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Karzai Says NATO Night Raids in Afghanistan Must Stop
[An Nahar] Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... said Saturday Afghanistan will not sign a strategic partnership deal with the U.S. until NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... -led night raids and house searches stop. The president's remarks came after he heard back from a government-appointed delegation assigned to look into civilian casualties sustained during recent NATO "The president stressed that the strategic partnership document will not be signed until the night raids and house searches stop," his office said in a statement. "After hearing the report by the delegation, the president said that the arbitrary operations and house searches by NATO have become a serious problem between Afghanistan and NATO forces and that this has been one of the main obstacles on signing the strategic partnership deal with the United States." The strategic partnership document being negotiated with Washington will govern the relationship between American troops and the Afghan government after the scheduled withdrawal of combat troops in 2014. Night raids have been a persistent sticking point, but Karzai's refusal to sign until the operations end is his bluntest yet. NATO has defended the operations as the safest way of targeting bully boy leaders, insisting they will continue but with the increasing involvement of Afghan Special Forces. It insists that in 85 percent of night raids no shot is fired and they cause less than one percent of civilian casualties. But Karzai has led public criticism of the controversial raids, saying they endanger lives and harass local communities, and repeatedly called on U.S.-led international forces to stop entering Afghan homes. The delegation appointed by Karzai investigated NATO Lead investigator Mohammad Tahir Safi said: "We want civilian casualties to stop. We cannot tolerate any more. "NATO-led ISAF forces have killed Afghan civilians for no reason." According to the United Nations ...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas... , the number of civilians killed in violence in Afghanistan rose by 15 percent in the first six months of this year to 1,462, with snuffies blamed for 80 percent of the killings. There are around 140,000 international troops in Afghanistan fighting a decade-long Taliban insurgency alongside Afghan government forces. Posted by: Fred 2011-12-25 |
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