McChrystal: No Winner … Yet
May 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under World News
In a blunt assessment of the war in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal declared in a TV interview Thursday that "nobody is winning," though he also pointed to progress in stopping the momentum of insurgents.
The assessment by McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, comes a day after President Obama, while hosting Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House, predicted the war will get worse before it gets better.
McChrystal was responding to a question posed in an interview that aired on PBS' "News Hour."
"I think I would be prepared to say nobody is winning, at this point," McChrystal said. "Where the insurgents, I think, felt that they had momentum a year ago, felt that they were making clear progress, I think that's stopped."
Now it is the U.S. and Afghan forces that have "made a lot of progress," he said.
"I think the insurgency is serious. And it's serious because it has a relative reach around the country ... so it can bring a lot of violence on the Afghan people. It's also not popular."
U.S. and Afghan forces are coming off the relative success of a major offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah intended to sweep the enemy out of that region and restore stability to the local population. A similar approach is planned later this year for Kandahar.
On Wednesday, Obama spoke with Karzai at his side.
"What I've tried to emphasize is the fact that there is going to be some hard fighting over the next several months," Obama told reporters in the White House after meeting with Karzai in the Oval Office.
"There is no denying the progress," Obama said. "Nor, however, can we deny the very serious challenges still facing Afghanistan."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Drone Attacks Kill 10 in Pakistan
May 9, 2010 by admin
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DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- Suspected U.S. missiles struck a house in Taliban-dominated northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing 10 people in the latest American strike targeting militant leaders, intelligence officials said.
The strikes were in North Waziristan, a tribal region that has long been a haven for Taliban- and Al Qaeda-linked militant networks battling American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. The suspect in the recent failed car bombing in New York's Times Square has claimed he trained in a militant camp somewhere in Waziristan.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials said the two missiles hit the house of local tribesman Awal Gul in Enzer Kasa village of the Datta Khel area.
Ten people were killed, including an unknown number of militants who were staying at the home, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
It was not immediately clear whether Gul had any ties to militant groups.
The U.S. has used missiles to target militant hide-outs in North Waziristan dozens of times in recent months. Pakistan, a key U.S. ally, officially protests the strikes on its territory as violations of its sovereignty, but it is believed to secretly aid them. The U.S. rarely discusses the unmanned-drone-fired strikes, which are part of a covert CIA program.
In recent months, North Waziristan has become a new haven for Pakistani Taliban leaders who have fled a Pakistani army offensive in their previous stronghold, neighboring South Waziristan.
The Pakistani Taliban, while linked to the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda, have primarily directed their attacks at targets inside Pakistan, making them a priority for the army.
The Pakistani army has held off on waging an offensive against other militant networks that are based in North Waziristan, despite U.S. pressure, because it does not want to antagonize powerful insurgent groups there that have so far attacked only targets in Afghanistan, not Pakistani cities.
On Sunday morning, Pakistani army helicopters pounded insurgent hide-outs in the Shana Garhi area of the Orakzai tribal region, killing at least eight militants, local official Jahanzeb Khan said.
Pakistan security forces are carrying out an operation against insurgents who escaped the military offensive in South Waziristan. Some have taken refuge in the Orakzai tribal region, which lies next to North Waziristan, and other neighboring tribal areas.
Kyrgyz Interim Leader Says U.S. Base Unjustified
April 17, 2010 by admin
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BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - A top official in Kyrgyzstan's interim government told The Associated Press on Saturday that the U.S. air base used to support operations in Afghanistan is "not justified" -- days after the leader announced it could remain.
Azymbek Beknazarov -- a deputy head of the interim government that came to power last week after a bloody uprising -- told the AP that Washington compromised its position on promoting democracy in Kyrgyzstan so as not to put the strategic Manas transit center under threat of closure.
"All the Americans care about is that the military base stays," Beknazarov said. "They forgot about freedom, about democratic values. They forgot about Kyrgyzstan -- they are only looking at their military base."
"In my opinion, the Manas center's presence is not justified," he said.
Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva has said that her government will extend the current agreement allowing the U.S. to use the base for another year after it expires in July.
Beknazarov refused to comment when asked if he or anyone in the interim government will attempt to initiate the closure of the base, which began operating several months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and is the premier air mobility hub for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Embassy in Bishkek refused to comment on Beknazarov's remarks, which echoed those of Otunbayeva months before the uprising, but U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake on a trip to Bishkek last week rejected suggestions of lackluster U.S. efforts to promote democratic under President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
Bakiyev fled Bishkek to his stronghold in the south during the uprising, and left the country for neighboring Kazakhstan on Thursday.
