Karzai’s Damocles sword

During a procession to mark the end of Soviet occupation, Taliban insurgents fired rockets and automatic weapons in Kabul yesterday. Their target was Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai. Karzai escaped injury along with other officials and visiting dignitaries. However, a Shia leader, a ten-year old boy, and a lawmaker were killed. Three of the six militants were also killed in the ensuing thirty-minute melee.

The toD verdict: Six years since the Taliban were ousted from power, their expanding presence and influence in Afghanistan is undermining any gains of the NATO and coalition forces. “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan,” reads the first sentence of a report (pdf) by the Atlantic Council of the United States earlier this year. Fighting is supposed to be confined to the Pashtun-dominated south, but is now rapidly spreading to the east and west.

In January, seven died when the Taliban indiscriminately lobbed grenades at a Kabul hotel. And Sunday’s carefully orchestrated incident is a clear signal that the capital is not as safe as once thought. NATO forces are still battling on daily basis militants along the porous Pakistani border. The  extent of Taliban influence in Afghanistan, according to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is reaching 2001 levels. President Karzai must seek a political solution but at a cost that could destroy a nascent civil society.

Yesterday, he lauded American and British troops for arresting Taliban fighters and is advocating a strategy of reconciliation as a means to accommodate the more “moderate” elements of the Islamists. Given the lax commitment among Western capitals to devote troops to NATO and their fragmented troop initiatives and policies, Karzai’s olive branch is a strategic and desperate manoeuvre to elevate himself as a legitimate statesman among the Taliban. However, the attempt on Karzai’s life and his current amnesty-driven policy is a measure of a country mired in a culture of impunity that has devastated generations.

Mass torture in KenyaKeep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.

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Kenyan local rights groups are accusing security forces of torturing several thousand people after an offensive against the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) along the western border with Uganda. The armed SLDF rebels formed in 2005 to resist government eviction of squatters in the Mount Elgon district. A report released by the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) says Kenyan soldiers were forcing people to crawl throw barbed wire and whip each other, among other atrocities. Kenyan authorities deny the charges but activists point to serious injuries suffered by children whom the Kenyan forces had rounded up in camps near a military base. Human Rights Watch claims both the SLDF and Kenyan forces are guilty of torturing and killing people.

Turkish troops clash with PKK

Some fifteen thousand Turkish troops clashed with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas along the Turkish-Iraqi border yesterday. Turkish warplanes launched an aerial strike on PKK targets followed by ground troop sweeps. However, analysts say the fighting did not involve an incursion into northern Iraq, unlike the February operation.

Burning “heretic” mosques

Hardline Indonesian Muslims torched a mosque belonging to the Islamic Ahmadiyya sect today. The Indonesian Ulema Council issued a recommendation for Jakarta to ban the Ahmadiyya sect earlier this month for deviating from the central teachings of Islam.  The Ahmadiyya believe the Prophet Mohammed is not Islam’s final prophet. Jakarta may issue the ban despite a constitutional right for freedom of religion. Four other Ahmadiyya mosques were attacked this month.

Al-Qaida killed in Algeria

Algerian government officials say they killed fourteen al-Qaida operatives in the mountainous north of the country. Last week, Algerian forces killed another four including a senior leader of the so-called al-Qaida in the Maghreb militant group.

A Sunday in Baghdad

In Sadr City in east Baghdad, eight people were killed and 54 injured. In the west of the city, Iraqi and US forces killed 22 militants at a security force checkpoint. In a separate incident elsewhere in the city, US forces killed 16 militants. A car bomb exploded in the Jamiaa District killing one Iraqi solider and wounding nine others.  In the Harthia district, another car bomb exploded killing a civilian and wounding seven. Six bodies were also found throughout the city as well.

Taliban attack despite Pakistan ceasefire

Only one day after an announced ceasefire between Pakistan’s coalition government and Tekhrik-i-Taliban (TTP) leader Baitullah Mehsud, a car bomb exploded outside a police station in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Friday. Five were killed and up to thirty injured. The powerful blast destroyed eighteen shops. Local Taliban leader Abdullah claimed responsibility. A TTP spokesman said the attack was to avenge the murder of Hafiz Saeedul Haque. The spokesman also claims that despite the bombing the TTP will adhere to the ceasefire.