Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai (left) shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a photo opportunity ahead of their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on October 4, 2011.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a wide-ranging agreement with India on Tuesday to deepen ties between the two countries, including to help train Afghan security forces, in a deal likely to irk Pakistan as tension grows in the region.
India is one of Afghanistan‘s biggest bilateral donors, having pledged about US$2 billion (RM6.38 billion) since the 2001 US led-invasion for projects from the construction of highways to the building of the Afghan parliament.
On a two-day visit to New Delhi, Karzai and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed a strategic partnership that spanned closer political ties to fighting terrorism. It signals a formal tightening of links that may spark Pakistani concerns India is increasingly competing for leverage in Afghanistan.
The agreement is one of several being negotiated by Kabul, including one with the United States, that are part of an Afghan bid for greater security as Nato troops head home.
General Dastgir points to the way out — one at a time — at the time the jailbreak was discovered on 25 April, 2011.
The governor of the Afghan jail where hundreds of insurgents this week escaped through a tunnel built by the Taliban has been detained along with several top aides, an intelligence source told Reuters today.
General Ghulam Dastgir, who headed the high-security Sarposa jail where almost 500 fighters escaped along a dirt shaft fitted with lights and air pipes, was led away in handcuffs following a preliminary investigation, the source said on condition of anonymity.
Also detained were eight others including Dastgir’s deputy governor and several senior prison managers, he said.
A spokesman for Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of southern Kandahar province where the jail was located, confirmed several detentions at the prison, but declined to name anyone.
“A number of people were detained because they neglected their duties,” the spokesman said.
Kanzai ired US allied with comments with local leaders in Afganisthan.
Kanzai told tribal elders on Sunday that government officials should not let "foreigners" interfere in their work.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, center, surrounded by his body guards walks through Kandahar city, south of Kabul,
The United States suggested on Tuesday it might cancel a meeting between President Barack Obama and President Hamid Karzai in the White House next month if the Afghan leader persisted with anti-Western comments.
Intensifying tensions between the two nations, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that a series of critical comments by Karzai was "troubling" and "confusing".
Pressed to say whether the May 12 meeting might be called off, Gibbs told reporters: "We certainly would evaluate whatever continued or further remarks President Karzai makes, as to whether that's constructive to have such a meeting."
Among comments that have angered his backers, Karzai accused embassies of perpetrating election fraud in Afghanistan last year and of seeking to weaken him. He told tribal elders on Sunday that government officials should not let "foreigners" interfere in their work.
Asked whether Karzai was still viewed as an ally of the United States after those comments, Gibbs replied: "Karzai is the democratically elected leader of Afghanistan."
Initially the Obama administration sought to play down Karzai's comments saying they were aimed at placating his domestic audience. But in recent days, Gibbs and others have taken a tougher line.
"We will not hesitate to ensure that the remarkable investment that our men and women are making is met with the type of governance that has to be in place in order to secure parts of a dangerous country," said Gibbs.
The White House earlier said it was frustrated on behalf of the American public, and invoked the sacrifice made by families who send their loved ones off to fight in the Afghanistan war.
There are more than 120,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, including more than 80,000 Americans, set to rise to 100,000 Americans this year.
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Germany's defense minister has announced a thorough investigation into the friendly fire clash that left six Afghan soldiers dead.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told journalists on Sunday that his office and the office of the German prosecutor general will investigate what happened Friday night near the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. NATO's ISAF and the Afghan Defense Ministry have also launched investigations.
The incident occurred on the same day that three German troops died and eight were wounded in heavy fighting with insurgents near Kunduz.
Guttenberg expressed his sympathy to the families and relatives of the Afghan soldiers killed by German soldiers. The German troops were rushing to the scene of their comrade's fighting after nightfall and mistook them for insurgents, the military said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
BERLIN (AP) — A German minister urged the country's public to show more understanding and support for their troops in Afghanistan after German soldiers accidentally killed six Afghan soldiers in a friendly fire incident.
Development Minister Dirk Niebel told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the public should have "more comprehension for the need that they sometimes have to defend themselves preemptively."
The incident occurred on the same day that three German troops died and eight were wounded in fighting with insurgents in Afghanistan.
Niebel said German soldiers can't understand the lack of comprehension by the German public and why they have to fear prosecution at home for defending themselves.
Niebel met with German soldiers in Afghanistan on Saturday after visiting development projects and was flying back to Germany on Sunday with three coffins from Friday's fighting.
The presence of some 4,000 German troops in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular in Germany, where politicians stop short of calling military operations there a war.
Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was holding a news conference Sunday and was expected to face tough questions over the deadly friendly fire incident Friday night in Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan.
There was still conflicting information about what happened. The German military maintains the vehicles carrying the Afghan soldiers could not be recognized as such, but the commander of Afghan forces in northern Afghanistan, Gen. Murad Ani, however, said both vehicles were clearly marked.
The Afghan military puts the death toll at six, the Germans speak of five troops killed.
Kunduz is also where German forces were sharply criticized last September when they ordered an airstrike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians.
Chancellor Angela Merkel called Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Saturday to express her condolences over the accidental killing of Afghan troops, and he expressed sympathy regarding the deaths of the three German soldiers.
In a separate development, retired General Harald Kujat, formerly the highest ranking German soldier and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, accused the government of "ignorance regarding the military's needs" for operations in Afghanistan.
Kujat told daily Welt am Sonntag that crucial equipment for a successful mission is missing and there aren't enough boots on the ground.
The current mandate — allowing a maximum of 5,000 soldiers — is a political compromise "which is not reflecting the real operational needs." The government lacks a coherent strategy, he said.
Kujat — who was Germany's top soldier between 2000 and 2002 before moving to the NATO headquarters — also said he expects more brazen attacks by the Taliban on the German military in northern Afghanistan.
So far, 39 German soldiers have lost their life in Afghanistan, 22 of them in combat or following bomb attacks.
German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg informs the media about the recent incident in Afghanistan during a news conference in Bonn, Germany, Sunday April 4, 2010. German troops in a deadly firefight with Taliban insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops. Three Germans died in the firefight with the militants. The friendly fire incident Friday took place in northern Kunduz province, where German forces were sharply criticized last September when they ordered an airstrike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians.
In this photo released by the German government on Sunday, April 4, 2010, German ISAF soldiers attend a military farewell ceremony for three killed comrades at the German ISAF base in Kunduz, Afghanistan, Sunday, April 4, 2010. Three German ISAF soldiers have been killed during a fight with Taliban fighters on Friday, April 2, 2010, eight soldiers were wounded, four of them seriously
In this photo released by the German government on Sunday, April 4, 2010, German ISAF soldiers carry a flag-drapped coffin to a transport helicopter at the German base in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on Sunday, April 4, 2010. Three German ISAF soldiers have been killed during a fight with Taliban fighters on Friday, April 2, 2010, eight soldiers were wounded, four of them seriously.
German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg informs the media about the recent incident in Afghanistan during a news conference in Bonn, Germany, Sunday April 4, 2010. German troops in a deadly firefight with Taliban insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops. Three Germans died in the firefight with the militants. The friendly fire incident Friday took place in northern Kunduz province, where German forces were sharply criticized last September when they ordered an air strike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians
German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg informs the media about the recent incident in Afghanistan during a news conference in Bonn, Germany, Sunday April 4, 2010. German troops in a deadly firefight with Taliban insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops. Three Germans died in the firefight with the militants. The friendly fire incident Friday took place in northern Kunduz province, where German forces were sharply criticized last September when they ordered an airstrike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians.
German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, left and the Inspector General of the German army, General Volker Wieker, right, jointly inform the media about the recent incident in Afghanistan during a news conference in Bonn, Germany, April 4, 2010. German troops in a deadly firefight with Taliban insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops. Three Germans died in the firefight with the militants. The friendly fire incident Friday took place in northern Kunduz province, where German forces were sharply criticized last September when they ordered an air strike on two tanker trucks that had been captured by the Taliban. Up to 142 people died, many of them civilians.
Admiral Mike Mullen (R) speaks with Helmand Province Governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen (R) shakes hands with a local Afghan elder in Marjah
A map locating Kandahar in Afghanistan
The top US military commander on Tuesday visited Marjah, the frontline of US-led operations against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, where a battle for Kandahar is already ramping up.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in the battle zone a day after President Barack Obama left Afghanistan after a surprise visit, pledging to defeat the Taliban and "to get the job done".
Operations in the farming community of Marjah, set in poppy fields and desert in Helmand province, are the first test of Obama's counter-insurgency campaign aimed at ending an increasingly deadly war now into its ninth year.
Mullen met Helmand governor Gulab Mangal, with whom he discussed the progress of military operations, and pledged support for local security and development, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.
Mullen, who wore US Navy fatigues, and Mangal also met local leaders in a "shura" or community conference, where they heard concerns of Marjah residents including complaints that promised schools and clinics were not yet operating.
