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Antiwar protests continue; Iraq violence; 10,000 Marines can't pacify Helmand; Pakistan refusing to hand over Taliban

Antiwar protests are scheduled throughout the U.S. and around the world on Saturday - the 7th anniversary of the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Iraq war has already outlasted World War II, World War I, and the U.S. Civil War and, along with the war in Afghanistan, could end up being the costliest in U.S. history. In the words of Texan Molly Ivins, "every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. ...We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'" More and more military vets are joining in the protests along with a wide variety of peace and human rights organizations. In Washington, DC, a protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,will begin with a noon rally in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House, followed by a march led by Cindy Sheehan whose son was killed in Iraq in 2005. Maggie Pondolfino, a representative of Military Families Speak Out whose son is currently in Afghanistans says, "I'm the proud mother of an active-duty infantry soldier. . . . We love and support our troops. And it is because we do that we will vocally show our opposition whenever our government sends them to ill-advised, immoral, unwinnable wars."

Never about bringing democracy, improving the living conditions of Iraqis and Afghans, nor eliminating weapons of mass destruction, these battlefields are part of the U.S.'s "projection of force" around the world in a vain attempt to establish mlitary and political dominance over a region with vast oil and natural gas resources and to break the OPEC cartel. The citizens of the impacted countries are only pawns in a global chess game.

In a visit to Hong Kong on Friday, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she "regretted" the Bush administration failed to work closer with Iraqis to rebuild the war-torn country. Rice served George W. Bush as national security adviser and later as America's chief diplomat. She now is a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution research group at Stanford University. The invasion, and its aftermath, destabilized the entire nation and created escalating levels of violence.

On Friday in Baghdad, a bomb on a motorcycle went off near a market in Sadr City, killing three people and wounding seven. Rice served Bush as national security adviser and later as America's chief diplomat. Gunmen stormed an off-duty policeman's house and killed him in the Doura district. In Mosul, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol killed one soldier and wounded three others. Iraqi soldiers accompanied by U.S. advisers claim they killed a senior leader of al-Qaeda and captured six of his associates on Thursday.

In Afghanistan, continued militancy and conflicts are claiming more than 100 people's lives with overwhelming of them non-combatants as the U.S. occupation continues into its 9th year. Much has changed, but much remains the same.. The facts on the ground today are that the Taliban (or the insurgency) now controls large swathes of the country - even running parallel administrations. U.S. political and military leaders keep claiming "progress". Meanwhile, ordinary Afghans continue to suffer in this nation - one of the poorest on earth.

In Helmand Province, 10,000 marines are apparently not enough to pacify the Taliban. Operation Moshtarek continues, there are reports that 3 of the 13 districts still remain in Taliban control. The newly-appointed police chief of Baghran district can't even get to his job and phones in commands out of an office in Lashkar Gah. In Musa Qala district, the government controls the main town but the Taliban hold weekly court sessions in the rest of the district to settle property and other disputes. "The Taliban are not gone (from Marjah). They have only gone to the other districts of Grishk and Sangin," says former Helmand Gov. Sher Mohammed Akhundzada.

Michael D. Furlong, the senior Defense Department employee under investigation for allegedly running an unauthorized intelligence-gathering operation in Afghanistan, says his now-suspended program was fully authorized by top U.S. military commanders. According to Furlong, the program, which began in late 2008, was requested by Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and approved by the U.S. Central Command. Most of the contractors hired by Furlong for the $24.8 million program -- one of the military's many "information operations" programs in the region -- were, like Furlong, Special Operations retirees.

In Pakistan on Friday, two people were killed and two wounded when suspected separatist militants fired at a mini-bus belonging to a military training school in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. Militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police checkpoint in the Mohmand region on the Afghan border but there were no casualties.

