NATO: 30 Fighters Killed in Afghan Outpost Attack

Published October 30, 2010

| Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Insurgents armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars tried to storm a combat outpost in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, setting off a battle that killed 30 attackers and wounded five coalition soldiers, NATO said.

Assailants struck from all sides in the nighttime attack on the outpost in Paktika province's Bermal district, where nearly all NATO forces are from the U.S. military.

The military called in close air-support and aircraft dropped three bombs to help repel the insurgents. According to NATO, the five coalition service members who were wounded in the attack continued fighting.

"Insurgents attacked from all directions," NATO said in a statement. It provided no further details.

The attack took place in an area about 125 miles south of Kabul that borders the Pakistani region of North Waziristan. The area is controlled largely by the Haqqani network, a Pakistan-based Taliban faction closely tied to Al Qaeda.

The border region has long been a refuge for Islamist extremists from around the world and has been the target of numerous drone strikes against the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the forces of the Haqqani network. Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani, a former anti-Soviet commander and his son, are now battling American forces in eastern Afghanistan.

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Report: Iran Paying Afghan President's Chief of Staff

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff has been receiving millions of dollars in cash payments from Iran, the New York Times reported Saturday.

The advisor, Umar Daudzai, briefs Karzai each morning and is known for pushing anti-Western policies, the Times said.

Citing unnamed Afghan and Western officials in Kabul, the newspaper reported Iran had been using its influence in attempt to weaken Afghan ties to the U.S. and NATO, as well as further its own interests in the country.

The payments Daudzai receives are deposited into a secret fund that he and Karzai have used to pay the country’s lawmakers, tribal leaders and Taliban commanders to secure their loyalty, the report said.

"It’s basically a presidential slush fund," one Western official told the paper. "Daudzai’s mission is to advance Iranian interests."

Karzai, his chief of staff and the Iranian ambassador in Kabul— whom the Times says officials identified as once handing Daudzai a sack of cash—have declined to answer questions about the relationship between their countries. Likewise, the newspaper reported that several officials have said that there is no truth in the allegations.

Iran consistently viewed the presence of the U.S. in Afghanistan as a threat, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has urged countries in the region to cooperate with one another, instead of looking to the U.S.

"The issue of Afghanistan should be solved in the region. Others cannot solve it. They could not do it in Iraq," Ahmadinejad said during a summit of Farsi-speaking countries that included Afghan President Hamid Karzai in early August.

Foreign military commanders and some Afghan officials have also accused Iran of providing weapons to the Taliban, to help support their insurgency in Afghanistan.

Tehran denies the charges and senior Afghan administration officials say they have no evidence against Iran.

Click here to read more on this story from the New York Times.

The Associated Press and Newscore contributed to this report.

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NATO aids Taliban contacts with Afghan government

Published October 13, 2010

| Associated Press

BRUSSELS –  U.S. and NATO forces are helping top Taliban leaders sit down for talks with the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan as a step toward political reconciliation with the insurgency, a senior NATO official said Wednesday.

Some talks between the elected government and the insurgents have taken place in Kabul, the official said, where Taliban leaders would not dare to travel without NATO approval.

The account was the most detailed yet of the U.S. and NATO role in clandestine talks that officials have said has been happening for several weeks.

The official on Wednesday spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the subject publicly.

The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has acknowledged some high-level contact with the Taliban, a homegrown Islamist insurgency seeking to displace Karzai's secular government.

The extent of the discussions has not been clear. The NATO official described recent face-to-face contacts but did not gives names dates or precise locations for the meetings.

The U.S and the NATO alliance are not mediating the talks, only allowing for safe passage of Taliban officials, U.S. officials said.

In August, Gen. David Petraeus, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, had told reporters that Karzai was pursuing negotiations and that "there have been some ways that we have facilitated some of the contact."

___

AP writer Anne Flaherty contributed to this report from Washington.

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UN extends Afghan force amid terrorist concerns

UNITED NATIONS –  The Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to extend U.N. authorization for the NATO-led force in Afghanistan for a year, expressing "strong concern" at the increase in terrorist activities by the Taliban, al-Qaida and other armed groups.

A resolution adopted by the U.N.'s most powerful body stressed the need for sustained efforts by the 143,000-strong International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, to assist the Afghan government in improving security and addressing extremist threats.

The council recognized the international commitment to support the phased transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government and stressed the importance of training the Afghan army and national police.

It said this would "accelerate progress towards the goal of self-sufficient, accountable and ethnically balanced Afghan security forces providing security and ensuring the rule of law throughout the country."

Momentum for a political solution to the nine-year war has been slowly building in Afghanistan as public support for a drawn-out military push has waned in the West.

