BBC News – Afghan leader Karzai to hold talks with India PM Singh

Monday 12 November 2012. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due to hold talks with Indian PM Manmohan Singh on the second day of a five-day visit to the country.

Mr Karzai is expected to press for increased Indian investment in Afghanistan.

The two states signed a strategic partnership last year aimed at deepening security and economic ties.

India is a major player in Afghanistan and has already pledged $2bn (£1.3bn) in assistance.

In June India hosted an international investment conference on Afghanistan, barely a week before another global gathering in Tokyo to pledge aid.

Correspondents say the two countries are deepening their ties as US and its Nato allies prepare to leave Afghanistan in 2014.

Mr Karzai met prominent Indian businessmen in the western city of Mumbai on Sunday and promised a “red carpet” welcome for Indian investment.

“Indian businesses need not be shy while thinking about Afghanistan,” he was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

“Chinese businesses were there long before you came, five or six years ago. If you don’t arrive on the red carpet, it will get dusty. Therefore, do hurry up in coming and take advantage of the opportunities in Afghanistan.”

Mr Karzai is expected to sign fresh mining deals during his visit, and agreements related to youth affairs, development projects and fertiliser trade, reports say.

Apart from help in building up Afghan security forces, India has pledged or spent some $2bn worth of aid over the last decade to build roads, power stations and even the Afghan parliament.

India has been also rewarded with rights to mine Afghanistan prime iron ore reserves – state-owned companies are leading the way so far.

Former foreign minister S M Krishna has said Indian business interests need to overcome “the anxiety of withdrawal, uncertainty, instability and foreign interference” to invest in Afghanistan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20293663

Dawn – US warns running out of patience with Pakistan

Kabul, 8 June 2012. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta warned Pakistan on Thursday that Washington is losing patience over its failure to eliminate safe havens for insurgents who attack US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Panetta lashed out at Pakistan and the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network during a brief visit to Kabul overshadowed by fury over a Nato air strike that allegedly killed 18 civilians, an issue that the Pentagon chief did not address in public.

Panetta left Kabul less than five hours after his arrival, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledged to cut short a trip to Beijing and head home over the deaths of around 40 civilians Wednesday in the air strike and a suicide bombing.

“Even though we are seeing an uptick in violence in recent days, the overall level of violence is down from past years,” said Panetta, who is assessing plans to withdraw US combat troops by the end of 2014.

The Haqqani group, a faction linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda that is believed to be based in Pakistan’s lawless tribal district of North Waziristan, is blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan’s 10-year war.

“It’s an increasing concern that this safe haven exists and that there are those like the Haqqanis who are making use of that to attack our forces,” Panetta told a news conference with his Afghan counterpart, Abdul Rahim Wardak.

“We are reaching the limits of our patience here,” he said.

“For that reason, it’s extremely important that Pakistan take action to prevent this kind of safe haven,” he said.

“We have made that very clear time and time again and we will continue to do that. But as I said, we are reaching the limits of our patience,” he added.

The Afghan and US governments have suggested the war in Afghanistan cannot be won unless safe havens in Pakistan are dismantled.

Analysts say Islamabad allows the Haqqanis to operate to hedge against any influence by their arch-foe India in Afghanistan, while critics in Pakistan accuse the Americans of deflecting blame for the increasingly deadly war.

The Pentagon chief said the Haqqani network was to blame for an attack last week on Forward Operating Base Salerno in eastern Afghanistan.

US military chief General Martin Dempsey, asked about Panetta’s remarks, said the strong words on Pakistan were largely because the Haqqani network was more active in eastern Afghanistan, where the transition from Nato forces is expected to be particularly difficult.

Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Washington that he shared Panetta’s frustration but acknowledged that Pakistani forces were fighting militants on parts of their own soil.

“Make no mistake about it: Although we are extraordinarily dissatisfied with the effect that Pakistan has had on the Haqqanis, we are also mindful that they are conducting military operations – at great loss, by the way,” he said.

The United States leads 130,000 Nato troops fighting the Taliban insurgency and is planning to withdraw the bulk of combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and hand responsibility for security to the Afghans.

But civilian casualties caused by US and Nato air strikes have been a frequent source of tension between Karzai and the United States.

The Afghan president, who was attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Beijing, issued a stinging rebuke of Nato’s latest air strike.

“Attacks by Nato that cause life and property losses to civilians under no circumstances could be justified and are not acceptable,” Karzai said of the incident on Wednesday in Logar province, south of Kabul.

Karzai “will shorten his trip to China and will very soon return to the country” following the deaths in Logar and those from a Kandahar suicide bombing on the same day, his office said.

Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said “multiple insurgents” were killed in the air strike, which was ordered after troops came under fire during an operation against a Taliban commander.

Local police said that 18 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the strike. Dempsey promised an investigation.

The air strike did not come up in Thursday’s talks between Panetta and Wardak, a senior US defence official told AFP.

For the past five years the number of civilians killed in the war has risen steadily, reaching a record of 3,021 in 2011, with the vast majority caused by insurgents, the United Nations says.

In Kandahar on Wednesday, 23 civilians were killed when two Taliban bombers blew themselves up at a makeshift bazaar and truck stop near a major Nato base.

Panetta’s stop in Kabul came at the end of a nine-day tour with stops in Singapore, Vietnam and India, in which he touted a US strategic shift toward Asia after a decade of war.

http://dawn.com/2012/06/08/us-warns-running-out-of-patience-with-pakistan/

BBC News – US warns of reprisals after Afghan massacre in Kandahar

Monday, 12 March 2012. US troops in Afghanistan have been placed on alert following the killings of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier.

US officials warned of reprisals after the soldier went on a rampage in villages near a base in Kandahar. Nine children were among those killed.

President Barack Obama phoned his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai to express condolences. But Mr Karzai has said the massacre is “unforgivable”.

And Taliban militants has vowed to avenge the deaths.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said a full investigation is under way.

The soldier, believed to be a staff sergeant, is reported to have walked off his base at around 03:00 Sunday (22:30 GMT Saturday).

In the villages of Alkozai and Najeeban, about 500m (1,640 feet) from the base, he reportedly broke into three homes.

At one house in Najeeban, 11 people were found shot dead, and some of their bodies set alight. At least three of the child victims are reported to have been killed by a single shot to the head.

The US military said reports indicated that the soldier returned to his base after the shootings and turned himself in. His motives are unclear – there is speculation that he might have been drunk or suffered a mental breakdown.

The soldier is being detained in Kandahar and the military is treating at least five people wounded in the attacks, officials said.

The detained soldier has not been identified, although US officials quoted by AP news agency said he was from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, 38 years old, married with two children, and had served three tours in Iraq and was on his first deployment in Afghanistan.

The killings come amid already high anti-US sentiment in Afghanistan following the burning of Korans at a Nato base in Kabul last month.

US officials have repeatedly apologised for the incident but they failed to quell a series of protests and attacks that killed at least 30 people and six US troops.

Fragile friendship  

The BBC’s Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says the latest incident has damaged already fragile relations between Kabul and Washington.

He says the Taliban is using the shooting as a propaganda victory, placing President Karzai in a difficult position.

Angry tribal elders are now demanding an immediate end to US night raids on Afghan homes. They are calling for justice and say US apologies are meaningless, our correspondent adds.

The killings could further fuel calls for a more rapid withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

They could also delay the signing of a strategic pact between Kabul and Washington intended to allow a long-term US presence in the country, a government official told Reuters on Monday.

Negotiations over the partnership have already been bogged down over issues like night-time raids and control of prisoners.

Meanwhile, US personnel in Afghanistan were warned of possible reprisal attacks.

“The US Embassy in Kabul alerts US citizens in Afghanistan that as a result of a tragic shooting incident in Kandahar province involving a US service member, there is a risk of anti-American feelings and protests in coming days, especially in the eastern and southern provinces,” the embassy said in an emergency statement on its website.

The US embassy in Kabul is restricting the movements of staff in southern Afghanistan until at least 17:00 local time (12:30 GMT) on Monday.

Afghan security sources have told the BBC that the Taliban is provoking people to take part in anti-US demonstrations.

In a statement released by the White House on Sunday, President Obama said: “This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.”

Our correspondent says Afghan officials also fear there will be violent demonstrations and have deployed extra police and troops around Kandahar.

President Obama called President Karzai while on a visit to Maryland President Karzai described the killings as the “intentional killing of innocent civilians” and said they could “not be forgiven”.

The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says this is the first time Afghan civilians have been targeted by foreign soldiers in this way.

However, one US soldier was convicted last year on three counts of premeditated murder after leading a rogue “kill team” in Afghanistan.

A recent poll by ABC News and The Washington Post found 60% of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth its costs. Nearly the same number advocated an early US pullout from the country.

Analysis, Mark Mardell, BBC North America editor

The shooting is another hammer blow to the already fractured relationship between the US government and the Afghan people and their government.

So you will hear more voices raised in the US, arguing that the withdrawal should be speeded up.

This killing spree won’t, by itself, lead to a quickening of the pace of a pull-out.

But it may mean less heed will be paid to those like Senator John McCain who think the war is winnable and who think the troops should finish the job before they leave.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17336074