Negative Blogs

CAIRO– Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatens in a new audio tape to kill French citizens to avenge their country’s support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and a new law that will ban face-covering Muslim veils.

In the tape obtained by satellite television station Al-Jazeera and then posted on its website on Wednesday, bin Laden said France was aiding the Americans in the killing of Muslim women and children in an apparent reference to the war in Afghanistan. He said the kidnapping of five French citizens in the African nation of Niger last month was a reaction to what he called France’s oppression of Muslims.

“How can it be right that you participate in the occupation of our lands, support the Americans in the killing of our women and children and yet want to live in peace and security?” said bin Laden, addressing the French.

“It is a simple and clear equation: As you kill, you will be killed. As you capture, you will be captured. And as you threaten our security, your security will be threatened. The way to safeguard your security is to cease your oppression and its impact on our nation, most importantly your withdrawal from the ill-fated Bush war in Afghanistan.”

The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately verified but the voice resembled that of the terror group leader on previous tapes determined to be genuine. France’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tapes by bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri, have recently been posted on Al-Jazeera website rather than on sites run by militant Muslims as has been done for years. The shift appears to reflect the unexplained technical difficulties or closures experienced by the militant sites in recent months.

France has about 4,000 troops deployed in and near Afghanistan.

“You need to think of what happened to America as a result of that unjust war,” bin Laden said, again addressing the French and referring to the war in Afghanistan. “It’s on the verge of bankruptcy … and tomorrow it will retreat to beyond the Atlantic.”

France passed a law this month that will ban the wearing of face-covering burqa-style Muslim veils in public starting in April. Many Muslims have expressed fears the law would stigmatize them.

“If you deemed it your right to ban (Muslim) women from wearing the hijab, then should not it be our right to expel your invading men by striking their necks?” bin Laden said.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an offshoot of bin Laden’s group, has claimed responsibility for the abductions of five French citizens in Niger and is believed to have taken them to neighboring Mali. The French hostages, as well as a Togolese and a Madagascar national were kidnapped on Sept. 16 while they were sleeping in their villas in the uranium mining town of Arlit.

“The kidnapping of your experts in the Niger is a reaction to your oppression of Muslims,” said bin Laden.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb grew out of an Islamist insurgency movement in Algeria, merging with Al Qaeda in 2006 and spreading through the Sahara and the arid Sahel region. It has increasingly been targeting French interests.

In July, the group said it executed a 78-year-old French aid worker it had taken hostage three months before. It said the killing was retaliation for the deaths of six Al Qaeda members in a French-backed military operation against the group.

Also in July, the French military said it provided technical and logistical assistance to help Mauritanian forces thwart an attack by suspected Al Qaeda members in northwest Africa. It said the operation left six extremists dead.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy later described that operation as a “turning point” and said France would provide training, equipment and intelligence to local troops working to fight militants in the Sahel.

A series of warnings has put France and other European countries on high alert in recent weeks, prompting the U.S. State Department to advise American citizens living or traveling in Europe to take more precautions. Speculation on the source of a potential terror threat in France has focused on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

By foxnews.com

Oct. 7: This image, made from a video broadcast, shows Usama bin Laden at an undisclosed location. The Al Qaeda leader threatened to kill French citizens in a new audio tape posted Oct. 27 to avenge their country's support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban has captured two US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Islamic insurgents said.

American officials separately confirmed that two US soldiers serving with Nato forces were missing, but did not comment on the Taliban claims.

In the eastern Afghanistan province of Logar, local radio broadcast offers of a $20,000 reward for information that led to the safe release of the pair.

“Early this morning two coalition personnel went missing,” the announcement said. “They are believed to have been captured by insurgents somewhere in Logar province.

“They may have been separated from one another or maybe in the process of being moved to another location.”

A Taliban spokesman said that three servicemen with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had been captured but one had died. He did not give further details.

The soldiers were tracked and ambushed in a shoot-out by Taliban fighters as they drove through Logar in a four-wheel drive armoured vehicle, according to the account of a local Afghan chief.

He also thought that one of men may have been killed and the other captured.

Samer Gul, district chief of Charkh district in Logar province, said Saturday that the vehicle was seen on Friday night by a guard working for the district chief’s office. The guard tried to flag down the vehicle, carrying a driver and a passenger, but it kept going, Mr Gul said.

”They stopped in the main bazaar of Charkh district. The Taliban saw them in the bazaar,” he said. ”They didn’t touch them in the bazaar, but notified other Taliban that a four-wheel vehicle was coming their way.”

