US President Barack Obama approved the deployment of 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, a surge in numbers promptly welcomed by the Kabul government yesterday as it battles a Taliban insurgency.
Stressing that “the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action,” Obama ordered the deployments in response to a standing request by the US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, who had asked for 30,000 more troops.
“This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires,” Obama said in a statement on Tuesday.
The president said he had approved a request by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade in the spring, and an Army Stryker Brigade and support forces later this summer.
The White House said the troops would be deployed to Afghanistan ahead of Afghan elections scheduled for Aug. 20, significantly building up the 38,000-strong US force already on the ground battling a growing insurgency.
The US president on Tuesday spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the phone for the first time, exactly four weeks after Obama’s inauguration, Karzai’s office said yesterday.
The two presidents spoke about security issues and Afghanistan’s presidential elections in August, Karzai’s office said.
Karzai said last week that close to a month after Obama’s inauguration he still had not spoken with the US leader. Karzai spoke with former US president George W. Bush regularly, fueling speculation that Obama was sending a clear signal that Karzai’s standing with him was much lower.
The Afghan government welcomed Obama’s decision.
“It’s a positive move,” Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Is’haq Payman said.
“But we have our own conditions. We want these troops to be deployed in areas where they could play a positive role in suppressing terrorists,” he said.
Washington has grappled with rising tensions with Kabul over civilian casualties in military operations against insurgents.
A US general yesterday traveled to western Afghanistan to investigate claims that six women and two children were killed in a US airstrike, officials said.
The US coalition said in a statement that a strike on Monday in the Gozara district of Herat Province killed 15 militants, including a leader named Ghulam Yahya Akbari.
But Ekremuddin Yawar, a police commander for western Afghanistan, said six women and two children were among the dead, along with five men. He said the group was living in tents in the remote Afghan countryside.
In response to Yawar’s allegation, US Brigadier General Michael Ryan traveled to Gozara district yesterday to meet with officials “to see what the situation is,” said Captain Elizabeth Mathias, a US military spokeswoman.
Photographs obtained by The Associated Press from the strike site in Herat show the body of a young boy — bloodied and dirtied — laying on a white shroud. Afghan men can be seen digging about a dozen fresh graves. Dead sheep and destroyed tents can also be seen.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
RSS