Uneasy allies
The German army plans to stage an offensive in October alongside Afghan
forces to clear Taliban from villages in northern Afghanistan (WSJ).
Germany has come under criticism for being too passive in fighting the
Taliban in their zone of responsibility, and army leaders want in part to
dispel the notion that Germans are unwilling to fight the Taliban. The New York Times
today has a must-read on the difficulty of engaging in counterinsurgency
around the city of Kunduz while U.S. forces try to learn to trust their
erstwhile Afghan partners (NYT).
After last week's U.N. decision to remove individuals and organizations
linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda from an international blacklist,
Afghanistan's National Security Council has reportedly asked the U.N. to
remove more names of Taliban leaders (AFP).
Two
suicide bombers targeted a guest house in Kabul run by the Hart private
security firm yesterday, killing two drivers but failing to breach the
guest house's protection before detonating their explosives (NYT, VOA, Wash Post, AFP). And three Afghan civilians were killed when their car struck a roadside bomb in Ghazni province (CNN, AP).
Unexpected enemies
In
a leaked email exchange released yesterday, five prominent human rights
groups including Amnesty International and the International Crisis
Group wrote a letter to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urging the
latter to redact the names of Afghans who worked with international
forces from thousands of documents released online (Guardian, BBC, Independent, Tel).
The exchange prompted angry retorts from Assange, who demanded that
Amnesty provide staff to help search through the documents, and the
WikiLeaks Twitter account ran a message saying that Amnesty
International, "is primary [sic] funded by the occupying forces of
Afghanistan" (CNN).
Amnesty
also called yesterday for the Taliban to be tried for war crimes, a
move that would have consequences for reconciliation efforts (AP).
The deluge
Pakistan's
Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani visited inundated parts of
Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab province on Tuesday, as forecasters
predicted yet more rain, and relief efforts continue to test the
capacity of Pakistan's government (Dawn, CNN, NYT, Dawn).
The flooding has done extensive damage not only to Pakistan's
infrastructure and electricity generation but also to agriculture, and
the government announced it will waive farm loans and help rebuild
houses destroyed in the deluge as food prices keep rising (Bloomberg, AJE). The flooding has also sparked a debate over a 40-year old proposal to build a giant dam on the Indus river (WSJ).
The
United States yesterday increased its aid to Pakistan to $55 million,
and clearing weather in the Swat Valley has allowed the resumption of
U.S. helicopter rescue and relief missions (AP, Dawn, NPR).
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told Pakistanis to refuse the
aid, saying instead that the Taliban will provide for them (AP, AFP, Reuters, Daily Times).
And despite the increase in U.S. aid the U.N. and Oxfam report that
only $45 million has been given to Pakistan by the international
community with another $91 million pledged, numbers far below donations
for previous crises in Pakistan and elsewhere (Wash Post, BBC, ET).
India has reportedly given no aid to Pakistan, with its high commission
in London indicating that the country has not made a decision about
providing flood assistance (Guardian).
Pakistani
President Asif Ali Zardari has an op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street
Journal responding to criticism of his absence during Pakistan's crisis,
writing, "I chose to use my travels to mobilize foreign
assistance-money,
supplies, food, tents, medical care, engineers, clean water and
medicine-for our people. Some have criticized my decision...but I felt
that I had to choose substance over
symbolism" (WSJ). And two more killings in Karachi have brought the death toll there since last Monday to at least 104 (Daily Times).
Flashpoint
Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went on T.V. to call for an end to the
"cycle of violence" in Kashmir, as anger grows among Kashmiri
separatists against India's protest-breaking tactics (BBC, Reuters).
Separately, U.S. defense officials, including Undersecretary for
Defense Michèle Flournoy told Indian reporters that the United States
was monitoring how Pakistan used arms given by the United States for
combating terrorism (AFP). Flournoy also said that the United States was only providing unarmed drone aircraft to Pakistan (ToI).
The honey trap
Pakistan's Daily Times
reports that Pakistani police are baiting men with women, before
catching the men "red-handed" with the women and demanding bribes (Daily Times).
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