British soldier, four road workers killed in Afghanistan

Thu Dec 25, 6:29 am ET AFP/File – 

KABUL (AFP) –

A British soldier was shot dead in Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, the same day a US soldier died in a separate attack, officials said Thursday as international mortar fire killed four road workers.

The Royal Marine, whose identity was not released, was killed Wednesday while trying to drive (Taliban fighters) from a compound in the southern province of Helmand, the British defence ministry said in a statement.

"The death of this Royal Marine is a tragic loss and coming so close to Christmas, this is particularly poignant," said the British military's spokeswoman in Helmand, Commander Paula Rowe.

His death had already been announced by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), under which the British troops are serving alongside those of nearly 40 other nations, but ISAF gave no details about the incident.

ISAF said Wednesday that another of its soldiers was killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan. The US military confirmed Thursday the trooper was a US national.

About 70,000 international soldiers are deployed in Afghanistan to help the government fight an insurgency led by the extremist Taliban, who ruled between 1996 and 2001.

Around 290 foreign soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, the most violent of the seven-year-long insurgency, which began after a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Afghan police said meanwhile that cannon fire from a US military base in the northeastern province of Kunar had killed  four workers when it fell short of its target and hit a road construction compound.

The incident took place in Chawkay district on Wednesday, provincial police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal said.

"Four road workers were killed and another four, including an engineer, were wounded," the head of the Unique Builders Construction company, named only Haseebullah, told AFP.

A spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, Colonel Greg Julian, could not confirm the incident but said he was looking into it.

Civilian casualties mistakenly caused by the international forces operating here anger Afghans who are increasingly concerned by the rising violence in their nation, already ruined by nearly three decades of war.

In other violence, the US-led coalition announced separately that its soldiers had killed two Taliban fighters and detained two suspects in operations Wednesday targeting the Taliban in Kapisa province northeast of Kabul.

Taliban choking a vital NATO supply line

Associated Press, December 25, 2008

Peshawar, Pakistan:

This frontier city boasts a major air base and Pakistani Army and paramilitary garrisons. But the 200 Taliban fighters were in no rush as they methodically ransacked a NATO supply depot here two weeks ago.

The Taliban fighters began by blocking off a long stretch of the main road, giving them plenty of time to burn everything inside, said one guard, Haroon Khan, who was standing next to a row of charred trucks.

After assuring the overmatched guards they would not be killed - if they agreed never to work there again - the militants shouted "God is great" through bullhorns. They then grabbed jerrycans and made several trips to a nearby gas station for fuel, which they dumped on the cargo trucks and Humvees before setting them ablaze.

The attack provided the latest evidence of how extensively militants now rule the critical region east of the Khyber Pass, the narrow cut through the mountains on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that has been a strategic trade and military gateway since the time of Alexander the Great.

The area encompasses what is officially known as the Khyber Agency, which is adjacent to Peshawar and is one of a handful of lawless tribal districts on the border. But security in Khyber has deteriorated further in recent months with the emergence of a brash young Taliban commander who calls news conferences to thumb his nose at NATO forces, as well as with public fury over deadly missile attacks by American remotely piloted aircraft.

Khyber's downward spiral is jeopardizing NATO's most important supply line, sending American military officials scrambling to find alternative routes into Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia.

Three-quarters of troop supplies enter from Pakistan, most of the goods ferried from Karachi to Peshawar and then about 65 kilometers, or 40 miles, west through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan.

A half-dozen raids on NATO supply terminals here have already destroyed 300 cargo trucks and Humvees this month. American officials insist that troop provisions have not suffered, but with predictions that the American deployment in Afghanistan could double next year to 60,000 soldiers, the pressure to secure safer transportation is even more intense.

For NATO the most serious problem is not even the terminals in Peshawar but the safety of the road that winds west to the 1,070-meter, or 3,500-foot, Khyber Pass. The route used to be relatively secure: Afridi tribesmen were paid by the government to safeguard it, and they were subject to severe penalties and collective tribal punishment for crimes against travelers.

But now the road is a death trap, truckers and some security officials say, with routine attacks like one on Sunday that burned a fuel tanker and another last Friday that killed three drivers returning from Afghanistan.

"The road is so unsafe that even the locals are reluctant to go back to their villages from Peshawar," said Gul Naseem, who lives in Landi Kotal, a town near the border.

The largest truckers' association here has gone on strike to protest the lack of security, saying the job action has sidelined 60 percent of the trucks that haul military goods. An American official denied that the drop-off was that severe.

Escalating violence on the Khyber road has paralleled the rise of Hakimullah Mehsud, a young Taliban commander and lieutenant of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the main Pakistani Taliban faction.

Earlier this year, Hakimullah Mehsud's forces took control of Orakzai Agency and instituted the strict Islamic laws known as Shariah. At a news conference there one month ago, Mehsud declared his intention to intensify attacks on NATO supply convoys. Some security officials say they believe he was behind the assassination in August of a rival leader, Hajji Namdar, in Khyber.

At the same time, another powerful Khyber warlord, Mangal Bagh, who officials say has not been attacking the convoys, has seen his influence shrink somewhat, easing the path for Mehsud's authority to expand inside Khyber.

Increased missile attacks by American remotely piloted aircraft - like one that killed seven people in the South Waziristan Agency on Monday - have enraged residents in Khyber and other tribal areas near the border, increasing sympathy for attacks on convoys.

Raising the prospect of an even wider threat to the convoys, an influential Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, staged a rally last week in Peshawar, turning out thousands to condemn the missile strikes. The marchers demanded that Pakistan end the NATO convoys, and they vowed to cut the supply lines themselves.

Taliban fighters have also moved into Khyber after Pakistani military campaigns in nearby areas like Bajaur Agency. Their migration is reminiscent of a tactic that bedeviled the American military in Iraq for years - dubbed "whack a mole" by combat officers - in which guerrillas eluded large American combat operations and moved to take up positions in areas with understaffed troop contingents.

All those factors have been amplified, in the view of some officials, by the torpor of the Pakistani government. Mahmood Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier who until 2006 was in charge of security in the western tribal regions, said the government had the manpower to drive militants out of Khyber but had mounted only a weak response.

He recounted a recent conversation with a senior Pakistani government official. "You have the chance to wake up," he said he told the official. "But if you don't wake up now, there is a good chance you won't wake up at all."