Operations at Manas, meanwhile, have returned to normal after a brief lockdown during street disturbances that led to Bakiyev's ouster.
Airstrikes Kill 10 Militants in Pakistan
April 11, 2010 by admin
Filed under World News
PARACHINAR, Pakistan (AP) — Fighter jets pounded militant hide-outs in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing 10 suspected insurgents as part of a military operation that has eliminated more than 300 fighters in the last three weeks, an official said.
The strikes came as the Pakistani military is holding its largest military exercise in two decades in southeastern Pakistan. The monthlong operation, which started Saturday, will involve some 20,000 troops backed by tanks, artillery and air power, the army said in a statement. It is likely intended as a show of muscle as the military battles a violent Taliban-led insurgency.
The military launched its latest offensive in March to rout members of the Pakistani Taliban from the Orakzai tribal region. Many militants fled there after the army staged a large ground offensive last year against the group's main stronghold in South Waziristan, also close to the Afghan border.
Sunday's airstrikes destroyed three hide-outs in the Sangram area of Orakzai, said Samiullah Khan, a local administrator. They came a day after similar strikes killed nearly 100 suspected militants in the Orakzai and Khyber tribal areas, according to officials.
The army has described its operations in Orakzai, Khyber and neighboring Kurram as part of a final push against the Pakistani Taliban, characterizing the group as on its heels.
But Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq denied that Sunday, saying the military has exaggerated its success against the group.
"Our leadership and all key commanders are alive and active," Tariq told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location. "Our losses are very small compared to what is claimed by the army."
Tariq said the Taliban plans to increase its attacks in the coming months now that winter has ended.
Fighting has historically dropped off in both Pakistan and Afghanistan during the winter, when heavy snowfall makes movement in the rugged, mountainous border area difficult.
Tariq said the Taliban have already resumed attacks against the army in South Waziristan in recent days, inflicting "massive damage." Army officials could not be reached for comment.
Claims by the Taliban and the government in the tribal areas are almost impossible to independently verify because journalists are prohibited from traveling there.
Elsewhere in the northwest, gunmen ambushed a police patrol on Sunday as it was crossing a bridge in the town of Mardan, killing one officer and wounding two others, police official Jawed Khan said.
Authorities also found the body of a second police officer at a checkpoint several miles (kilometers) from the ambush site. His throat had been cut, Khan said.
Mardan is in North West Frontier Province, an area where the military has battled a persistent Taliban insurgency.
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Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.
Kyrgyz Prez Won’t Resign
April 8, 2010 by admin
Filed under World News
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — The president of Kyrgyzstan declared from hiding Thursday that he would not surrender to a violent uprising that put the opposition in control of much of the country, home to a U.S. air base key to the war in nearby Afghanistan.
Just after he spoke, automatic weapons fire broke out in the capital miles from the Manas facility, where flights were at least temporarily halted and troops were confined to the base.
It was not clear if Kyrgyz forces controlled by the opposition in Bishkek were battling loyalists of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, or simply firing to deter looters after nightfall. There appeared to be little evidence of armed men loyal to Bakiyev in the capital before dusk.
The opposition has seized vital official buildings in Bishkek and elsewhere and was giving orders to at least some security forces, declaring it controlled four of the nation's seven provinces. Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva said parliament had been dissolved and she would head an interim government that would rule for six months until elections were held. She urged Bakiyev to resign.
Bakiyev, who has fled the northern capital for his stronghold in the south, told a Russian radio station that "I don't admit defeat in any way." But he also said he recognized that "even though I am president, I don't have any real levers of power."
Although the opposition has previously voiced objection to Manas, Otunbayeva said there were no plans yet to review the lease that runs out in July and her government would meet U.S. diplomats for talks in Bishkek.
"Give us time, it will take time for us to understand and fix the situation," Otunbayeva said.
Associated Press reporters could hear sustained shooting every few minutes from different directions in Bishkek, along with some single shots. Lights in most buildings including hotels were put out over fears they would attract gunfire.
U.S. military officials said Kyrgyzstan halted flights for 12 hours Wednesday at the Manas air base, confining troops to the base, and did not say if flights had resumed. There are about 1,100 troops there including contingents from Spain and France, also supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan.