An Afghan journalist at the meeting said the Marjah elders complained that the road to provincial capital Lashkar Gah, less than 20 kilometres (12 miles) away, had not reopened since fighting began on February 13.
The United States and allies have boosted their troop numbers to 126,000, with the number set to peak at 150,000 by August as the fight expands into neighbouring Kandahar province, the heartland of the insurgency.
Obama has said he wants to start drawing down American troops from the middle of next year, putting pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to take over responsibility for security by then.
The US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, told Obama earlier this month that he would take on Taliban militants in Kandahar when enough reinforcements were in place.
Military and political efforts against the Taliban around Kandahar, Afghanistan's third biggest city and the Islamist militia's spiritual capital, have "been long under way," a senior NATO officer in Kabul confirmed.
"There's roughly today on the ground about 8,000 coalition troops and 12,000 Afghans in the Kandahar fight," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"In the last two months we've had a tremendous impact on the major approaches into Kandahar to try to squeeze the Taliban's access," he said, claiming that up to "70 significant mid- to high-level Taliban have been taken off the streets of Kandahar in the last several months".
A US Army brigade would boost the coalition force in Kandahar to 11,000 by June, he said. In the city of one million, he said, Afghan police would shoulder the main burden to evict the Taliban and keep them at bay.
"We have never had the force density in Kandahar to really own all the extreme approaches. With forces that have gone in there we have been able to really slice down on a lot of the traditional avenues into Kandahar itself," he said.
The arrival of additional forces would see current operations accelerate, with the aim of clearing the city and its surrounds of Taliban operatives by the religious fasting month of Ramadan, beginning in mid-August.
The campaign follows the launch of Operation Mushtarak in Marjah on February 13, where six weeks later troops are still coming under fire and being targeted by bomb attacks despite efforts to restore Afghan government control.
Upon his return to Washington from Afghanistan, Obama stressed the immediate need for progress in the country, torn by three decades of conflict and nearly a decade of US-led intervention.
He pressed Karzai, who won a new five-year term in fraud-tainted elections in August, to step up the fight against corruption and the drugs trade, and invited the Afghan leader to visit Washington on May 12.
The United States plans a major offensive this year in the Taliban bastion of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, a senior official said Friday, calling a hard-fought ongoing operation a mere prelude.
The remarks were the latest sign that President Barack Obama's administration plans to step up the fight against the Taliban as part of its strategy of pouring thousands more troops into Afghanistan.
US Marines have been leading a 15,000-strong force of US, Afghan and NATO forces in a nearly two-week assault in the southern Marjah area in what has been billed as the biggest operation since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"I think the way to look at Marjah, it's the tactical prelude to larger, more comprehensive operations later this year in Kandahar City," said a senior administration official, who asked not to be named.
"It's a goal for 2010. If our overall goal for 2010 is to reverse the momentum and gain time and space for the Afghan capacity, we have to get to Kandahar this year," he said.
Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, is a cultural home to the Pashtun people and was the birthplace of the Taliban movement, which imposed an austere brand of Islam over the country from 1996 to 2001.
"It's their center of gravity," the administration official said of Kandahar, describing the US goal as being able to bring "comprehensive population security" to the city.
Operation Mushtarak ("Together") aims to bring government control to Marjah, a poppy-growing area of Helmand province that has effectively under Taliban rule for years.
Authorities on Thursday symbolically hoisted the Afghan flag over Marjah. But troops have faced stiff resistance from militant fighters virtually indistinguishable from the local population and NATO warned that hidden bombs remained a threat.
US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of 121,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, has charted out a counter-insurgency strategy in which the military works closely with civilian authorities to neutralize militants.
"In many ways it is a model for the future: an Afghan-led operation supported by the coalition, deeply engaged with the people," McChrystal said.
US Central Command chief General David Petraeus said Sunday that Mushtarak is the initial stage of a plan McChrystal has mapped out for the coming 12-18 months.
The timeline coincides with the schedule laid out by Obama, who in December issued orders to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Obama hopes to start withdrawing forces by July 2011, by which time the administration expects that Afghanistan will have 287,000 trained soldiers and police who can increasingly take charge of their country's security.
The administration official on Friday pointed to successes in a key part of the strategy -- Pakistan.
"In the last nine months we've seen a significant strategic shift in Pakistan," the official said. "That strategic shift is the decision by the Pakistani security forces to take the fight against the Pakistani Taliban."