The second group of Taliban tried to stop the vehicle. The insurgents opened fire and the two occupants in the vehicle shot back, he said, adding that one may have been killed and the other taken hostage by the Taliban.

”Maybe they wanted to go to Paktia province or to the American base, but they came down the wrong road toward Charkh,” Mr Gul said. ”They didn’t pay any attention to the police. Otherwise we could have kept them from going into an insecure area and now this unfortunate incident has happened.”

Military officials could not confirm the district chief’s account.

In the radio broadcast one of the missing men was described as about six foot tall and weighing 15st 10lbs with blond hair and brown eyes. The other was described as 13st 8lbs, bald with a thin moustache. Both men have tattoos, the broadcast said.

“Coalition forces are offering $20,000 reward for any information that leads to the successful return of these two,” the statement said, without identifying the men.

A Nato statement said later that two ISAF service members left their compound the previous day in Kabul but did not return. A search is under way for them.

The statement did not identify the pair by nationality but US officials said they were Americans.
There is believed to be only one other ISAF soldier being held by the Taliban, who released a video of him last Christmas.

Meanwhile, five US troops died on Saturday in two separate roadside bombings.The two unnamed US personnel were wearing standard military camouflage, according to the radio report.

By Philip Sherwell

MINGORA, Pakistan—An apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in Pakistan’s Swat Valley killed five people and wounded at least 58 on Thursday, officials said, a sign that Islamist militants remain active in the northwest region despite a massive army operation.

The explosion went off around noon in Mingora, the main town in the one-time tourist haven that was largely overrun by Taliban militants in 2007.

Pakistani TV footage showed vehicles bent and twisted due to the force of the blast. Some men were desperately trying to open the doors of a car to reach a woman and man sitting in the front who were bloodied and appeared unconscious.

The area struck was crowded, so the death toll could rise significantly. Senior police official Qazi Ghulam Farooq said five people died, including two women, and that officials believed a suicide bomber was involved. At least 58 people were wounded, he said.

The Pakistan military launched its biggest operation against the Taliban in Swat in 2009 after a failed attempt at a peace deal that included pledges to impose Islamic law in the area. The operation forced some 2 million people to flee, but after a few months, the army said it had taken control and many of the refugees returned home.

Still, violence has occasionally flared in Swat, shaking people’s confidence. A handful of targeted killings of anti-Taliban elders in particular has worried those who fear the insurgents are staging a comeback in the valley.

In recent weeks, several major suicide attacks have shaken Pakistan. Last week, a pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Mohmand tribal region, killing at least 102 people in the deadliest attack in the U.S.-allied nation this year.

The attacks come as Washington is pushing Pakistan to do even more to root out militant groups that use its soil to plan attacks on Western troops across the border in Afghanistan.

The U.S. has also launched more than 100 missile strikes against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal area along the Afghan border. The attacks have been especially frequent in North Waziristan, the home base of the al-Qaida-linked group led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj.

One Thursday evening, three suspected U.S. missiles landed in North Waziristan’s Mada Khel area, killing at least two people, said two intelligence officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media on the record.

Pakistan officially condemns the missile strikes but is believed to secretly assist the covert, CIA-run program.

Militants have responded to the strikes by assassinating tribesmen whom they accuse of spying, including two men whose bullet riddled bodies were found Thursday in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, said an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The bodies were accompanied by notes saying they were killed for spying on the Taliban, he said.

By Sherin Zada and Riaz Khan

Pakistani soldiers and police officers guard the site of an apparent suicide bombing in Mingora, capital of Pakistan's troubled Swat valley on Thursday, July 15, 2010. The apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in Pakistan's Swat Valley killed three people and wounded at least 35 people Thursday, officials said, a sign that Islamist militants remain active in the northwest region despite a massive army operation against them. (AP Photo/Naveed Ali)

Coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan continued to add up in what has been a hot and bloody struggle, with eight American and four British troops slain over the last 48 hours.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force confirmed the eight American deaths. Five died Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, one in a bombing and the others in a small-arms attack. Three were killed Tuesday as they repelled an insurgent attack on a police base in Kandahar city.

The British Defence Ministry reported four deaths in Helmand province — that of a Marine shot during a foot patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province and those of three soldiers who were killed in a premeditated attack by a member of the Afghan National Army.

The death toll is on pace to match the killings recorded in June, the bloodiest month so far for U.S. and international troops during the Afghan war.

Sixty Americans were among the 102 international troops slain in June. So far this month, 45 coalition troops have been killed, including 34 Americans.