This mountainous former Soviet republic exploded Wednesday after protesters furious over corruption and soaring utility bills stormed government buildings in Bishkek. Riot police fired straight into crowds. The Health Ministry said at least 74 people were killed and 400 people hospitalized. After hours of clashes the opposition seized vital official buildings in the capital and elsewhere and was giving orders to significant numbers of security forces.
Bakiyev was emphatic Thursday that he was still the elected leader of the nation of 5 million people that has been courted by China, Russia and the U.S. for its proximity to Afghanistan and resource-rich neighboring nations.
"I do not intend to relinquish power. I see no point," he said, adding that his re-election nine months ago proved he still had popular support.
Since coming to power in 2005 amid street protests known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev had ensured a measure of stability, but the opposition said he did so at the expense of democratic standards while enriching himself and his family.
He gave his relatives, including his son, top government and economic posts and faced the same accusations of corruption and cronyism that led to the ouster of his predecessor, Askar Akayev.
Even though his security forces fired into crowds of demonstrators a day earlier, killing dozens and wounding hundreds, Bakiyev seemed to rule out further violence.
"You think the president elected by the people will take up arms against the people? What nonsense," he said.
Asked why he fled Bishkek, he said: "I wouldn't have left, but when they started firing on my windows, it was only by chance that I avoided injury."
Otunbayeva, the former foreign minister, said the president was in the southern region of Jalal-Abad, the heart of his political stronghold. This raised concerns that Bakiyev could try to secure his own survival by exploiting the country's traditional split between the more urban north and the rural south.
Eyewitnesses in southern Kyrgyzstan told The Associated Press that the situation there was tense and unstable, and the region had both armed men who appeared to be still supporting Bakiyev along with opposition supporters.
The new interim defense minister said the armed forces had joined the opposition and will not be used against protesters.
"Special forces and the military were used against civilians in Bishkek ... and other places," Ismail Isakov said. "This will not happen in the future."
In 2009, Kyrgyzstan said U.S. forces would have to leave Manas, a decision made shortly after Russia granted Kyrgyzstan more than $2 billion in aid and loans. The government later reversed its stance and signed a one-year deal with the U.S. that raised the rent to about $63 million a year from $17 million.
The U.S. is also paying $67 million for airport improvements and navigation systems and another $51.5 million to combat drug trafficking and terrorism and promote economic development.
Leonid Bondarets, who has been affiliated with the Sweden-based Central Asia and the Caucasus think tank, said as long as Bakiyev did not formally resign, there is room for trouble.
"It's hard to predict what is going to happen because Bakiyev hasn't stepped down," Bondarets said in a telephone interview from Bishkek. "The situation is still tense."
Kyrgyzstan, which shares a 533-mile (858-kilometer) border with China, is also a gateway to other energy-rich Central Asian countries where China, Russia and the U.S. are competing fiercely for dominance. It is a predominantly Muslim country, but it has remained secular.
In a tentative sign that Russia may lend its support to the opposition forces, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called Otunbayeva on Thursday to talk. Any suggestion that Russia is backing the new leadership adds to the pressure on Bakiyev to step down.
Russia sent in 150 paratroopers to its base to ensure the safety of the 400 military personnel and their families there, Russian state media reported.
In Bishkek, most of the government buildings in the capital, as well as Bakiyev's houses, have been looted or set on fire and two major markets were burned down. A paper portrait of Bakiyev at government headquarters was smeared with red paint. Obscenities about him were spray-painted on buildings nearby.
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Associated Press writers Leila Saralayeva and Yuras Karmanau in Bishkek, Anita Chang in Beijing, Pauline Jelinek in Washington, Deborah Seward in Paris and Lynn Berry, Mansur Mirovalev, Nataliya Vasilyeva and David Nowak in Moscow contributed to this report.
Officials: 2 CIA Drone Attacks Kill 9 in Pakistan
March 17, 2010 by admin
Filed under World News
ISLAMABAD -- Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles at vehicles and hit a militant hide-out in a tribal region of northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least nine insurgents, two officials said.
In the first attack, the drones fired four missiles at a vehicle and flattened a nearby house near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal region, killing six militants, an army and an intelligence official said.
About 50 minutes later, drones fired three more missiles at a vehicle in the Madakhel town, about 25 miles west of Miran Shah, killing three insurgents, said the officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Other militants were also wounded in the two strikes, they said.
