Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States, Admiral Michael G. Mullen Wednesday

AF/PAK SWEEP W 12.16.2009

PAKISTAN

1. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States, Admiral Michael G. Mullen Wednesday visited Pakistan's insurgency-hit Swat valley and met local military commanders, the army said. Mullen also held talks with Pakistan's army chef General AshfaqParvaiz Kayani, according to a brief army statement. Sources said that Mullen in meeting with Pakistan's army chief called for action against Afghan Taliban particularly Haqqani network, and believed to be active in North Waziristan tribal region. Haqqani network is believed to be run by Siraj Haqqani, son of former Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. XINHUA
   
2. Admiral Michael Mullen also said Wednesday that top al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership are hiding in Pakistan. "We see them still planning to kill as many Americans as they have before," Mullen told a selected group of journalist in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, where he is holding meetings with political and military leadership during a two-day visit. US authorities have routinely alleged that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan ever since US forces lost the world's most- wanted man in the mountains of Tora Bora, on the Afghan-Pakistani border, in December 2001. Similarly, the Americans have claimed that most of the top Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, are commanding the Afghanistan insurgency from Pakistan. Earth Times
3. Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships have pounded suspected Taliban hideouts in the northwest tribal belt, killing at least 43 militants, officials said Wednesday. The armed forces targeted Orakzai and Kurram districts, strongholds of militants linked to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). DAWN
   
4. Pakistani authorities have registered a case under the stringent Anti-Terrorism Act against the five American Muslim youths, who were recently arrested in Sargodha in Punjab [ Images ] province on suspicion of links with terrorist groups. "We will try them under the Anti-Terrorism Act and sections of the Pakistan Penal Code. We will soon reach the local people related to this network," said Usman Anwar, the police chief of Sargodha, where the US nationals were arrested on December 9. Authorities also obtained remand of the suspects -- Waqar Hussain Khan, 22, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, Ramy Zamzam, 22, Iman Hassan Yemer, 17, Omar Farooq, 24 and his father Khalid Farooq -- for 10 days from a magistrate in Sargodha on Tuesday. The suspects were taken from Lahore [ Images ] to Sargodha under tight security. REDIFF

AFGHANISTAN

1. A surge of bomb attacks and ambushes killed at least 18 people, including four NATO soldiers and six civilians, in flashpoints across Afghanistan ahead of an expected US surge, officials said Wednesday. The string of isolated attacks on Tuesday underscored the dangers in rural parts of Afghanistan, where government authority is often weak, and the deadly nature of roadside bombs, or improvised-explosive devices (IEDs). In the bloodiest attack, gunmen ambushed a station wagon, raking the vehicle with gunfire and killing six Afghan civilians in eastern Nangarhar province, said a statement from the presidency. DAWN
2. General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asked Russia on Wednesday to give the Western military alliance more help in Afghanistan but failed to get an immediate pledge of assistance from the Kremlin. On his first visit to Moscow since taking office on August 1, the NATO chief told senior officials that the bitter rows of recent years should not blind Russia to a common security threat from Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Rasmussen, who is trying to secure more support for the fight against the Taliban after U.S. President Barack Obama said he would deploy 30,000 more troops, said Russia could up its efforts by contributing more helicopters. "I suggested a helicopter package. I think Russia could contribute in a very concrete way by providing helicopters, helicopter training and spare parts," he said. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Medvedev would consider the request, but gave no indication that Moscow was willing to increase cooperation. REUTERS
   
3. Thousands of extra Marines pouring into Afghanistan's opium-growing heartland will go after those who process drugs but not those who grow the crop, the commander of U.S. Marines in the area said. Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of 10,000 Marines in Helmand, which produces the bulk of Afghanistan's and the world's opium crop, said his forces did not want to alienate local farmers by targeting the crop. "The reality we have to face right now is that the number one cash crop in this area is still the poppy. We are not making war with the poppy farmer," Nicholson said in an interview with Reuters and CNN at Camp Leatherneck, the Marines' sprawling desert base in Helmand. REUTERS
4. The United States has greatly expanded the use of a new supply route through Central Asia this year to send nonmilitary cargo to its troops in Afghanistan, a Defense Department official said on Tuesday. In the past 11 months, the United States has shipped almost 5,000 containers to its troops along the Central Asian railway route, said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Sedney. The route runs across Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. "We will expand this number (of containers) in 2010 to meet the new demand" that will be created by President Obama's decision to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Sedney told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee. The supply route, known as the Northern Distribution Network, is helping complement heavily burdened supply lines that run through Pakistan to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Sedney said. Washington has been working with Central Asian governments to diversify supply routes for its troops as militants in Pakistan sometimes attack convoys. REUTERS
   

