The Afghan army will take the lead in nearly all military operations in eastern Afghanistan this year, with US troops in a support role, a top US general said.
Since the first major Afghan-led operation last July in southern Ghazni Province, US troops have been training their Afghan counterparts to take over a larger share of the security responsibilities.
"Our intention is for all 2008 operations in Regional Command East to be led by Afghan National Security Forces with enabling assistance [fire support and medical evacuation in particular] from coalition forces," Brigadier General Joseph Votel, deputy commanding general for operations for US forces in Afghanistan, wrote in an e-mail on Wednesday.
"It is very seldom that coalition forces do something by themselves without Afghan participation -- and the level that we are now at is Afghans leading and coalition force supporting ... and performing operations that support the [Afghan] commander," he said.
Afghanistan had a strong army under communist rule in the 1980s, but it fell apart during the civil war a decade later. A new army was formed from scratch in 2002, after the fall of the Taliban.
The Afghan Defense Ministry plans to expand its 50,000-strong army to 70,000 troops by the end of this year, though it has said an army of 200,000 would be ideal. US officials are now considering a proposal to expand the Afghan army's target strength from 70,000 to 80,000.
The international community is banking on the development of the Afghan army so that it can eventually withdraw its forces. There are more than 50,000 foreign troops in the country, including about 25,000 US forces.
Lieutenant Colonel Steven Baker, the commander in charge of Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar Province, said that he has seen the Afghan soldiers improve dramatically from "zero" just over a year ago.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not