By the CNN Wire Staff

U.S. troops drive through a valley in Afghanistan last week on a mission to clear improvised explosive devices.

A deadly series of blasts in Uganda has been blamed on al-Shabaab, the Somali Islamist group which claims to have links to al-Qaeda.

-Al-Shabaab, which means “youth” in Arabic, has taken control of large areas of south and central Somalia. The Horn of Africa nation has been mired in anarchy since warlords toppled military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The interim government’s attempts to restore central rule have largely been paralysed by infighting and the Islamist-led insurgency. Fighting has killed more than 21,000 people since the start of 2007 and uprooted at least 1.5 million civilians. The chaos has also helped fuel kidnappings and piracy offshore.

Al-Shabaab’s hardline militia was part of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) movement that pushed US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu in June, 2006, and ruled for six months before Somali and Ethiopian forces ousted them.

In June 2009, al-Shabaab officials in one of the group’s Mogadishu strongholds ordered four teenagers to each have a hand and a leg cut off as punishments for robbery.

Al-Shabaab’s interpretation of Islamic law has shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally more moderate Muslims. However, some residents give the insurgents credit for restoring order to the regions under their control.

The Somali government claims hundreds of foreign fighters have joined the insurgency from countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Gulf region and Western nations such as the United States and Britain. Some of the foreign jihadists have taken up leadership positions in militant groups including al-Shabaab.

One American national of Somali origin was killed while fighting for al-Shabaab in Mogadishu last July.
Also last July Australian police arrested four men linked to the group, raising concern it may be seeking targets outside Somalia.

In Sept 2009, al-Shabaab insurgents struck the main African Union military base in Mogadishu with twin suicide car bombs and killed 17 peacekeepers. Rebels said the bombing was revenge for the US killing of Kenyan-born Salah Ali Saleh Nabhan, a most-wanted al-Qaeda militant.

Two French security advisers were kidnapped by Shabaab last July but one escaped a month later. The group issued a statement of demands in September, which included an immediate end to French support for the Somali government and the withdrawal of African Union peacekeepers.

Al-Shabaab has threatened to strike Uganda’s capital Kampala and Burundi’s capital Bujumbura because both nations contribute troops to the 6,100-strong AU peacekeeping force AMISOM.

The UN’s World Food Programme suspended its work in much of southern Somalia in January due to threats against its staff and unacceptable demands by al Shabaab rebels controlling the area.

By Telegraph

Al-Shabaab fighters Photo: AP

British troops in the Sangin area of Afghanistan’s Helmand province are to be replaced by US forces, the UK’s Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said.

The UK has suffered its heaviest losses in the area, with 99 deaths since 2001.

About 1,000 Royal Marines are expected to leave and be redeployed to central Helmand by the end of 2010.

The military insists the move is a redeployment, now there are more US troops on the ground, but the Taliban are certain to portray it as a defeat.

Difficult questions
Last month Britain handed over command in Helmand to a US general.

Maj Gen Richard Mills, of the US Marine Corps, assumed control of all Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) troops in Helmand on 1 June.

Dr Fox told MPs UK forces had made “good progress” in Sangin, but the move would enable Britain to provide “more manpower and greater focus” on Helmand’s busy central belt, leaving the north and south to the US.

“The result will be a coherent and equitable division of the main populated areas of Helmand between three brigade-sized forces, with the US in the north and the south, and the UK-led Task Force Helmand, alongside our outstanding Danish and Estonian allies, in the central population belt,” he told the Commons.

About 300 logistic and security troops - from the Theatre Reserve Battalion stationed in Cyprus - would be sent to Helmand to help with the redeployment, he said.

The Theatre Reserve Battalion for Afghanistan is currently provided by the 2nd Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.

Dr Fox also told MPs a stable Afghanistan was “vital to national security” .

Speaking at prime minister’s questions, David Cameron told MPs this was the “key year” to step up the military and political pressure in the country.

“It’s time to maximise the pressure now and then bring our forces home as we train up the Afghan army and police force to do the job that needs to be done,” he said.

UK forces should not be there in a “combat role, or in significant numbers” in five years time, he added.

Earlier, Conservative MP and former British army officer Patrick Mercer said the handover was a routine move and should under no circumstances be considered a retreat.

“Any suggestion that British forces are being beaten out of Sangin or returning with their tails between their legs is not just disingenuous, it’s actually disgusting,” he told the BBC.

Of the 312 UK deaths in Afghanistan since 2001, a third have taken place in Sangin, currently home to 40 Commando Royal Marines.

Col Stuart Tootal, who commanded the first UK battle group of of 1,200 soldiers sent into Sangin four years ago said the number of deaths that had taken place in Sangin meant there was a lot of “emotion” attached to the area.

He said: “It makes no sense from a logistic and command point of view to keep a British battle group away from its main brigade when it’s now an American area and there are American troops to take over from them.

“This reflects good practical military sense and we shouldn’t allow emotion or misinterpretation to be put above that.”

Ian Sadler, whose son Jack, 21, died north of Sangin in December 2007, said the US takeover would allow British troops to “consolidate” and “build a better base… in a smaller area influence”.

“This is a Nato exercise, it’s not the British out there fighting separately to the Americans, the Polish, the Canadians, we’re all out there together,” he told the BBC.

Sangin is the latest part of the province to be handed over to US control after the town of Musa Qaleh in March and the Kajaki dam last month.

It has witnessed some of the fiercest fighting the British military has endured since World War II, and contains a mix of rival tribes.

It is also a volatile northern district at the heart of the opium-growing industry.

The UK’s 8,000 forces in Helmand are greatly outnumbered by the 20,000 US Marines sent there by President Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence has named a soldier who was killed on Monday by a roadside bomb in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province as Trooper James Anthony Leverett, 20, of the Royal Dragoon Guards.

By BBC

Stage 1: UK troops in Kajaki replaced by US troops and move to Sangin. Already complete.
Stage 2: UK Theatre Reserve Battalion deploys to Central Helmand to consolidate recent gains.
Stage 3: US Marine Battalion commences operations in the vicinity of Sangin.
Stage 4: Marines replace UK forces in Sangin later this year. UK forces go to Central Helmand.
Source: Ministry of Defence

Militants set off a car bomb and used rocket-propelled grenades to storm the entrance of an airbase outside Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border Wednesday.

The Taliban say six suicide bombers killed dozens of Afghan and foreign forces in the brazen daylight attack. But NATO spokesman Brigadier General Josef Blotz refutes that claim.

“In this incident several insurgents were killed and I can tell you that the security perimeter was not breached and the insurgents were being stopped by Afghan and ISAF forces very effectively,” Blotz said.

The attack appeared planned and coordinated, much like a Taliban assault last May on the Bagram air base, NATO’s biggest in Afghanistan.

June has been the bloodiest month of the near nine-year-old war for foreign troops, with over 100 killed. The rising toll comes amid a troop surge for an operation that seeks to take on the Taliban in their heartland.

On Tuesday in Washington, U.S. General David Petraeus warned there are still difficult days ahead.

“My sense is that the tough fighting will continue, ” he said. “Indeed, it may get more intense in the next few months. As we take away the enemy’s safe havens and reduce the enemy’s freedom of action, the Insurgents will fight back.”

Petraeus has been nominated to head the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan after his predecessor, General Stanley McChrystal, resigned. McChrystal and his aides had made disparaging remarks about Obama administration officials in a magazine interview.

At Tuesday’s Senate confirmation hearing, Petraeus said he believes the Afghan government and its international allies can still succeed in the fight against the Taliban.

But many observers say any progress will be slow. Jeremy Binnie, a terrorism and insurgency expert at IHS Jane’s defense group, says instead of making sustainable gains and winning over the public, coalition troops have been preoccupied with chasing insurgents.

“What we’re typically seeing that the coalition and Afghan allies are capable of securing sort of district centers, the center of these towns, and displacing the Taliban out of them,” he says. “But the insurgents merely move a few miles down the road and they sort of set up a new safe haven and then they do their absolute utmost to undermine any perception of security.”

Rampant corruption in the Afghan government is also raising doubts about the overall war strategy that is now aimed at winning the support of civilians and potential militant defectors.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder arrived in Kabul Wednesday to discuss the country’s anti-corruption efforts. He also will discuss ways to improve Afghanistan’s judicial system in his meetings with Afghan and U.S. officials.

By VOA News

Smoke rises outside an airfield used by Afghan and international forces in Jalalabad, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, 30 Jun 2010

A congressional investigation says tens of millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funds are indirectly being paid to Afghan warlords, public officials and even the Taliban to ensure safe passage of U.S. supply convoys in Afghanistan.

A lengthy report released late Monday says eight Afghan-based private contractors working with the Defense Department through a $2.1 billion transportation contract are paying several thousand dollars per truck for guards.

The contract covers at least 70 percent of all goods and services used by U.S. forces. 

Congressional investigators say trucking contractors raised the issue with military officials, but their concerns were never properly addressed. 

The report was completed by the House of Representative’s national security subcommittee, which will hold hearings on the report Tuesday.