1. The U.S. military command has quietly shifted and intensified the mission of clandestine special operations forces in Afghanistan, senior officials said, targeting key figures within the Taliban, rather than almost exclusively hunting Al Qaeda leaders. As a result of orders from Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, the special operations teams are focusing more on killing militants, capturing them or, whenever possible, persuading them to turn against the Taliban-led insurgency. The number of raids carried out by such units as the Army's Delta Force and Navy's SEAL Team Six in Afghanistan has more than quadrupled in recent months. The teams carried out 90 raids in November, U.S. officials said, compared with 20 in May. U.S. special operations forces primarily conduct missions in eastern and southern Afghanistan. LAT

1. The surge of 30,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan could be accompanied by a surge of up to 56,000 contractors, vastly expanding the presence of personnel from the U.S. private sector in a war zone, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service. CRS, which provides background information to members of Congress on a bipartisan basis, said it expects an additional 26,000 to 56,000 contractors to be sent to Afghanistan. That would bring the number of contractors in the country to anywhere from 130,000 to 160,000. The tally "could increase further if the new [administration] strategy includes a more robust construction and nation building effort," according to the report, which was released Monday and first disclosed on the Web site Talking Points Memo. Washington Post

1. The Taliban have announced they will release a new video of a U.S. soldier captured in Afghanistan, a U.S-based terrorism monitoring group said Wednesday. SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based terrorist tracking organization, said the media arm of the Afghan Taliban made the announcement Wednesday on their Web site. The video is said to be titled, "One of Their People Testified." The Taliban did not name the American. The only U.S. soldier known to be in captivity is Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, who disappeared more than five months ago in Afghanistan. Bergdahl, 23, was captured June 30 in the eastern province of Paktika province near the Pakistan border. His Taliban captors released a propaganda video of him about two weeks later. In the July 19 video, Bergdahl appeared downcast and frightened. No subsequent videos have been released. BreitBart
   

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PAKISTAN

1.)

U.S. Admiral Mullen visits Pakistan's Swat valley

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States, Admiral Michael G. Mullen Wednesday visited Pakistan's insurgency-hit Swat valley and met local military commanders, the army said.
Mullen also held talks with Pakistan's army chef General AshfaqParvaiz Kayani, according to a brief army statement.

The statement did not give any further details of the meeting.
Mullen arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday night and met Pakistan's Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majid and discussed evolving regional security situation with particular focus on revised U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and the region, especially its impact and short and long term implications for Pakistan, the army said.
Aspects of bilateral military cooperation also came under discussion, it added.
Sources said that Mullen in meeting with Pakistan's army chief called for action against Afghan Taliban particularly Haqqani network, and believed to be active in North Waziristan tribal region.
Haqqani network is believed to be run by Siraj Haqqani, son of former Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Local reports said that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has opposed a proposal by U.S. President Obama to expand military operation in South Waziristan tribal region. Zardari called for more military aid as the country has spent 2.5 billion U.S. dollars on Swat operation.
The two sides also discussed the reports of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan's southern Balochistan, where U.S. officials claim Afghan Taliban are active in planning attacks in Afghanistan.

2.)

Top US army official: al-Qaeda, Taliban leaders in Pakistan

Posted : Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:22:02 GMT

Islamabad - The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, said Wednesday that top al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership are hiding in Pakistan. "We see them still planning to kill as many Americans as they have before," Mullen told a selected group of journalist in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, where he is holding meetings with political and military leadership during a two-day visit.

US authorities have routinely alleged that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan ever since US forces lost the world's most- wanted man in the mountains of Tora Bora, on the Afghan-Pakistani border, in December 2001.

Similarly, the Americans have claimed that most of the top Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, are commanding the Afghanistan insurgency from Pakistan.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said last week that his country had lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for years.

But Mullen insisted that Taliban and al-Qaeda "resource" were in Pakistan and so was their "their leadership."

"And we are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that it does not happen again," he said.

Mullen is visiting Pakistan as part of US efforts to take Pakistani political and military leaders into confidence about a new US policy in Afghanistan, under which America is deploying 30,000 additional troops to rein in the emboldened Taliban.

He arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday after a brief visit of Afghanistan.

Despite extra troops, the US relies heavily on Pakistan, expecting that its troops would take on thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who are believed to have taken shelter in Pakistan's lawless tribal region, following the US invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.

Taking advantage of the rugged region, these militants have carried out regular attacks on US-led international forces in Afghanistan, causing instability in war-torn Afghanistan.

More than 150,000 Pakistani military and paramilitary troops are fighting the rebels in that country's border areas with Afghanistan, but success remains elusive.

Mullen appreciated Pakistan's efforts to root out terrorism but said: "Still, we need to do a lot."

3.)

