The center of gravity
In
an unusually public series of pronouncements, U.S., NATO, and Afghan
military officials have announced that the largest joint military
offensive since 2001 will soon be underway, targeting Marjah, a Taliban-held
town in the volatile southern province of Helmand, the
surrounding district of which is home to around 125,000 people and
between 600 and 1,700 Taliban and foreign fighters (NYT, WSJ, FT, Pajhwok, ABC, AP, AJE).
Though the start date of the operations is not disclosed for security
reasons, officials have been hinting about it for months, which has an
important benefit: civilians given warning may flee the area, but so
might Taliban fighters, to regroup elsewhere, but if the Taliban choose
flight over fight, the government could have the chance to tout a
"relatively easy win." However, the Taliban could also dig in and
fortify their defenses of the town, and more than 30 militants were
reportedly killed in Helmand in joint operations yesterday (Pajhwok).
Matthew
Green looks at a suspected Taliban commander in the Arghandab River
valley north of Kandahar, Said Amir Mohammed Agha, as a one-man case
study in plans for reconciliation between the insurgency and the Afghan
government (FT). Joshua Partlow lays out a host of concerns about the Afghan government's top-down approach to reconciliation (Wash Post).
And the new allied commander in southern Afghanistan has in recent
months revamped the coalition's strategy there, focusing on two
population centers in Helmand and Kandahar which have some two-thirds
of the provinces' residents (WSJ).
Violence of action
Yesterday's
bombing in the northwestern Pakistani district of Dir that left three
U.S. soldiers dead and two wounded inadvertently drew back the veil
from the small, low-profile U.S. military presence in Pakistan, a
country where anti-American sentiment is rampant and high (NYT, AP, WSJ, Wash Post, McClatchy, AP).
Those killed were part of a group of at least 60 to 100 members of a
Special Operations team that has since 2008 quietly been training
Pakistan's weak and under-equipped Frontier Corps.
Clashes
between the Pakistani military and Taliban militants continue in the
tribal agency of Bajaur, as helicopter gunships slammed militant
hideouts in several towns in the agency yesterday, killing around a
dozen fighters (Dawn, Daily Times, Geo).
According to reports in the main town of Bajaur, large numbers of
militants have shaved their beards and joined citizens fleeing the
fighting. And speculation continues about the fate of Hakimullah
Mehsud, the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, who may have been killed in
a suspected U.S. drone strike in mid-January (Dawn).
Authorities
in Pakistan's commercial capital, the southern city of Karachi, have
given the Pakistan Rangers, a paramilitary force, powers to conduct
raids and make arrests for the next month, after weeks of tit-for-tat
targeted killings between rival political parties have left dozens dead
(Bloomberg, The News, BBC).
The chief minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital,
said earlier today that lawmakers from the different parties have
agreed to put an end of the political violence.
Behind bars
After
a two-week trial she frequently interrupted with outbursts in a
district court in Manhattan, Aafia Siddiqui, a MIT- and
Brandeis-trained Pakistani neuroscientist, was convicted yesterday of
attempting to kill U.S. soldiers in the summer of 2008 while in custody
in Ghazni, Afghanistan (NYT, WSJ, AFP, AJE, The News, Dawn, ABC, Reuters, AFP, AP).
Lawyers for Siddiqui, who could face up to life in prison and is due
for sentencing in May, the Embassy of Pakistan, her family,
and Pakistanis all expressed dismay at the verdict, which Siddiqui
greeted with cries as she left the courtroom of, "This is a verdict
coming from Israel, not America."
Dust Devils v. Desert Dogs
Without
ice and without pucks, Canadian and other western troops at Kandahar
Air Field in southern Afghanistan are still getting their hockey fixes
in an informal hockey league among soldiers based there (AP).
The league, which has two divisions and more than two dozen teams, is
rigorously refereed, and players are often ejected for offenses such as
roughing, high sticking, and unsportsmanlike conduct.
Sign up here to receive the daily brief in your inbox.
(1)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE