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washingtontimes.com - 7/2/2009

EXCLUSIVE: Taliban buying children for suicide bombers

— washingtontimes.com — Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide... bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say. A Pakistani ... (more) EXCLUSIVE: Taliban buying children for suicide bombers

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Pakistan

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news.bbc.co.uk - 6/30/2009

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Banned Pakistani groups 'expand'

— news.bbc.co.uk — Militant groups banned in Pakistan are expanding operations and recruitment in Pakistani-run Kashmir, according to a government... report seen by the BBC. The observations are from a detailed secret report submitted to the region's government on the ... (more) BBC NEWS | South Asia | Banned Pakistani groups 'expand'

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Pakistan

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mudvillegazette.com - 7/2/2009

U.S. Soldier Captured in Afghanistan

— mudvillegazette.com — Brief (as of now) AP report here : KABUL -- Insurgents have captured an American soldier in... eastern Afghanistan, the US military said Thursday. Spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier went missing Tuesday. "We are using all of our resources to find him and provide for his ... (more) U.S. Soldier Captured in Afghanistan

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Afghanistan

Comments vote downundo vote up Greyhawk posted 7/2/2009posted this

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Confused About Afghanistan
democracyarsenal.org — ... Now in fairness the President's original statement on Afghanistan was a bit unclear and as several folks have mentioned to me it is certainly open to some interpretation, because the President also does talk about the need to improve governance and local reconciliation. However, this particular passage from the Obama's March speech does seem less ambiguous: ...

Competing Strategies, Blind Faith In Af/Pak
Newshoggers.com — ... Marine general Lawrence Nicholson is quoted by Woodward as having a mission of “Protect the populace by, with and through the ANSF,” where “killing the enemy is secondary.” By contrast, Obama back in his March Af/Pak stratergy speech said that "These soldiers and Marines will take the fight to the Taliban in the south and east, and give us a greater capacity to partner with Afghan Security Forces and to go after insurgents along the border." Pretty much everyone agrees that there aren't enough troops on the ground - whether they be U.S., allied or local Afghan forces - to cover ...

When Did The Af/Pak Policy Change?
Newshoggers.com — ... Back in March, President Obama set out the broad outlines of his Af/Pak policy. One of the bright lines was supposedly that US forces in Afghanistan were not there to engage in long-term nation building. The US most definitely wasn't in Afghanistan so that in a decade or more at a cost of over a trillion dollars that nation could be bootstrapped up to the level of, say, Chad. Instead, the mission was twofold: to go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban's hardcore militants, disrupting safe havens and killing leaders, while giving Afghans the bare beginnings of providing for ...

Humvees In A China Shop
Newshoggers.com — ... The public told Barack Obama that they didn't want an endless occupation of Afghanistan, with no exit strategy beyond the possibility that one day Afghan-provided security, government and economic success might be raised, at great American expense in blood and treasure, to the level of - say - Chad. Accordingly, back in March, Obama announced that the mission would not be open-ended, would have strict benchmarks for success and would have a laser focus on killing the bad guys and getting out. ...

Dude, Where's My Strategy?
Newshoggers.com — ... By Steve Hynd After a half dozen different reviews since taking office, and spending five months coming up with metrics that aren't, President Obama told ABC today: I just want to make sure that everybody understands that you don't make decisions about resources before you have the strategy ready. Huh, I thought we already had a strategy, which the President explained to the nation back in March. No? And then I thought we had a new strategy, unannounced, when the military ...

Gelb's Befuddling Afghan Rationale
Newshoggers.com — ... By Steve Hynd Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, has an op-ed in the WSJ today (where else?) touting for escalation of the occupation of Afghanistan. In it he, rightly to my mind, demands that President Obama clarify just what the strategy is in Afghanistan. For myself, I'd like to know soon whether Obama is going to go with his original plan, the military's mission-creep plan or some new one that acknowledges the emergent reality in the wake of the catastrophic Afghan elections. But not all of that is ...