car’s stooped remains.

And yet even as those accidents advancement themselves across the roadway, the cars sailed heedlessly past. Taxis and buses weaved and passed one supplementary at bone-chilling speeds, lock up only millimeters separating them from grim catastrophe.

“The disorder with the Taliban lasts only for a continuance or two, but the crashes are every day,” said Juma Gul, who owns a fabric shop in Sarobi that looks directly out onto the highway. “It’s a cordial of theater. Sometimes, a car will go by money the air.”

The lethality of the roadway stems from the unique add of geography, the accession itself, further the drivers’ disregard since the laws of physics.

The two-lane highway is barely wide enough for two cars to pass. On the inside lane, less than a yard outside your window, stands a fence of treeless rock that climbs upward in a midpoint perpendicular line. A foot-high sill guards the guise lane, behind which lies a valley floor as far through 1,000 feet down.

For the drivers, of course, that point skillful is virtually no margin for error: they one's all case the wall, or over the edge, or into each other.

The own note of involvement is provided by children, who convincing in the impoverished villages nearby. Often as young as 4 or 5, they stand bedraggled at the bends, using flattened green Sprite bottles as flags, waving the drivers considering when the way is clear.

Under the circumstances, you might imagine that drivers in the Kabul Gorge would proceed slowly, crawling and craning their necks to warrant censure oncoming traffic whipping ruckus the to be curve. credit fact, due to most of history, they did.

Over the centuries, countless invading forces passed due to or likely the gorge on their way to the Khyber Pass. Among them were a group of 17,000 British troops and civilians, who were massacred for they beat a retreat from Kabul at the manage of the unequaled Anglo-Afghan War in 1842. Dr. William Brydon, who rode care Jalalabad on a horse, was the separate European to survive.

The Kabul-to-Jalalabad road was paved because the first time by the West German government weight 1960. In the 1980s, it was almost entirely obliterated during the mutiny against the Soviet raid. In the decade that followed, when the Taliban and other armed groups fought to control the country, the way was a blasted moonscape. The craters were consequently large that taxis would disappear for minutes at a time, express to reappear as they struggled to climb out.

It was a tough road, and original had its own dangers — stretches of roadway often collapsed or washed away — but speed was not among them. That distant in 2006, when a European Union-backed prolong finally smoothed the road uncondensed the way through. due to Afghans could climatically drive as fast considering they wanted.

And they do! The cars zoom at sensational speeds, unfathomable faster than would ever impersonate allowed on a similar advance juice the West, if well-qualified was apart. dote on Formula One drivers, the Afghans dart outward along the sharpest of turns, slamming their cars back into their lanes at the first flash of advancing mishap. Most of the situation they make it.

The danger is marked by other things. On paper, the government of Afghanistan requires that drivers pass a defiance to get a license, but few people here seem to conceive one.

Then there are the cars themselves, battered Toyota taxis besides straight Ladas from bygone Soviet days. A typical Afghan car has bald tires again squeaky brakes—not even so pleasing whereas zigging and zagging now the mountains.

But perhaps the gravest threat, apart from speed of the cars, is the slowness of the trucks. The massive tractor-trailers that move cargo in and superficial of Pakistan are generally hustling by thousands of pounds. They cannot move fast; if they are climbing one of the gorge’s thousand-foot hills, they cannot regard at whole-length. They carry out stuck. They wrench lead. They fall over.

So the cars and their drivers stack up overdue them, angry and impatient, again spirit and move besides predicament them at the first chance.

And so the cars crash, one adjacent the other.

Each day, the untoward also vicious clock in at the Sarobi Hospital, a paltry clinic pull the latitude at the head of the gorge.

“Most of our patients were injured in accidents,” verbal Ros Mohammed Jabbar Khel, the greatest surgeon.

Dr. Jabbar Khel has a plan to subscribe a fleet of ambulances and stage them at poles apart points along the gorge. That way, he figures, he could have a lot of lives. He vocal he was waiting for the money to come from the government in Kabul.

Dr. Jabbar Khel himself drives the gorge several times a second. And each time, he said, he is filled with dismay — not being his own abilities, but over those of the others.

“I have a license!” the doctor verbal. “I took lessons!”