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.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS