Slow and steady
ISAF
commander Gen. David Petraeus and other military officers are publicly
and privately pushing to limit troop reductions starting in July 2011,
in order to allow time for U.S. forces to fully pursue a broad
counterinsurgency policy -- from raids and targeted killings to
improving governance and population protection (NYT, TIME).
U.S. forces expect increased fighting this fall around Kandahar, where
Special Forces are engaged in an active campaign to target Taliban
commanders inside the city while other forces will eventually clear the
city's outlying districts (Reuters, AP).
Rajiv Chandrasekaran has a must-read dispatch from Kandahar detailing a
land dispute that demonstrates the stark divide between Kandahar's
government and its people (Wash Post).
Afghan
President Hamid Karzai's reaction to an investigation of Afghanistan's
largest money-transfer business, the New Ansari Exchange, continues to
strain the relationship between Karzai and his American interlocutors
and has limited the reach of anti-corruption bodies mentored by U.S. federal
agencies (WSJ).
And the worsening insurgency and security situation throughout
Afghanistan is threatening to derail the upcoming scheduled
parliamentary elections, seen as necessary to show that the central
government can function independently of the United States (NYT).
An
ISAF operation in southeastern Afghanistan near Pakistan's border has
reportedly killed 20 fighters linked to the Haqqani Network (Dawn). In
eastern Afghanistan a crowd of 300 protesters chanted anti-U.S. slogans
in response to claims that NATO forces killed innocent civilians, a
claim NATO denied (AP). Pentagon officials are worried about the impending disclosure of additional documents from WikiLeaks (Wash Post).
And Gen. James Mattis was sworn in yesterday as the new commander of
the U.S. Central Command, the post that oversees American military
operations in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan (WSJ, AP, AFP).
Rising water
New
flood warnings threatened to push the devastation further into Punjab
and Sindh provinces, as the industrial city of Hyderabad braces for the
coming inundation (Dawn, Bloomberg, ET).
Key Pakistani crops such as wheat, sugarcane, cotton and tobacco have
been damaged in the flooding, and nearly 500,000 tons of wheat and sugar
are believed destroyed (BBC, Dawn, Reuters).
Pakistanis affected by flood and surging food prices began observing
the normally-festive month of Ramadan yesterday, and a leading religious
scholar said that destitute Pakistanis could fast later in the year if
need be (AP, Guardian).
And Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, whose government has been
severely tested by the flooding, will make his first tour of affected
areas today (Reuters, AP, Dawn).
The
U.N. launched a $460 million appeal for donations to Pakistan
yesterday, in order to provide aid over the next 90 days; currently $150
million has been pledged, but the U.N. says Pakistan needs at least
$300 million more (NYT, UN, AP, Tel).
The United States has stationed a Marine expeditionary ship, the U.S.S.
Peleliu, off the coast of Karachi, and the ship's 19 heavy-lift
helicopters will replace the six currently on loan from U.S. efforts in
Afghanistan (AP, NYT, AFP, Reuters, ET).
The United States raised its pledge to Pakistan to $72 million, and the
swift aid response from the United States is reportedly creating
goodwill in Pakistan (Dawn, Wash Post).
In
a briefing for Pakistani journalists a senior ISAF officer stated that
the "command and control" operations for the Afghan Taliban are based in
the Pakistani city of Quetta (ET).
And a Shi'a man was killed in apparent ethnic violence in Karachi, as
Karachi police announced that nearly 1,000 people have been killed in
the city in the last seven months (ET, Dawn).
Three vets, one leg, one mountain
Three
veterans from three U.S. wars -- Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan --
summited Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, with one
catch: all are amputees, and of the three only one still has a leg (AP, BBC).
The three took six days to do the climb along a specially-planned
route, in order to prove that amputees can still lead active lives in
spite of their injuries.
It has come to the author's attention
that a CNN piece quoted in yesterday's brief inaccurately portrayed a
twitter message from WikiLeaks. The piece quoted WikiLeaks as
referencing Amnesty International, where in reality the message
referenced the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). The
actual quote reads, "Research note: AIHRC is primary [sic] funded by the occupying forces of Afghanistan."
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