Troops kill 43 in Orakzai, Kurram operations: officials
Wednesday, 16 Dec, 2009 | 02:38 PM PST |
PESHAWAR: Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships have pounded suspected Taliban hideouts in the northwest tribal belt, killing at least 43 militants, officials said Wednesday.
The armed forces targeted Orakzai and Kurram districts, strongholds of militants linked to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
‘At least 18 militants were killed when helicopters pounded Toorikhel town of Orakzai when militants were holding an important meeting Tuesday,’ paramilitary spokesman Major Fazlur Rehman said.
The meeting, chaired by local Taliban commander Qari Ismail, was held to arrange reconciliation between two feuding groups of militants, he said. It was not immediately clear if Ismail was among the dead.
Local administration official Riaz Khan confirmed the toll, and said four more people were killed in airstrikes in Orkazai’s Sultanzai town. Seven militant hideouts and five vehicles were also destroyed, he added.
The military also mounted a ground and air operation in Dagar town of Kurram region on Tuesday, killing 21 militants, Rehman said, adding that the operations continued on Wednesday.
(Fleeing the fighting, more than 1200 resident families have migrated to safer areas of Kurram Agency and Hangu district, DawnNews adds.)
Such death tolls supplied by the military are impossible to confirm independently, with the region out of bounds to media and most aid groups. —AFP

4.)

Pak: Five Americans booked under Anti-Terrorism Act

December 16, 2009 15:02 IST

Pakistani authorities have registered a case under the stringent Anti-Terrorism Act against the five American Muslim youths, who were recently arrested in Sargodha in Punjab [ Images ] province on suspicion of links with terrorist groups.

"We will try them under the Anti-Terrorism Act and sections of the Pakistan Penal Code. We will soon reach the local people related to this network," said Usman Anwar, the police chief of Sargodha, where the US nationals were arrested on December 9. Authorities also obtained remand of the suspects -- Waqar Hussain Khan, 22, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, Ramy Zamzam, 22, Iman Hassan Yemer, 17, Omar Farooq, 24 and his father Khalid Farooq -- for 10 days from a magistrate in Sargodha on Tuesday. The suspects were taken from Lahore [ Images ] to Sargodha under tight security.

Soon after their remand was obtained, they were escorted back to the Chuhng Police Training Centre in Lahore.

On Monday, the Lahore high court had ruled that the US nationals cannot be deported. It also issued notices to the federal and provincial governments asking them to provide details of the investigation against the suspects by December 17.

Tariq Asad, a lawyer who filed a petition on behalf of the non governmental organisation Defence of Human Rights asking the court to prevent the deportation of the Americans, said that Omar Farooq's mother Sabira was missing from her home in Sargodha for the past few days.

"It is suspected that the police has taken her into custody," Asad alleged and said he would raise the issue in court.

Anwar said investigators had already gathered clues about the network linked to the American youths, but another senior police officer said the authorities could have busted the entire ring if the US nationals had been allowed to contact the people they were looking for.

"The five US youths had planned for a meeting with a man named Saifullah in Mianwali, from where they were to go Miranshah (in North Waziristan). Instead of informing senior officials and intelligence agencies and asking them to follow the Americans to Miranshah so that local jihadis there could be caught, the police in Sargodha acted on their own," an investigator said.

The US nationals were planning to travel to North Waziristan to train with the Taliban [ Images ] and the Al Qaeda [ Images ] so that they could fight US forces in Afghanistan, sources said. They also made attempts to contact the Jaish-e- Mohammed and the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, but were turned away by them.

However, lawyer Asad claimed the neighbours of the youths in the US had used terms like "good guy" and "friendly" to describe them.

After arriving in Karachi on November 30, Waqar Hussain Khan, Ahmed Abdullah Minni, Ramy Zamzam and Iman Hassan Yemer left for Hyderabad and Lahore before reaching Omar Farooq's residence in Sarghoda on December 7. Omar's father, also a US national, was arrested for providing shelter to the suspects.

AFGHANISTAN

5.)

Bombs, ambushes kill 18 in Afghanistan
Wednesday, 16 Dec, 2009 7:43 pm
KABUL : A surge of bomb attacks and ambushes killed at least 18 people, including four NATO soldiers and six civilians, in flashpoints across Afghanistan ahead of an expected US surge, officials said Wednesday.
The string of isolated attacks on Tuesday underscored the dangers in rural parts of Afghanistan, where government authority is often weak, and the deadly nature of roadside bombs, or improvised-explosive devices (IEDs).
In the bloodiest attack, gunmen ambushed a station wagon, raking the vehicle with gunfire and killing six Afghan civilians in eastern Nangarhar province, said a statement from the presidency.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack.
In the south, the deadliest battlefield for NATO and US troops in Afghanistan and heartland of the Taliban insurgency, bomb attacks killed four NATO soldiers two British, an Estonian and an American.
IEDs killed the Estonian and the US soldiers, while the British died with two Afghan soldiers in a suicide motorbike attack, said Captain Roy Hermkens, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The makeshift IEDs, usually planted at the side of a road, are the biggest killers of foreign soldiers in Afghanistan and the Taliban's weapon of choice.
This year has been the deadliest for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2009