The CIA has stepped up attacks in Pakistan's tribal regions since December, when a suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees in neighboring Afghanistan.
The latest attack came a day after the U.S. missile attack destroyed a militant facility in the same region, killing nine suspects.
Officials say some of the men slain in Tuesday's attack in Datta Khel were believed to be foreigners who were present in the stronghold of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a warlord whose fighters are battling U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Although Pakistan publicly opposes the attacks, saying they violate its sovereignty and fuel anti-Americanism among the population, it is believed that it was sharing intelligence with the Americans about the insurgents and their hide-outs.
Washington also refuses to publicly discuss the program, which uses unmanned drones, but Pakistani officials say privately the attacks have killed several senior Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in recent years.
Rocket Attack Kills 1 at NATO Base in Afghanistan
March 15, 2010 by admin
Filed under World News
KABUL An early morning rocket attack on the largest U.S. military hub in Afghanistan killed one person Monday, NATO said. In the east, meanwhile, Afghan authorities thwarted three would-be homicide bombers from attacking a security post.
The attack targeted the sprawling Bagram Air Field, north of the capital of Kabul. A NATO spokesman would not say whether the victim was a service member or a civilian.
Abdullah Adil, the police chief in the Bagram district of Parwan province, said one rocket was fired onto the grounds of the base at about 4 a.m. A Taliban spokesman told The Associated Press that two rockets were fired on the base.
Bagram is home to some 24,000 military personnel and civilian contractors supporting the war against the Taliban insurgency. While well protected and located in a relatively quiet area, the more than 5,000-acre (2,000-hectare) base is still susceptible to rocket and mortar attacks. Last year, insurgents launched more than a dozen attacks on Bagram, killing at least four people.
The main air field is being expanded to accommodate some of the 30,000 new American troops that President Barack Obama has ordered to Afghanistan to try to turn the tide of the war.
NATO and Afghan forces last month launched the largest combined offensive against the Taliban since the hard-line Islamists were driven from power in 2001. The push secured the one-time Taliban stronghold and opium-producing center of Marjah in the southern province of Helmand.
The next major offensive is planned for later this year in neighboring Kandahar province, where the insurgents retain a strong presence. On Saturday, the Taliban detonated several bombs in Kandahar city, killing 35 people in what the militants said was a "warning" that they are ready to fight.
Mourners gathered Monday at a Kandahar mosque for memorial services for the bombing victims, gathering around photos of the dead and chanting prayers. Among the dead were 10 people attending a wedding being held in a hall near a police station.
In eastern Afghanistan, police said Afghan security forces killed three suicide bombers Monday morning in Paktika province before they could launch an attack on security posts in Barmal district.
Separately in Ghazni province, Afghan police say three civilians were killed and three others were wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside mine while they were moving household goods.
Also, a NATO service member was also killed in a traffic accident in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the military alliance said.
The U.S. military also confirmed Monday that an unmanned Predator drone aircraft crashed in southern Afghanistan. The crash late Sunday night was not caused by enemy fire, and the site was quickly secured, an Air Force release said. The Air Force initially said the drone crashed on takeoff but later revised its statement to say it went down later in its mission.
Unmanned drones have become crucial tools for the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, both for their reconnaissance value and their ability to fire missiles at enemy positions. The CIA runs a separate covert program that targets al-Qaida and Taliban leaders across the border in Pakistan.
Afghan Official Wants More Troops After Series of Blasts
March 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under World News
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan The governor of Kandahar province demanded more security around Afghanistan's largest southern city Sunday after a series of explosions killed dozens of people in the Taliban heartland — the target of the war's next major offensive by Afghan and international forces.
The blasts, which occurred one after another for 25 minutes across Kandahar city Saturday night, indicate that the insurgents remain a potent force in the area where NATO plans an assault later this year, the follow-up to an operation that has driven militants from a key stronghold in neighboring Helmand province.
Residents say Taliban militants can operate in Kandahar with little restraint.
"They can do what they intend and want, and the government can't control the situation," said Javed Ahmad, 40, of Kandahar. "We don't feel secure in the presence of all the forces in Afghanistan, and it's terrible for us to live in this kind of situation. We don't feel safe even at home, and we can't walk around."
Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said the blasts included two car bombs, six homicide attackers on motorbikes and bicycles, and homemade bombs. The attackers targeted the city's prison, police headquarters, a wedding hall next door and other areas on roads leading to the prison.