Pakistan has launched offensives in its lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where much of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership is believed to be based.
US officials have long suspected that elements in Pakistan's powerful spy agency have abetted extremists.
A recent raid in the Pakistani metropolis of Karachi led to the capture of Afghan Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, although some observers believe the arrest was a fluke.
Danger zone: A U.S. Marine dodges an IED blast in Afghanistan (file picture)
Ruper Hamer: Killed in a blast while embedded with U.S. Marine Corps
A British journalist was killed in an explosion in Afghanistan yesterday, the Ministry of Defence announced today.
Father-of-three Rupert Hamer, the Sunday Mirror's defence correspondent, died of his wounds at the scene north-west of Nawa.
The newspaper's photographer, Philip Coburn, was injured in the blast, which also killed a US Marine and an Afghan soldier.
Mr Coburn, who is in a serious but stable condition, and Mr Hamer, 39, were embedded with the U.S. Marine Corps when they were caught in the explosion.
They were accompanying a patrol when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.
Mr Hamer is the first British journalist to die during the Afghanistan conflict and the first correspondent to be killed in a warzone since ITN reporter Terry Lloyd in Iraq in 2003.
The journalist, who was known as 'Corporal Hamer' by colleagues, was making his fifth trip to Afghanistan when he died.
Since become the Sunday Mirror's defence correspondent in 2004, Mr Hamer had also covered the armed forces across the Middle East and central Asia, the Oman, Bahrain, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Today Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: ‘I was deeply saddened by this tragic news, and my heartfelt thoughts and sympathies are with the families, friends and colleagues of Rupert and Philip.
‘Their courage, skill and dedication to reporting from the frontline was incredibly important and ensured that the world could see and read about our heroic troops.
‘Their professionalism and commitment to our forces will not be forgotten.’
Coburn, 43, and Hamer flew to the region on New Year's Eve on a trip that was to have lasted a month, the Sunday Mirror said.
Hamer, who was married to Helen, had three children, aged six, five and 19 months.
He had worked for the newspaper for 12 years and colleagues paid tribute to a 'fine, fearless and skilled writer'.
Coburn has been at the Sunday Mirror for eight years, covering stories including Hurricane Katrina.
Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver said: 'Rupert believed that the only place to report a war was from the frontline, and as our defence correspondent he wanted to be embedded with the US marines at the start of their vital surge into southern Afghanistan.
'He left on New Year's Eve with photographer Phil Coburn, determined to be there from the start.
'He was a seasoned, highly-regarded and brave journalist who had reported from both Iraq and Afghanistan on many occasions.
'It was his fifth trip to Afghanistan, and he had forged friendships with a number of the soldiers serving out there.'
He had organised a special Christmas newspaper produced for the troops packed with messages from loved ones, which was flown out by the RAF three weeks ago, she said.
'He was a fine, fearless, and skilled writer who joined the paper 12 years ago,' she added. 'Affectionately known as Corporal Hamer in the office, he was a gregarious figure, a wonderful friend who was hugely popular with his colleagues.
'Above all he was devoted to his wife Helen and their three young children.
'Our thoughts and condolences are with Helen, his father Nick, who he was so close to, and the children he was so proud of.'
She described Coburn as a 'consummate all round journalist and brilliant photographer'.
She added: 'He and Rupert made a dedicated team, working together around the world, sacrificing personal comfort countless times to record the reality of wars.
'We wish Phil a speedy recovery and send our warmest wishes to his partner and family.'
Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth said: 'Both Rupert Hamer and Phil Coburn accompanied me on my most recent trip to Afghanistan.
'I got to know them well and I was impressed by their hard work and professionalism.
'My thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families, friends and colleagues of both men at this extremely distressing time.
'As a defence correspondent, Rupert Hamer was in regular contact with press officers at the MoD.
'I know they had great respect for his work and the news of his death has been met with great sadness amongst us all.
'In recent weeks we worked closely with Rupert on a special Christmas edition of the Sunday Mirror, containing messages for deployed personnel from their loved ones.
'The paper was very well received by troops on the ground and its success is testament both to Rupert's hard work and his understanding of service personnel.
'The sacrifice of service personnel is well documented and rightly respected, but this news demonstrates the risks also faced by journalists who keep the public informed of events on the frontline.'
President Karzai suffered a humiliating blow to his authority yesterday after parliament rejected two-thirds of his nominees for a new cabinet, including the only woman and a warlord accused of human rights abuses.
The head of the United Nations in Kabul warned Afghanistan risks floundering “without a functioning government,” after just seven of the president’s 24 ministerial candidates were approved in a secret ballot.