Sending thousands more U.S. troops this summer to the country's south has yet to show significantly increased security in the Taliban heartland, and violence has risen countrywide in recent months.

The council expressed "strong concern about the security situation in Afghanistan, in particular the increased violent and terrorist activities by the Taliban, al-Qaida, other illegal armed groups and criminals, including those involved in the narcotics trade, and the increasingly strong links between terrorism activities and illicit drugs, resulting in threats to the local population."

In hopes of promoting a peaceful resolution, Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently set up a 68-member council to guide formal talks with the Taliban. He said informal talks have been taking place, but there has been no formal contact with the Taliban's leadership.

The Security Council reiterated its call "on all Afghan parties and groups to engage constructively in peaceful political dialogue." It encouraged the Afghan government-led peace process, especially its program to reintegrate combatants into society.

But saying the situation in Afghanistan "still constitutes a threat to international peace and security," the council extended authorization of ISAF — made up of 95,000 U.S. troops and 48,000 allied forces — until Oct. 13, 2011.

The Security Council condemned all attacks targeting civilians as well as Afghan and international forces "in the strongest terms," singling out the use of civilians as human shields by the Taliban, al-Qaida and other extremist groups.

It expressed "serious concern" at the increased high number of civilian casualties, the large majority caused by the Taliban, al-Qaida and other extremist groups. It also urged ISAF to continue to undertake "enhanced efforts" to prevent civilian deaths.

The Security Council welcomed the Afghan government's ban on ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can be used as an explosive, and it urged implementation of regulations to control all explosive materials and precursor chemicals which would reduce the ability of insurgents to make improvised explosive devices.

Planted on roadsides, these homemade bombs have killed and maimed hundreds of soldiers and civilians.

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Photos show US soldiers posing with Afghan corpses

SEATTLE –  Those who have seen the photos say they are grisly: soldiers beside newly killed bodies, decaying corpses and severed fingers.

The dozens of photos, described in interviews and in e-mails and military documents obtained by The Associated Press, were seized by Army investigators and are a crucial part of the case against five soldiers accused of killing three Afghan civilians earlier this year.

Troops allegedly shared the photos by e-mail and thumb drive like electronic trading cards. Now 60 to 70 of them are being kept tightly shielded from the public and even defense attorneys because of fears they could wind up in the news media and provoke anti-American violence.

"We're in a powder-keg situation here," said Eugene R. Fidell, president of the National Institute for Military Justice and a military law professor at Yale University.

Since the images are not classified, "I think they have to be released if they're going to be evidence in open court in a criminal prosecution," he said.

Maj. Kathleen Turner, a spokeswoman for Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle, where the accused soldiers are stationed, acknowledged that the images were "highly sensitive, and that's why that protective order was put in place."

She declined to comment further.

At least some of the photos pertain to those killings. Others may have been of insurgents killed in battle, and some may have been taken as part of a military effort to document those killed, according to lawyers involved in the case.

Among the most gruesome allegations is that some of the soldiers kept fingers from the bodies of Afghans they killed as war trophies. The troops also are accused of passing around photos of the dead and of the fingers.

Four members of the unit — two of whom are also charged in the killings — have been accused of wrongfully possessing images of human casualties, and another is charged with trying to impede an investigation by having someone erase incriminating evidence from a computer hard drive.

"Everyone would share the photographs," one of the defendants, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, told investigators. "They were of every guy we ever killed in Afghanistan."

After the first slaying, one service member sent urgent e-mails to his father warning that more bloodshed was on the way. The father told the AP he pleaded for help from the military, but authorities took no action. A spokesman said Friday that the Army was investigating.

The graphic nature of the images recalled famous photos that emerged in 2004 from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Those pictures — showing smiling soldiers posing with naked, tortured or dead detainees, sometimes giving a thumbs-up — stirred outrage against the United States at a critical juncture. The photos were a major embarrassment to the American military in an increasingly unpopular and bloody war.

In a chilling videotaped interview with investigators, Morlock talked about hurling a grenade at a civilian as a sergeant discussed the need to "wax this guy."

Morlock's attorney, Michael Waddington, said the photos were not just shared among the defendants or even their platoon. He cited witnesses who told him that many at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Kandahar Province kept such images, including one photograph of someone holding up a decapitated head blown off in an explosion.

That photo had nothing to do with Morlock, he said. It's not clear whether it's among the photos seized in the case.

On Sept. 9, Army prosecutors gave a military representative of the defendants, Maj. Benjamin K. Grimes, packets containing more than 1,000 pages of documents in the case. Included were three photographs, each of a different soldier lifting the head of a dead Afghan, according to an e-mail Grimes sent to defense lawyers.