The U.S. military says it has begun investigating reports of corruption in Afghanistan, and has created a task force to determine the impact of its contracting processes on corruption.

By VOA News

A U.S. armored personal carrier vehicle escorts a convoy of trucks carrying U.S. equipments in Kabul, Afghanistan (File)

Both the insurgent group Al Shabab and the US-backed Somali government rely on children to fill their ranks, human rights officials say.

The United States this week joined other members of the United Nations Security Council in condemning the growing use of children in conflict – as soldiers, bomb makers, cooks, and sex slaves – by rebel groups and governments alike.

Yet even as the US singles out Somalia as one of the world’s worst child-soldier offenders, mounting evidence suggests the US-backed Somali government is using child soldiers in its fight with the Islamist-militant Al Shabab group.

And that in turn has some experts concluding that the US assistance is paying the pittance salaries of Somali child soldiers.

At Tuesday’s Security Council debate on children and armed conflict, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said the US is “particularly concerned about the situation in Somalia,” where she said all parties to the conflict have “placed several thousand children in the line of fire.”

The US, she said, calls on the parties to the conflict to cease child recruitment and to release those children already in the fight.

But both the US-backed Somali transitional federal government and the rebels the government is battling rely on children to fill out their soldier ranks, say UN and non-governmental human rights officials. The government has a force that is up to one-quarter children, experts estimate, while children may make up as much as three-quarters of Al-Shabab’s fighters.

The Somali government, which barely hangs on in the capital of Mogadishu and has lost much of the country’s central and southern regions to the rebels, acknowledges using children in its war and has not made removing them from the fight a top priority, the New York Times said in a report from Mogadishu Monday.

Tuesday’s Security Council debate came a month after the UN special representative for children and armed conflict for the first time issued a list of the “most persistent violators” of the international convention against the use of children in conflict. That list includes the Somali transitional government, pro-government and insurgent groups in Sudan, rebel groups in Colombia and the Philippines, both the government and rebel groups in Burma, and the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) with roots in Uganda.

In her comments, Ambassador Rice singled out cases of child soldiers in addition to Somalia – including the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But she said the US especially “abhors” the LRA’s practice of “forced recruitment through abduction.”

The UN’s annual report does note some examples of progress. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, said Burundi was delisted as a convention violator. Also last year, rebel groups in the Philippines, Nepal, and Sudan signed agreements to end their recruitment of child soldiers.

By Howard LaFranchiBy

Al Shabab fighters conduct a military exercise in northern Mogadishu, Somalia, on Jan. 1. The UN Security Council this week condemned Somalia and others for their use of child soldiers.

The Afghan Taliban says it has captured dozens of Pakistani soldiers after attacking their checkpoint in a cross-border raid.

Pakistani security sources confirm some troops are missing.

The Taliban says it is holding up to 40 Pakistani troops after its raid in the Mohmand tribal area on Monday.

Afghan officials said eight soldiers had been handed over to the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, but Pakistan’s army said it had no knowledge of this.

Checkpoint ‘over-run’
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan says that while attacks by the Taliban on border check posts are relatively routine, it is unusual for Pakistani soldiers to be held by the militants in Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman told the BBC that it was in fact holding Pakistani troops on both sides of the border after Monday’s attack.

It said 30 soldiers were being held in Afghanistan and 10 in Pakistan.

The Taliban says it captured the soldiers after over-running the checkpoint.

Local officials in the Mohmand area confirmed to the BBC that about 40 soldiers were unaccounted for.

Pakistani security sources said on Monday an undisclosed number of troops were missing.

An Afghan army commander in Jalalabad told the BBC that 10 Pakistani soldiers had been handed over to the Pakistani consulate, although the Pakistani army said it was not aware of this.

‘Baseless propaganda’
Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban have dismissed the findings of a report which says Pakistan’s intelligence service had a direct role in supporting the insurgents.

In an e-mail sent to the BBC, the Taliban said the report was “baseless propaganda”.

The report, compiled by a London School of Economics scholar, said Pakistani intelligence provided funding, training and sanctuaries to the Taliban on a much greater scale than previously thought.

“The Islamic Emirate considers this report of the London School of Economics as merely baseless propaganda,” the letter said.

The Taliban have also denied reports that their fighters hanged a seven-year-old boy last week on charges of spying in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

“After a full investigation by the Islamic Emirate leadership, it became clear that no event of execution had taken place,” a Taliban statement said.

The Taliban criticised journalists for misreporting the event.

By BBC

The Pakistani army is often atttacked by the Taliban on border areas.