“It prolongs the situation without a functioning government, and that’s a situation that has lasted since the election period [in August],” said Kai Eide, the Norwegian head of the UN mission in Kabul. “I think most of us were surprised by how many ministers were not approved.”
Western officials said parliament was “baring its teeth” after eight years in which the president has ignored them.
Mr Karzai’s choice of cabinet ministers was seen as a key test of his resolve to root out corruption and cronyism which has paralysed western efforts to help rebuild the country.
His picks were complex compromise between appeasing the warlords, the international community and the hundreds of people he promised jobs in exchange for their support in August’s deeply flawed and fraudulent presidential elections.
When the list of 24 names was announced two weeks ago, a month after he was sworn in as president and more than six weeks after he was declared the winner of August’s elections, it was largely welcomed by the Kabul’s western backers.
Many insist their aid money is dependent on Mr Karzai’s pledge to clean up his administration.
Parliament’s decision has left diplomats anxious the president may renege on pledge to reform, in order to get his cabinet approved.
In the past, when parliament passed a vote of no-confidence in his Foreign Minister, he simply ignored them.
“Karzai has often bypassed parliament, ignored parliament and kept his distance from parliament,” said a long-serving western diplomat.
“He’s been slapping them in the face, and now they are baring their teeth.”
Crucially though, his choices for interior, defence, finance and agriculture ministers were all approved. Between them, they are in charge of building up Afghanistan’s security forces and boosting the economy, which is central to America’s counterinsurgency strategy.
With MPs due to start a six-week winter recess any day now, Mr Eide said it was unlikely that the President would get his cabinet in place in time for a major international conference on Afghanistan, due to take place in London on Jan 28.
“It will take weeks,” Mr Eide said. “It could take more than weeks.”
It’s not yet clear whether the nominees will continue on as acting ministers until their replacements are approved, or whether their deputies will take over.
“It’s for the Afghan government to resolve,” said a western diplomat. “We will continue to engage with whoever remains in place.”
Mr Eide said the only positive thing to come out of Parliament’s almost total boycott was that “it proves the institutions work”.
“Parliament has made full use of its authority under the constitution and that must be respected,” he said. “We’ve seen it’s not a rubber stamping parliament, that we see in quite a lot of other countries.”
The president's spokesman, Waheed Omar, admitted, "this is obviously not good in terms of the functioning of the government, in terms of services".
But he insisted the ministries would continue to operate.
"This is the beauty of democracy," he said. "We are exercising democracy."
The Afghan parliament votes in Kabul
Thrown out: Members of the Afghan parliament look on as it votes on Hamid Karzai's cabinet nominees. By the end, 17 of 24 were rejected
Struggle: President Karzai visiting a military hospital in Kabul last week
Air Force Techincal Sgt. Phllip M. Huaser from Salina, Kansas, assigned to the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device(CIED) route clearance unit wears a silver Mjolnir, the Viking God Thor's hammer as he guards Highway One near the town of Maidan Shar, Wardak province, Afghanistan Monday Nov. 30, 2009.
US Army soldiers assigned to the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device(CIED) route clearance unit, pull security under a destroyed bridge while waiting for the arrival of a team of army engineers that will place a temporary bridge after insurgents detonated a large explosive device under the bridge, near the town of Maidan Shar, Wardak province, Afghanistan Monday Nov. 30, 2009.
Georgia state National Guardsman, Sgt. Scott A. Millican, right, from Statesboro, GA., and Air Force Techincal Sgt. Phllip M. Huaser from Salina, Kansas, both part of the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device(CIED) route clearance unit look up as US fighter jets fly overhead near the town of Maidan Shar, Wardak province, Afghanistan Monday Nov. 30, 2009.
Georgia state National Guardsman, Sgt. Scott A. Millican, from Statesboro, GA., assigned to the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device(CIED) route clearance unit, pulls security under a destroyed bridge while waiting for the arrival of a team of army engineers that will place a temporary bridge after insurgents detonated a large explosive device under the bridge, near the town of Maidan Shar, Wardak province, Afghanistan Monday Nov. 30, 2009.
New strategy: Barack Obama
Talks: Obama discussed his plans with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, front
Extra troops: American President Barack Obama will pledge an extra 34,000 U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan to join the existing 71,000 currently fighting
New infusions of U.S. Marines will begin moving into Afghanistan almost as soon as President Barack Obama announces a redrawn battle strategy, a plan widely expected to include more than 30,000 additional U.S. forces.