Pakistan is refusing to hand over captured Taliban leaders to Afghanistan on the grounds that they could be released or transferred to the U.S. The refusal to extradite Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's deputy leader and military commander, together with several regional insurgent commanders seized by Pakistani forces in recent weeks, has deepened uncertainty over Islamabad's motives. Mediators involved in back-channel talks with the Taliban say that Baradar took part in the dialogue and appeared interested in a negotiated peace. There had been speculation that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) had arrested Baradar in Karachi last month because of those talks, and because he had bypassed Pakistan. posted 19 March, 2010

War in Pakistan heats up; 6 US casualties in Iraq, 2 UK in Afghanistan; New "Northern Offensive"; IED attacks up

At least two civilians, one of them a woman, were killed by firing from Pakistani security forces in north-west Pakistan on Thursday. The incident happened in the tribal region of Darra Adamkhel, when troops fired at two passenger buses that were breaking a curfew. On Wednesday night, more than 50 militants armed with heavy weapons attacked a checkpoint on the border between Darra Adamkhel and the north-western city of Peshawar. The security forces returned fire, sparking clashes that continued all night. On Thursday morning, the security forces imposed a curfew on the road through Darra Adamkhel and started a search operation. Officials say the two buses were presumably unaware of the curfew.

Two missile strikes by pilotless U.S. drone aircraft on Wednesday killed at least nine "militants" in Pakistan's North Waziristan. Pakistani security forces on Wednesday killed five militants including two Taliban commanders who were wanted over an uprising in the northwestern Swat valley.

Imran Khan has warned that the Pakistani army's offensive in the tribal areas is pushing the country to the brink of “civil war”. He also blamed US-Pakistan military attacks in the areas bordering Afghanistan for creating the Pakistan Taliban, in the comments in London's Evening Standard paper on Wednesday. “They were like a bull in a china shop, fighting one or two guerrillas with aerial bombing of villages. “That turned people against the army and a new phenomenon was created: the Pakistan Taliban.” For Khan, who leads a marginal force in Pakistani politics Tehrik-i-Insaf (Movement for Justice), the way to deal with militants is through boosting state help for the poor. “You will have no problem with extremists in Pakistan if you have democracy with a welfare state,” he told an audience in London.

One U.S. soldier has been killed in combat in Baghdad on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the U.S. military said two American pilots died in a helicopter crash in Iraq on Saturday, during a "hard landing" in the Salahuddin province north of Baghdad as the U.S. occupation extends into it 7th year. Also, the one soldier died and three more were injured during a roll-over accident while on patrol in northern Iraq on Monday. Two British soldiers were killed by an IED in Southern Afghanistan on Tuesday.

On Thursday in Iraq, the decapitated bodies of a policeman and a soldier were found about an hour after they were abducted by gunmen in the town of Shirqat. Gunmen killed a truck driver and wounded his son in southern Mosul. Two boys were wounded when they were playing with an explosive object in northern Mosul. Gunmen stormed a house and killed a 24-year-old woman in eastern Mosul. Gunmen threw a hand grenade at an Iraqi army patrol wounding two civilians on Wednesday. In Baghdad, Gunmen killed a man in the Shaab district. Two roadside bombs wounded six people near an Iraqi army patrol, including two soldiers, on Wednesday in Baghdad's northern Waziriya district. Gunmen using silencers wounded an official working with the Iraq Human Rights ministry in the Ghazaliya district. Gunmen also detonated a bomb near a house and wounded two civilians in Abu Ghraib.

In Afghanistan, Afghan forces shot dead two would-be suicide bombers who planned to storm an office used by foreigners in the provincial capital of southern Helmand on Wednesday. An unidentified gunman shot dead a senior Afghan provincial official in Ghazni's town late on Tuesday. At least 12 people were killed in a series of explosions in various parts of Afghanistan on Monda.

The NATO military alliance is planning a large-scale offensive in northern Afghanistan this year against Taliban insurgents in Kunduz Province, a senior German general was quoted as saying on Thursday. He declined to give details but said that it would be on a "similar" scale to the offensive currently underway in the southern province of Helmand involving 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops. Operations to push the Taliban out of their iconic Afghan stronghold of Kandahar are also underway, the commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal, said Wednesday.

Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, relying on explosives that are often far more primitive than the ones used in Iraq. The embrace of a low-tech approach by Taliban-trained bombmakers -- they are building improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, out of fertilizer and diesel fuel -- has stymied a $17 billion U.S. counteroffensive against the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, military officials say. Electronic scanners or jammers, which were commonly deployed in Iraq, can detect only bombs with metal parts or circuitry. U.S. military officials said they expected the number of IED attacks to climb further this year as 40,000 U.S. and NATO esclate the war in Afghanistan. posted 18 March, 2010

US prison turned over to Iraqis; USAF drone kills 10; Sahil Saeed released; Obama escalation will be "difficult"; War for TAPI Gas pipeline

The U.S. military handed over a $107 million prison with 2,900 inmates to the Iraqi government on Monday as it prepares to leave Iraq seven years after the initial invasion. The formal transfer of the detention center at Camp Taji, a sprawling U.S. base north of Baghdad, is part of a plan to unwind a U.S. occupation detention program in Iraq that cost $500 million a year at its peak and incarcerated tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens. U.S. officials did not allow reporters to tour the facility. U.S. forces have taken into custody about 90,000 people since the 2003 invasion, in Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and other prisons. The last, Camp Cropper located near Baghdad airport, will be turned over to Iraq on July 15.

Violence continued in Iraq on Tuesday. Eight people were killed and 11 wounded when two sticky bombs exploded in separate attacks five minutes apart in the town of Mussayab, 40 miles south of Baghdad. A soldier was killed by a gunman at a checkpoint in western Mosul. In Baghdad, a bomb attached to a car wounded three people. One roadside bomb wounded three policemen in northern Baghdad and another roadside bomb wounded two civilians in Baghdad's central Karrada district.

A US drone missile strike and clashes between gunmen and tribesmen killed at least 20 "militants on" Tuesday in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border. The five missiles hit a compound near Datta Khel village, 12 miles west of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, killing at least 10 people. More than 830 people have been killed in more than 90 US strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, with a surge in the past year by President Barack Obama as he escalates the war. Elsewhere in the tribal belt, a gunfight between militants and local tribesmen killed at least 10 rebels and wounded another seven in the Kurram district.

Kidnappers released 5-year-old Sahil Saeed unharmed Tuesday almost two weeks after abducting him from his grandparents' house in central Pakistan. Saeed was found in a small village in Punjab province, some 20 miles southeast of Jhelum city where armed robbers seized him on March 4. The boy was examined by a doctor, Hafeezur Rehman, who said he looked "healthy and happy." "There was no sign of depression on his face," Rehman told The Associated Press. "He was playing with toys at a government rest house when I examined him."

Gen. David Petraeus says that the Obama Administrations war escalation plans in Afghanistan will result in fighting that is "likely get harder before it gets easier" and predicts 2010 will be a difficult year. Petraeus, who heads the U.S. Central Command, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. He said he "expects" U.S. forces will be able to reverse the momentum gained by Taliban militants in Afghanistan, but Petraeus also said he envisions "tough fighting and periodic setbacks," in the war already in its 9th year.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has brought most U.S. special-operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field. "What happens is sometimes at cross-purposes — you got one hand doing one thing and one hand doing the other, both trying to do the right thing but working without a good outcome," McChrystal said. Critics, including Afghan officials, human-rights workers and some field commanders of conventional U.S. forces, say that special-operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and operate by their own rules. U.S. Vice Adm. Greg Smith says the move will integrate almost all of the 20,000 U.S. troops serving in eastern Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Disaster into the 90,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Smith said Tuesday that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO and U.S. commander in Afghanistan who leads both forces, wants to bring "unity of command" to the war and avoid having allied elements working at cross-purposes.

Efforts are underway to revive the TAPI gas pipeline project involving India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan during a meeting in Ashkhabad next month. Experts from the four countries will meet in Turkmenistan's capital on April 17-18 to discuss the $4 billion pipeline's route and the volume of gas that Turkmenistan can supply to India and Pakistan. The pipeline is one reason for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. It will stretch nearly 1,000 miles from Turkmenistan's southeastern Daulatabad gas field to the Indian city of Bikaner and run through Afghanistan's Helmand province and Pakistan's Waziristan province. Several Texas energy companies are expected to participate in the project as well.

Iran and Pakistan signed a deal in Turkey on Tuesday paving the way for construction to start on a much-delayed natural-gas pipeline connecting the two nations in a move that has been opposed by Washington as undermining sanctions efforts against Tehran. Pakistan has argued the pipeline, which will connect Iran's South Pars gas field with Pakistan's Baluchistan and Sindh provinces, is crucial to averting a growing energy crisis that is already causing severe electricity shortages. posted 16 March, 2010