Later that day, before the documents could be shared with the defense lawyers, the prosecutors returned to Grimes' office and demanded to have the packets back, Grimes wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail first reported by The New York Times.

The prosecutors cited national security interests and a concern that the photos could be released to the media.

Grimes said his staff initially refused to return the photos, but the next day, the Army commander at Lewis-McChord who convened the criminal proceedings, Col. Barry Huggins, ordered them to do so. They complied.

At a preliminary hearing in Morlock's case Monday, Army officials confirmed that the number of restricted photos is 60 to 70. The investigating officer said he would view the photos in private.

Defense attorneys will also be allowed to see them if they visit the criminal investigations office on base, but they cannot have copies — an arrangement that did not satisfy Grimes. The defendants have been detained and cannot travel to see the photos to assist in their own defense, he noted, and most of the defense lawyers are based out of state.

Michael T. Corgan, a Vietnam veteran who teaches international relations at Boston University, said it should be no surprise that, even after Abu Ghraib, some soldiers take gruesome pictures as war souvenirs.

"They're proof people are as tough as they say they are," Corgan said. "War is the one lyric experience in their lives — by comparison every else is punching a time clock. They revel in it, and they collect memories of it."

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Feds want case dropped against Afghan in Calif

SANTA ANA, Calif. –  Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to drop charges against the Afghan-born brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, saying a key overseas witness was unavailable to testify.

The decision was a striking reversal in the case against Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, who had been accused by prosecutors of lying about his ties to terrorist groups on his citizenship application.

The government alleged in court papers that Niazi was a dangerous threat who had spoken of jihad, traveled to Pakistan to meet with a high-ranking al-Qaida leader, and associated with the Taliban and a terrorist organization called Hezb-e-Islami, which fights international and U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Niazi had been scheduled for a November trial on charges of perjury, procurement of naturalization unlawfully, passport fraud and making a false statement. He could have faced up to 35 years in prison if convicted of all the charges.

His attorney, Chase Scolnick, declined to comment because a judge has not yet signed off on the dismissal motion. Niazi was not immediately available for comment, Scolnick said.

The government made its motion Wednesday, requesting dismissal without prejudice, which means charges could later be refiled.

"After considering all aspects of the case, including the unavailability of an overseas witness, the government decided that it could not move forward with the prosecution," Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said in a prepared statement.

The statement said no further comment would be provided.

The FBI, which built the case against Niazi, referred calls to the U.S. attorney's office.

Niazi's case grabbed national attention when he was arrested in February 2009, and a former FBI informant named Craig Monteilh soon went public with his involvement in building the case.

Monteilh, 48, said he infiltrated Niazi's Southern California mosque for the FBI by pretending to be a half-French, half-Syrian Muslim convert.

Once there, he secretly filmed and recorded dozens of worshippers at mosques, including the Islamic Center of Irvine, where Niazi worshipped, according to court papers.

The AP has independently confirmed that Monteilh worked for the FBI as a mosque informant from 2006 to 2007.

Monteilh later sued the FBI for $10 million, alleging he was mistreated by the agency. That lawsuit was thrown out, but the fitness trainer filed an amended complaint last month.

He has also cooperated with Niazi's defense attorney and joined forces with the American Civil Liberties Union to help them build a civil case against the FBI over its spying techniques, according to legal documents obtained by the AP.

Muslims who followed the case said they were pleased with the government's move to dismiss the case and believed Niazi had been charged because he declined to become an informant for the FBI.

They noted Niazi had spent more than 18 months in home detention that was downgraded earlier this year to a curfew lasting from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. He also wore a tracking device on his ankle.

"We welcome this corrective action by the government and the FBI," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in greater Los Angeles.

"At this point the government — and specifically the FBI — owes Mr. Niazi, his family and the Muslim community at large a major apology for ruining his reputation and parading him as some sort of vicious terrorist," Ayloush said.

Experts familiar with the prosecution of terrorism-related cases said it was unusual to request a dismissal of such a high-profile case, particularly after the passage of so much time. The trial has been postponed several times.

Patrick Rowan, former assistant attorney general for national security, said Monteilh's behavior following Niazi's arrest could have played a role in the decision to request a dismissal.

"Ordinarily, you would have plenty of corroboration for what an informant was saying," said Rowan, now a partner at a private law firm.

"But if the informant is 60 percent of the case, you can imagine that if the 60 percent goes away, then you're looking at a case that may not be worth pursuing," he said.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects location of court to Santa Ana instead of Los Angeles. Adds quote, details.)

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