Obama will try to sell a skeptical public on his bigger, costlier war plan Tuesday by coupling the large new troop infusion with an emphasis on stepped-up training for Afghan forces that he says will allow the U.S. to leave.
Obama formally ends a 92-day review of the war in Afghanistan Tuesday night with a nationally broadcast address in which he will lay out his revamped strategy from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He began rolling out his decision Sunday night, informing key administration officials, military advisers and foreign allies in a series of private meetings and phone calls that stretched into Monday.
Military officials said at least one group of Marines is expected to deploy within two or three weeks of Obama's announcement, and would be in Afghanistan by Christmas. Larger deployments wouldn't be able to follow until early in 2010.
The initial infusion is a recognition by the administration that something tangible needs to happen quickly, officials said. The quick addition of Marines would provide badly needed reinforcements to those fighting against Taliban gains in the southern Helmand province, and could lend reassurance to both Afghans and a war-weary U.S. public.
The war escalation includes sending 30,000 to 35,000 more American forces into Afghanistan in a graduated deployment over the next year, on top of the 71,000 already there. Obama's announcement is the culmination of more than three months of debate over whether and how to expand U.S. military involvement in a war that has turned worse this year despite Obama's previous infusion of 21,000 forces.
But the numbers of fresh troops don't tell the whole story, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. "It's what their mission is," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." "We're going to accelerate going after al-Qaida and its extremist allies. We'll accelerate the training of an Afghan national security force, a police and an army."
In Kabul, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, the new head of a U.S.-NATO command responsible for training and developing Afghan soldiers and police, said Tuesday that although the groundwork is being laid to expand the Afghan National Army beyond the current target of 134,000 troops, to be reached by Oct. 31, 2010, no fixed higher target is set.
There is a notional goal of eventually fielding 240,000 soldiers and 160,000 police, but Caldwell said that could change.
"Although that is a goal and where we think it could eventually go to, it's not a hard, firm, fixed number," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
He indicated that one reason for avoiding a hard-and-fast commitment to those higher numbers is the expected cost. So his orders are to reach the targets of 134,000 soldiers and 96,800 police by next October. He intends to hold annual reviews, beginning next spring or early summer, to determine whether the notional higher targets of 240,000 soldiers and 160,000 police — for a combined total of 400,000 by 2013 — are still the right goals for Afghanistan.
"If you grow it up to 400,000 — if you did grow all the way to that number, and if it was required to help bring greater security to this country — then of course you have to sustain it at that level, too, in terms of the cost of maintaining a force that size," he said. Nearly all the cost of building Afghan forces has been borne by the U.S. and other countries thus far.
Obama also will deliver a deeper explanation of why the U.S. must continue to fight more than eight years after the war's start, emphasizing that Afghan security forces need more time, more schooling and more U.S. combat backup to be up to the job on their own. He will make tougher demands on the governments of Pakistan and, especially, Afghanistan, and will provide a fresh path toward disengagement.
Gibbs also promised that Obama would lay out an endgame scenario for U.S. involvement. "We want to — as quickly as possible — transition the security of the Afghan people over to those national security forces in Afghanistan," he said Tuesday. "This can't be nation-building. It can't be an open-ended forever commitment."
With U.S. casualties in Afghanistan sharply increasing and little sign of progress, the war Obama once liked to call one "of necessity," not choice, has grown less popular with the public and within his own Democratic party. In recent days, leading Democrats have talked of setting tough conditions on deeper U.S. involvement, or even staging outright opposition.
The displeasure on both sides of the aisle was likely to be on display when congressional hearings on Obama's strategy get under way later in the week on Capitol Hill.
Obama was spending much of Monday and Tuesday on the phone, outlining his plan — minus many specifics — for the leaders of France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China, India, Denmark, Poland and others. He also met in person at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
A briefing for dozens of key lawmakers was planned for Tuesday afternoon, just before Obama was set to leave the White House for the speech against a military backdrop at West Point.
The Afghan government said Tuesday that President Hamid Karzai and Obama had an hourlong video conference. Obama was also going to speak with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
In Afghanistan, rampant government corruption and inefficiency have made U.S. success much harder. Obama was expected to place tough conditions on Karzai's government, along with endorsing a stepped-up training program for the Afghan armed forces along the outline recommended this fall by U.S. trainers.
That schedule would expand the Afghan army to 134,000 troops by next fall, three years earlier than once envisioned.
