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Operation Spring Cleaning
The
United States plans to send 1,000 laser-guided bomb kits to Pakistan
later this month and is also on track to deliver 18 F-16 fighter jets,
allowing Islamabad to improve the accuracy of its attacks on militants
in the restive tribal region of South Waziristan and minimize civilian
casualties (WSJ, Reuters, Geo, Dawn/AFP).
The sales reportedly reflect a lessening concern in Washington about
Pakistan, as intelligence and military cooperation between the two has
deepened in recent months.
During yesterday's journalist tour
of the recently captured Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold town of
Damadola in the northern tribal region of Bajaur, Pakistani security
forces showed a network of 156 caves in the mountains that the fighters
had used as living space and headquarters, strewn with pillows and
blankets (WSJ, Times, Tel).
Bajaur was the site of a Pakistani military operation in the fall and
winter of 2008, but militants reemerged and a new offensive was
launched in late January. And Pakistani authorities and Taliban
militants in North Waziristan have apparently launched a war of
pamphlets, as both distributed competing messages via leaflet yesterday
amidst rumors of impending military operations there (The News, Daily Times).
Pakistani
security forces reportedly killed two Pakistani Taliban commanders
yesterday in Operation Spring Cleaning in Frontier Region Peshawar,
including a supplier of suicide vests and explosive equipment (CNN, AFP, The News, Daily Times).
In the southwestern province of Baluchistan, unknown fighters threw
grenades into a crowd at a music show at an engineering school, killing
one student, while in the northwestern tribal region of Khyber
suspected Taliban militants attacked and destroyed a boys' school (AFP/Dawn).
A Taliban ban in Afghanistan
Karen
DeYoung and Joshua Partlow have today's must-read describing the
confusion that has resulted from Afghan President Hamid Karzai's
invitation to the Taliban to participate in a peace jirga this spring (Wash Post).
While some coalition members are eager to push forward with talks, the
Obama administration reportedly wants to wait until its military
position is stronger, and the Afghan government has been laying the
groundwork for at least some Taliban members to be accommodated.
The
Taliban, who banned television, music, and the internet during their
time in power in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, yesterday joined the
chorus of Afghan and international journalists and officials
criticizing the Afghan government's newly-announced ban on live media
coverage of militant attacks (AFP, NYT, Reuters, Pajhwok, BBC).
A Taliban spokesman commented, "This totally undermines freedom of the
press and expression and cannot be justified by any means."
Although
the Afghan Taliban has already claimed responsibility for last Friday's
attacks in Kabul that left 16 people including six Indians dead, an
Afghan intelligence official asserted yesterday that the Pakistan-based
Lashkar-e-Taiba -- the same group behind the November 2008 Mumbai
attacks -- was responsible, citing evidence that the team of suicide
bombers was speaking Urdu and searching for Indian victims (AP, Wash Post).
However, a U.S. military intelligence official reportedly said
yesterday that the Haqqani network was behind the attacks, while Indian
officials claim the Haqqanis worked with the Afghan Taliban to stage
the strikes.
Obstacles in Afghanistan
The AP highlights that the focus of current coalition
operations in Marjah, in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, is
not the area's pervasive and lucrative poppy trade (AP).
Local residents in Helmand have asked the government not to destroy
their crops, and under a new plan for eradicating the country's opium
poppies announced by the Afghan government earlier today, conflict
areas will not be targeted until security is improved (Pajhwok, AP).
Eradication
programs have already begun in Farah and Nangarhar, and will soon be
put into place in Kandahar; Afghanistan is the source of 90 percent of
the world's heroin.
The Afghan Taliban have reportedly captured the commander of a
tribal militia in the northern province of Kunduz, along with three
companions, and all are still alive according to a Taliban spokesman (Pajhwok).
According
to the top U.S. army officer in charge of training Afghanistan's
security forces, two-thirds of recruits to the Afghan National Police
drop out (AFP).
And while civilian casualties in Afghanistan are down overall following
an edict from top U.S. and NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal
limiting the use of air strikes, deaths in 'escalation of force'
incidents -- in which anxious U.S. troops fire on civilians who come
too close to their convoys -- rose 43 percent in 2009, from 79 in 2008
to 113 (McClatchy).
Kickbacks okay here
Afghan
kickboxers have won five gold medals, one silver, and one bronze in the
Asian Full Contact Kickboxing Championship in India (Pajhwok). It is unknown whether they have been recruited to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.
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