Wesa told reporters that he had asked the central government in Kabul for more Afghan troops to protect the city in the run-up to the expected offensive in Kandahar province, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban. He also said he wants to coordinate with NATO forces to improve security.
The main target of the attacks was the prison, where investigators have found eight homicide vests, three rockets and AK-47 ammunition, police said.
Ministry of Interior spokesman Zemeri Bashary told reporters the attackers were trying to free prisoners and block security forces from responding, "but they failed in their mission."
"They were trying to open the jail, that is why they attacked cleverly in different parts of the city," said Kandahar provincial police chief Gen. Sardar Mohammad Zazi.
The assault mirrored a 2008 homicide bombing at the Kandahar prison gates that freed hundreds of prisoners, many of them suspected insurgents. No inmates escaped this time from the lockup, which Canadian troops reinforced with cement block after the 2008 attack.
Thirty-five people were killed in Saturday night's attacks, according to the ministry. Among the dead were 13 policemen and 22 civilians, including six women and three children. Most of the casualties occurred at the police headquarters and at the wedding celebration in a hall next door.
Another 57 people were wounded, including 17 policemen, and 42 homes were damaged, the ministry said.
"Last night was like doomsday for all of Kandahar's people," said Mohammad Anwar, a 30-year-old shopkeeper, whose relative lost a son in the attacks. He said residents blamed the United States and international forces for not battling the militants strongly enough.
"It is difficult for us to bear this kind of situation anymore," Anwar said. "We don't know the aim of these people," he said, referring to the insurgents. "Are they trying to kill civilians or eliminate the system? The government is too weak to control these kind of attacks."
Haji-Muhammad Aslam, 46, who also runs a store in the city, said residents of Kandahar feel helpless.
"What we can do?" he asked. "Almost nothing, except accept deaths and injuries. We are created to be killed by anyone, whether by militants, Americans or Afghan forces.
"Last night was a night beyond imagination. It took many innocent lives and most are suffering. But who is caring, and who will control it? Nobody. We are scared. We don't expect the current government to restore peace and stability," he said.
President Hamid Karzai's half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, a member of the Kandahar provincial council, told The Associated Press that two of the explosions occurred near his home. But he said he was not being targeted personally.
The offensive that U.S., NATO and Afghan forces are planning in Kandahar later this year is a follow-up to the ongoing military operation in Helmand province's Marjah district. The operation is the first test of top Afghanistan commander U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's strategy to rout insurgents from areas, set up new governance and rush in development aid in hopes of winning the loyalty of the residents.
Kandahar city, population 800,000, was the seat of government for the Taliban when it ruled Afghanistan, imposing its vision of Islamic theocracy for five years before being toppled by U.S.-backed forces in 2001.
Armed Taliban bands still control villages around the city, and Taliban agents move through the city at night, delivering letters warning people against cooperating with the U.S.-backed government. International forces find homemade bombs almost daily as they patrol the city streets.
Another roadside bomb Sunday morning targeted a car carrying Pakistani construction workers south of the city in the district of Dand, according to the governor. Four of the Pakistani workers and their Afghan driver were wounded.
Training a workable Kandahar police force has become a priority for international forces trying to build trust in the Afghan government, which they hope will eventually be able to take over security. The 2,800 Canadian troops who oversee operations in Kandahar city and the surrounding province are due to leave Afghanistan next year.
The U.S. sent nearly 300 more military police to Kandahar in August to help build up the 2,000-strong local police force — a six-fold increase over the small Canadian and U.S. force that had been there training Afghan police, traditionally one of the country's least-trusted institutions.
Afghan National Police forces were the first to respond to Saturday's explosions and some Canadian troops later deployed to support them, Canadian military spokeswoman Capt. Cynthia LaRue said.
"The most important part here is to remember that ANP did a very good job and responded quickly," LaRue said Sunday.
Deadly Blasts Shake Baghdad as Iraqis Cast Ballots
March 7, 2010 by admin
Filed under World News
BAGHDAD Iraqis voted Sunday in an election testing the mettle of the country's still-fragile democracy as insurgents killed 25 people across the Iraq, unleashing a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the historic day.
About 19 million Iraqis are eligible to vote for who will lead the country after U.S. forces pull out, in an election that will determine whether Iraq can overcome the jagged sectarian divisions that have defined it since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Insurgents who vowed to disrupt the elections — which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the U.S. occupation — launched a spate of attacks as polls opened across the city and country.
At least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after an explosion leveled a building, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police and hospital officials said.