Military officials said the speech is expected to include several references to Iraq, where the United States still has more than 100,000 forces. The strain of maintaining that overseas war machine has stretched the Army and Marine Corps and limited Obama's options.
Mourning: Guardsman Janes' family at his funeral in Hove, East Sussex, last month
List of dialogue between the mom and Prime Minister Gordon.
Gordon Brown failed to bow after he laid his wreath at the Cenotaph on Sunday (left). Grenadier Guard Jamie Janes, 20, (right) was killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan last month
Letter of condolence full of mistakes.
PM Gordon also lost a child, a daughter of ten days old.
Angry: Jacqui Janes this week (L) and (R) with her son Guardsman Jamie
Gordon Brown spoke of his personal grief at losing a child as he responded to criticism of his handwritten letter of condolence to a dead soldier's mother.
The Prime Minister suggested the awful experience of his daughter Jennifer Jane dying at just ten days old meant he understood the pain of bereavement.
He had already apologised to the distraught mother of Grenadier Guard Jamie Janes, 20, after she berated him for apparently misspelling her son's name and other words in his note of sympathy.
Yesterday he reiterated his sorrow for her loss and said: 'The last thing on my mind was to cause any offence.'
He made his unusually personal remarks as the bodies of six British troops killed in Afghanistan - including five slaughtered by a 'rogue' local policeman - were flown home.
A shaken-looking Mr Brown was forced to defend his treatment of the war dead - and again try to explain the purpose of the Afghan mission - during his monthly press conference. He revealed he had asked for a full investigation into the circumstances of Guardsman Janes's death. An inquest has not yet been held.
Jacqui Janes, 47, later said she was 'satisfied' with Mr Brown's apology - but said she hoped he had 'sleepless nights' when he read reports into how her son died.
Yesterday The Sun newspaper published an extraordinary 13-minute tape recording of Mr Brown phoning Mrs Janes, of Portslade, East Sussex, on Sunday night to apologise for upsetting her with his letter. During the sometimes heated conversation, she challenged the Prime Minister about kit shortages and claimed her son - killed in a roadside explosion on October 5 - would not have died if a helicopter had been available to airlift him from the battlefield.
'I know every injury my child sustained that day. I know that my son could have survived but my son bled to death,' she told Mr Brown.
'How would you like it if one of your children, God forbid, went to a war doing something that he thought... where he was helping protect his Queen and country... and because of lack of helicopters, lack of equipment, your child bled to death and then you had the coroner have to tell you his every injury?'
'My son had no legs from the knee down. My son lost his right hand. My son had to have his face reconstructed. Do you understand Mr Brown?'
She described his error-riddled letter as a 'hastily-scrawled insult'.
But sympathy was growing for Mr Brown yesterday amid accusations of a 'politically-motivated' and 'highly personal' attack on him.
Mr Brown's allies were dismayed that an apparently private conversation had been recorded and published by a tabloid newspaper.
They said the Prime Minister should expect such private discussions to remain private.
Today Lord Mandelson accused The Sun newspaper of 'bad taste and crude politicking' over its coverage of the row.
The First Secretary of State claimed that the tabloid newspaper had entered into a 'bargain' with the Tories for which News International, its parent company, would be rewarded under a Conservative government.
Asked today what lessons the Government needed to learn from the furore, Lord Mandelson claimed emails sent to news organisations showed that the public did not approve of The Sun.
'They've clearly made up their own mind about The Sun's mixture of bad taste and crude politicking,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
'They've seen through it, they don't like it and they've said so.'
In a sign of Downing Street's irritation, broadcasters were asked not to play the recording of Mr Brown's voice.
Yesterday, without referring directly to the death of his newborn daughter Jennifer Jane in 2001, a visibly moved Mr Brown gave a remarkably personal account of his own experience as a parent coping with loss.
'I'm a parent who understands the feelings when something goes terribly, terribly wrong, and I understand also how long it takes for people to handle and deal with the grief we have all experienced,' he told his Downing Street press conference.
'I wanted to say during that conversation with her, but thought I could not really do so because I do not know her, that when there is a personal loss as deep and immediate as she has experienced it takes time to recover.
'That loss can never be replaced, you have got to take every day at a time...
'Over time, comfort comes from understanding that your son has played an important role in the security of our country and died in such a courageous and brave way that nobody will ever forget it.' The Prime Minister was also defended by the family of the most highly decorated soldier to have died in Afghanistan.
Military Cross holder Acting Sergeant Michael Lockett, 29, of 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, was killed by a Taliban bomb while on patrol in September.
His mother April said she had also received a letter from the Prime Minister.
'He sent me a three-page letter and, yes, there were mistakes but that does not matter. The fact is it came from his heart.
'It was the fact that the poor man sat down and wrote it. When you're full of grief can you spell properly?
'He has had to write to a lot of families and he is only human.'
Tory MP Adam Holloway praised Mr Brown's 'extremely good intentions' in sending letters to bereaved families of soldiers but added: 'It's sort of an allegory for the whole thing - very good intentions but the problem has been in the execution.'
'We can't write a letter correctly, we can't get the right equipment and as far as I'm concerned, we don't have the right strategy.'
Labour minister Phil Woolas accused the Sun newspaper, which recently switched its support from Labour to the Conservatives, of leading a politically-motivated attack on the Prime Minister.
'Nobody can doubt there is a political motive behind The Sun's coverage. It is a highly personalised attack,' he said. --------------- RELATED POSTS:-
Originally constructed for 12,000 people, the Kandahar base now has between 30,000 and 40,000 occupants
The United States has deployed the majority of the 21,000 extra soldiers to Kandahar and the neighbouring Helmand
Kandahar is Afghanistan's second city and the Taliban movement's spiritual home.Close to opium production also.
The US Army faces a major challenge to win back the Taliban's historic stronghold of Kandahar -- a key battleground in the increasingly bloody fight to control Afghanistan.
"Kandahar city is nationally critical," said Steve Biddle, from the Centre of Foreign Relations think tank in Washington. "It's one of the small number of places where a true setback could be a war loser."
A combat brigade of about 4,000 US soldiers has been sent to the volatile 54,000-square-kilometre (21,000-square-mile) southern province.
Until their arrival, just 2,800 Canadian troops had spent the last three years trying to ensure security for the province's 900,000 people.
"Taliban have always viewed Kandahar city as the jewel of the south and as their ultimate goal," said US intelligence officer Captain Mark Richardson. "They believe that what Kandahar does, all the Afghans will do."
"If we retake Kandahar, if the people are satisfied and development works, that will spread everywhere in Afghanistan. Afghans say that change comes from Kandahar," said a Western official familiar with the situation.
Three months after their arrival, US troops tasked with securing the main supply routes leading to Kabul, maintain they have had some successes.
"We have made incredible progress," said Richardson, pointing to the Taliban withdrawal from its stronghold in Arghandab district, north of Kandahar.
But it has come at a price. About 20 US soldiers have already been killed, most of them in attacks by the insurgents' weapon of choice, improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
In a sign of its importance to the NATO coalition, the heavily-guarded military base to the south of the city has grown into the second-biggest behind Bagram, near the capital Kabul.
Originally constructed for 12,000 people, the base now has between 30,000 and 40,000 occupants from all countries participating in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations -- and is getting bigger.
Armoured vehicles stretch as far as the eye can see, as Black Hawk helicopters, F-16 fighter jets and cargo planes take off and land in conveyor-belt succession.
The United States has deployed the majority of the 21,000 extra soldiers sent by President Barack Obama to Kandahar and the neighbouring province of Helmand, which produces most of the world's opium.
"Taliban have been very active in the south and I think we ignored them for the most part and concentrated our effort in the east, where Al-Qaeda was more active," a Pentagon military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"We really lost control of areas in the south."
As the Afghan conflict enters its ninth year, the Taliban in Afghanistan now control most of the 17 districts in the province and have spread into Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city and the movement's spiritual home.
And the battle is far from won, faced with a tenacious enemy and difficult terrain.
"Kandahar is a microcosm of the strategic problems of the country," said Biddle.
"There has to be a serious security force presence in the city. And the perception that it's better if it'd be Afghan is exactly right. However the Afghan government in Kabul has not been particularly supportive."
The Western official added: "The Taliban and others are taking advantage of the debate about troops and saying, 'the foreigners won't stay beyond two years'. That has had a negative impact on the population."
In addition, people here are victims of intimidation and racketeering by the Taliban, who often act with impunity. Several local leaders, fearing for their lives, do not even live in their own districts.
International forces accept that they have come up against the problem of corruption of local authorities, which is hampering efforts to win the support of the population.
The underpaid Afghan police are widely seen as corrupt. Many Afghans also accuse the head of the provincial council, Ahmed Wali Karzai whose brother is the Afghan president, of involvement in criminal activities including drug trafficking.
Rampant corruption is laying the foundations for insurrection, a number of international observers said on condition of anonymity.