In Baghdad's northeast Hurriyah neighborhood, where mosque loudspeakers exhorted people to vote as "arrows to the enemies' chest," three people were killed when someone threw a hand grenade at a crowd heading to the polls, said police and hospital officials.
In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Col. Abdul Hussein. There were also explosions elsewhere in the country, but no further reports of fatalities.
An Associated Press photographer on the scene of the collapsed building in Baghdad's northeastern Ur neighborhood described rescuers pulling bodies from the rubble.
Insurgents also launched mortars toward the Green Zone — home to the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister's office — and in the Sunni stronghold of Azamiyah police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the neighborhood since day break.
Yet voters still came. In Azamiyah, Walid Abid, a 40-year-old father of two, was speaking as mortars landed several hundreds yards away.
"I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home. Until when? We need to change things. If I stay home and not come to vote, Azamiyah will get worse," he said.
About 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 seats in the new parliament, Iraq's second for a full term of parliament since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion seven years ago this month.
Many view the election as a crossroads at which Iraq will decide whether to adhere to politics along the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish lines or move away from the ethnic and sectarian tensions that have emerged since the fall of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted, Sunni minority rule.
Iraqis hope it will help them achieve national reconciliation at a time when the United States has vowed to withdraw combat forces by late summer and all American troops by the end of next year.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is fighting for his political future against a coalition led by mainly Shiite religious groups — the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and a party headed by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He also faces a challenge from secular alliance led by Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister and secular Shiite, who has teamed up with a number of Sunnis in a bid to claim the government.
"These acts will not undermine the will of the Iraqi people," al-Maliki said Sunday morning, speaking to reporters after casting his ballot.
Security was tight across the capital. The borders have been sealed, the airport closed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi military and police have flooded the streets.
Extra checkpoints were set up across the city, and in some parts of central Baghdad, people could not go 50 yards without hitting another checkpoint.
A ban on small vehicles was lifted around the country, except in northern Ninevah province, to facilitate access to the polls, Maj. Gen. Ayden Khalid Qader, who's in charge of election security, on state-run Iraqiya television.
But many voters continued to proceed to the polling places on foot.
In keeping with the U.S. military's assertion that Iraqis are running the elections, the only visible American military presence was in the air or escorting election observers to and from the polls; four U.S. helicopter gunships could be seen in the sky over the Kazimiyah neighborhood.
The U.S., which has lost more than 4,300 troops in the nearly seven-year conflict, has fewer than 100,000 troops in the country — a number that is expected to drop to about 50,000 by the end of the summer.
Exiting the polls, Iraqis waved purple-inked fingers — the now-iconic image synonymous with voting in this oil-rich country home to roughly 28 million people.
Despite the violence and frustration that has set in after years of fighting and faulty government services, many Iraqis were still excited to vote.
In the city of Nasiriyah, in the Shiite south, crowds of people filled the streets — men in what appeared to be their best clothes were accompanied by women in long black cloaks and often children.
"I voted in 2005. There were a lot less people then," said Ahmed Saad Chadian. "Today participation is much higher."
In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, dozens of voters also lined up to cast their ballot.
"We came to participate in this national day, and we don't care about the explosions," said Sahib Jabr, a 34-year-old old taxi driver.
President Jalal Talabani was among the first to vote Sunday morning in the Kurdish city of Sulamaniyah. Talabani's party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, is enmeshed in a tight race with an upstart political party called Change which is challenging the two Kurdish parties that have dominated Iraqi politics for years.
U.S. Plans Major Anti-Taliban Offensive in Kandahar ‘Later This Year’
February 26, 2010 by admin
Filed under Political News
The United States plans to take the fight to the Taliban with a major offensive in the Afghan city of Kandahar "later this year," a senior administration official said Friday.
The official described the latest offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, which the Afghan government took control of after days of intense fighting, as a "tactical prelude to larger operations."
Officials call Kandahar the "capital city of the Taliban movement."
The senior administration official described the move to take on Taliban strongholds as part of a "strategic shift" in the war, and said the president will launch a "comprehensive strategic review" of the war in December. The official praised the Pakistani military for pursuing the Taliban in the Swat Valley and elsewhere on the other side of the border.
"It's not going to be easy. There's not going to be straight-line progress," the official said of the overall war in Afghanistan-Pakistan. "It's going to be two steps forward, one step backward."
Fox News' Major Garrett contributed to this report.
